The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.

Over the past two decades, provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985, among others, have allowed the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency in partnership with the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to add farmlands found to have important resources to the National Wildlife Refuge System. The Farm Service Agency transferred such farmlands to the Service through outright ownership ("fee simple") or through conservation easements. Individual farmlands are managed by the nearest refuge office. GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent of farmland received by the Service, (2) the extent to which the Service is currently managing its farmlands, and (3) alternatives for managing these lands. To answer these objectives, GAO visited five refuges and surveyed managers responsible for a random sample of 98 farmlands.

The Dept. of the Interior is responsible for managing much of the nation's vast natural resources. Its agencies implement an array of programs intended to protect these precious resources for future generations while also allowing certain uses of them, such as oil and gas dev¿t. and recreation. Interior faces major mgmt. challenges in the following six areas: (1) Strengthening resource protection; (2) Strengthening the accountability of Indian and island community programs; (3) Improving fed. land acquisition and mgmt.; (4) Reducing Interior's deferred maintenance backlog; (5) Ensuring the accurate collection of royalties; and (6) Enhancing other revenue collections and financial assurances. Illustrations.

Profiles jobs in the animal care field such as animal breeders and technicians, animal caretakers, animal handlers, farmers, park rangers, pet sitters, veterinarians, and more.