March 9, 2025
By Madeline Heim – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Traci DuBose moved 600 miles to Wisconsin last summer to start her dream job. Eight months later, she was terminated by the federal government, shattering that dream.
The official notice of her firing incorrectly listed her as working in Indianapolis, nowhere near the U.S. Geological Survey science center in La Crosse where she worked as a research fish biologist, studying threatened freshwater mussels in the Mississippi River and elsewhere.
DuBose is one of about a half-dozen scientists fired last month from the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, which sits on French Island between the Black River and Mississippi River and employs about 90 people, according to a staff directory. Other terminated
employees were tracking invasive carp, researching aquatic ecosystems, restoring habitats and
mapping environmental features.
The center has for decades produced critical research on the upper Mississippi River and other places across the Midwest and the world. Its data on water quality, invasive species and ecosystem trends are used by local, state and federal land managers to make decisions about
how to preserve natural resources.
Former employees who spoke with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said their firings will slow the pace of research on a river that is already changing faster than science can keep up.
The firings were part of sweeping terminations of federal workers across the country by President Donald Trump’s administration, aimed at decreasing the size of the federal government. Billionaire Elon Musk and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are leading the effort.
The U.S. Geological Survey is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which fired 2,300 employees Feb. 14, according to The Hill. All were probationary, meaning they’d started in their various positions relatively recently.
A spokesperson for the Interior Department declined to confirm or comment on the firings, writing that the department is working to “ensure we are prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people.”
Fired workers focused on invasive carp, habitat restoration Over several years as a scientist, DuBose had come to realize that working for the federal government would give her a way to use her scientific knowledge to solve real-life problems.
At the center, she was working with colleagues on improving management of imperiled freshwater mussels, including helping the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers incorporate mussels
into their many habitat restoration projects on the Mississippi River.
She was told after lunch that Friday that her position was being terminated, and got the letter confirming it from the Interior Department later that night.
“You have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the Department’s current needs,” the letter reads.
“There were lots of tears,” DuBose said.
Tyler Butts started as a biologist at the center in December to begin a four-year project analyzing the movement of invasive carp in the Mississippi River, which is believed to be a sort of superhighway for the nuisance fish. He hadn’t been there long enough to get a performance
review, but his supervisors had applauded his work, he told the Journal Sentinel.
Butts was excited to put his skills in managing invasive species to good use in federal service. Being let go was devastating, he said. He received the same letter as DuBose, including the incorrect reference to working in Indianapolis.
Both Butts and DuBose expressed concern that their work will be added to the plates of other scientists that already have several projects in the works, slowing down results that could help
protect mussels and control invasive carp.
The science center isn’t alone in Wisconsin in losing probationary employees. Several Veterans Affairs workers in Madison and Milwaukee were fired late last month, the Journal Sentinel has reported. Other employees of the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Institutes of Health in Wisconsin were also let go, according to the Cap Times and Wisconsin Public Radio.
Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco said the mass firing of probationary workers across the country was likely illegal and ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind directives to several agencies to do so. Before that ruling, the Trump administration told federal agencies to prepare for “large-scale reductions in force” by March 13 that would not be limited
to probationary workers.
Searching for new jobs
DuBose is five months pregnant with her second child. She and her family want to stay in the area, so she’s looking for new jobs, but many of the ones she’s qualified for would require her to be out on a boat for field research when the baby is due. At the moment, she said, she’s searching for any job that will give her health insurance and allow her to keep her eldest child in
daycare.
Butts is also exploring his job options, none of which so far would allow him to stay in La Crosse, he said.
A few weeks before he was terminated, he recalled someone telling him how true the adage “No man ever steps in the same river twice” was for the Mississippi, which is experiencing widespread ecological consequences due to climate change, habitat loss and human engineering.
“It’s not time to pull back from science,” Butts said. “It’s time to invest in it.”
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
Madeline Heim is a Report for America corps reporter who writes about environmental issues in the Mississippi River watershed and across Wisconsin. Contact her at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com.
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