SFBJV People: Anne Morkill
Name: Anne Morkill, SFBJV Management Board Chair
Occupation: Refuge Complex Manager
Agency: San Francisco Bay NWR Complex
Anne has had a devoted career in wildlife management, starting in 1986 when she worked on black-footed ferrets and white-tailed prairie dogs with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department After several temporary seasonal appointments, Anne joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a permanent employee in 1990, working as a Wildlife Biologist for the Alamosa-Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuges in south-central Colorado, primarily on migratory birds.
In 1992, she moved to Fairbanks, Alaska to work as a Wildlife Biologist for the Bureau of Land Management, conducting studies on migratory birds, caribou, and muskoxen, and serving as a liaison with Alaska Native communities on federal subsistence harvest regulations and oil and gas leasing programs. She returned to the USFWS in 1998 as Assistant Refuge Manager for the 19.6 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska, serving as a specialist on oil and gas issues and coordinating ecological monitoring on the Arctic coastal plain. In 2001, she became the Deputy Refuge Manager for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, based in Homer, and oversaw the daily operations and maintenance for a large interdisciplinary program on more than 4 million acres spanning thousands of islands and headlands along the Alaska coastline from southeast Alaska through the Aleutian archipelago to the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
Originally from Miami, Florida, Anne headed back southeast to live near family and served as the Refuge Complex Manager for the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges Complex in 2006-2012. The Key West, Great White Heron, Key Deer, and Crocodile Lake NWRs encompass 500 square miles of island ecosystems and provide unique subtropical habitats for more than 20 listed species of mammals, birds, insects and plants.
In 2012, Anne returned west where she now serves as the Refuge Complex Manager for the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The complex includes the Antioch Dunes, San Pablo Bay, Marin Islands, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay, and Farallon NWRs in the San Francisco Bay area, and the Salinas River and Ellicott Slough NWRs in the Monterey Bay area, each with its own diverse set of opportunities and challenges.
Anne completed the USFWS’s Advanced Leadership Development Program in 2005-2006, and has detailed in various leadership positions at the headquarters and regional offices. But her heart is in the field on National Wildlife Refuges! She focuses her attention on promoting excellence by developing employees, implementing science-based adaptive management, connecting to urban communities and empowering youth through placed-based experiential learning, and fostering collaborative partnerships to restore habitats and recover species in the face of climate change.
She currently lives in the Bay Area with her partner Harry and dogs Molly and Daisy, where they enjoy sailing, bicycling, traveling, and exploring the diversity of natural, historical and culinary venues that abound in northern California!
