Environment Canada is not a happy place these days. Sources say it is facing a budget crunch.

The situation is apparently so bad that scientists are sitting at desks staring at the walls because they have no money to travel or do their field work.

Among those hardest hit by the cutbacks are the Canadian Wildlife Service researchers, the people who actually go out to study wildlife in its habitat.

A regional manager recently sent out an e-mail to CWS employees telling them, essentially, that there's no money to do anything.

"As many of you have heard over the past few weeks, the department is under some very significant budget pressures. As a result, it's necessary to freeze spending on many of our program areas for the remainder of the fiscal year."

It goes on to list the measures it will have to take to save money. They include:

"There is now a complete freeze on all program spending within the CWS.

All regional, national and international travel for all staff is frozen.

Extended use of government vehicles on travel status is frozen.

Employees can't use their business Mastercard and O&M (operating and maintenance) is frozen.

Vehicle repair expenditures are now frozen.

All aerial survey and field work is frozen."

It makes you wonder why in a department budget of more than $840 million the Canadian Wildlife Service doesn't have enough money to fix its vehicles.

But sources within the department think they know at least part of the reason. They say the department wants to restructure the 60-year-old service.

It recently hired a consultant to look at changing the name, to remove "wildlife" from Canadian Wildlife Service. The consultant came back and said, "Don't change it."

It turns out the wildlife service is one of the most recognizable names in all of government, all because of its iconic TV spots called "Hinterland Who's Who," which are short, science tidbits on everything from the loon and the piping plover to the moose.

The Department of the Environment, we're told, is "thinking about the next step."