Fear Rules Fish and Wildlife Service
Vanderpool, Tim
Tear Rules Fish and Wildlife Service By Tim Vanderpool Illustration by MK Perker Blooming ironwood trees climb a rocky slope, their flowers carpeting the desert in lavender. Out in these...
...Instead, many consider Norton the prime culprit...
...But for the past several years, this ironwood forest has been the scene of bitter struggles between developers and environmentalists over the fate of a 2.5 ounce, seven-inch bird...
...It was just what environmentalists needed...
...Dale Hall headed the agency's Southwest Region since 2001, and his tenure was marked by rancor...
...It was ridiculous...
...That's certainly the opinion of biologist Diane Carney, who resigned before she could be fired...
...I was really relieved to get away from it," she says...
...Carney spent less than a year in the Sacramento office, where she says she witnessed a slew of unethical behavior-from wink-and-nod collusion between regional officials and timber companies to removal of top wildlife experts from endangered species discussions when they opposed business interests...
...Everyone is afraid there...
...John Duffield, owner of Bioeconomics Associates in Missoula, Montana...
...Within the limitations that are inherent in the law," he adds, "Service biologists and managers work extremely hard to provide the best protection possible for imperiled species...
...We don't know who [the respondents] are...
...This kind of study had been done many times before" for other species, says Dr...
...Rather than intervene on the panther's behalf, however, the agency fired a biologist who angered builders by fighting to protect the animals...
...What is going on is direct suppression and misrepresentation of the biology...
...At stake, as well, is the scientific integrity of the nation's top wildlife agency...
...Agency officials "are telling employees that you can go to jail for releasing documents," says Stefferud...
...That decision, he says, "was made at the field station level...
...Either way, these agency maneuvers fuel critics, who charge that Fish and Wildlife Service has gone badly astray...
...Their take on science-and the role of politics in science-is unlike anything I experienced in my twenty years with the Fish and Wildlife Service...
...Dale Hall's office declined comment...
...Smith cited Bush Administration plans for "beefing up the level of economic analysis" in endangered species cases, and for "charting a path that strikes the right balance" between business and wildlife protection...
...David Smith, Interior Secretary Gale Norton's deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, addressed a group in Tucson on November 9, 2001...
...Politics increasingly trumps science within the Fish and Wildlife Service...
...It was obviously reprisal for holding different views than management on whether or not the panther was in jeopardy and pointing out that they were using flawed science to support their view...
...He is notorious for "bending rules to reach a predetermined result," Ruch says...
...If there was evidence of frogs or salamanders where a development was planned," she says, the agency "would just cordon off an area around a pond and call it habitat...
...We goofed," admits Fish and Wildlife spokesman Jeff Fleming, who claims Eller's firing "wasn't political...
...So I think it's a little bald-faced for them to say we made a mistake...
...Stefferud has numbers to back her allegations...
...I was thoroughly disgusted with what I saw there...
...Now, everyone is being pressured, right down to bottom-level biologists...
...Dale Hall is an exceptional biologist with vast experience managing our nation's fish and wildlife resources, from the Everglades to the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest to the high desert of the Southwest," Norton said...
...In summary," they wrote, "the loss of the Arizona population would represent a gap in the range of the taxon and could represent the loss of genetic variability for the taxon as a whole...
...In the Southeast, for example, the endangered Florida panther has roamed steamy swamplands for a millennium...
...Hall's stance drew criticism even from Ralph Morgenweck, his counterpart in the Mountain-Prairie Region...
...In a letter that was later leaked, Morgenweck wrote Hall that such a position "could run counter to the purpose of the Endangered Species Act" and "may contradict our direction to use the best available science in endangered species decisions in some cases...
...Calls to Jay Slack, the agency's field supervisor for South Florida Ecological Services, were referred back to Fleming...
...We had tried for months to get our hands on the white paper," says Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity...
...The inevitable conflict between these two forces erupted in 1997, when the U.S...
...It also includes a lot of allegations, without specifics...
...There may be good reason for that...
...This hardly surprised conservation groups...
...But I used to have conversations just like this with reporters under the Clinton Administration...
...Andrew Eller had spent many of his seventeen years with the Fish and Wildlife Service protecting the panther...
...While environmental groups heard rumors of the document, it wasn't until spring that a copy was anonymously smuggled to the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity...
...Standing up for science can be really dangerous for your job...
...Incredibly complex ecological problems weren't treated in the interest of species, but in the interest of corporations or development...
...While describing the paper as "very good science," she says the research was held under wraps only because it was "pre-decisional...
...Eller refused to play along...
...But that analysis emphasized only the costs of such protection-a fact that came to light when an anonymous source slipped Montana environmentalists a copy...
...Hall's tactics are well known in Tucson, where the rancorous pygmy owl fight rages...
...Today she works as a consultant for PEER and other organizations...
...By December, they had completed their white paper, which strongly argued for continued owl protection...
...The polling arose because agency scientists were afraid to speak out publicly, says Rebecca Roose, the PEER's program director in Washington, D.C...
...His track record did not stop Norton from showering praise on him when he was confirmed...
...This survey doesn't just show politics and competing interests have been taken into account," she says...
...And it's another situation where the field staff put forward a good recommendation, but Dale Hall was not acting on it...
...As a result, it's only safe to speak out after leaving the agency...
...Fish and Wildlife Service listed the owl as endangered...
...That news came despite a report from agency field biologists arguing that the bird deserved continued protection-a report sequestered in agency offices for months...
...But the head of that company says otherwise...
...Developers had won a heady victory and the agency acquiesced rather than appeal...
...This applies whether they respond in the office or from home...
...The survey went to 1,400 agency biologists, botanists, and ecologists, and nearly 30 percent responded, despite an e-mail distributed among employees warning them against completing it, even on their own time...
...This is prime real estate for the ferruginous pygmy owl...
...I was fired three days after President Bush was reelected," he told me last February...
...Stefferud blames a widespread disdain for science in top levels of government...
...Word is," says the e-mail, "that employees are not to respond to surveys that have not been approved by the Washington Office...
...Norton may not have to monitor decisions so closely now that Bush's controversial pick to replace Williams has won Senate confirmation...
...Few blame former Fish and Wildlife Director Steve Williams, who came to his post with respected career credentials, including experience at state-level game and fish agencies...
...As a civil servant, I'm here no matter who gets elected, so I don't have a dog in this fight," says Hugh Vickery in Washington, D.C...
...Not long after, builders filed suit to have the designation overturned...
...Tim Vanderpool is a freelance writer who covers environmental and border issues from Tucson...
...It's also land coveted by builders, in an area where growth is twice the national average...
...Watchdog groups also know the new director well...
...But a spokesman for the Interior Department-which runs the Fish and Wildlife Service-suggests that claims of political meddling are nothing new...
...Norton has micromanaged the agency right down to the field biologists," says Bart Semcer, Washington, D.C., representative for the Sierra Club...
...The Arizona population represents a peripheral population," says the paper, "the loss of which could result in the reduction of genetic variability, which in turn would reduce the species ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions and increase the likelihood of extinction...
...He says the PEER survey results may be inaccurate and overblown...
...For every five agency scientists, at least one reported having been "directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information" in the agency's scientific documents...
...After repeated clashes with her boss, Carney finally resigned...
...And they're being pressured on nearly every project they do...
...Out in these foothills near Tucson, Arizona, there's little sense you're standing on a battleground...
...In a nutshell, politics are becoming dominant in decisions that are supposed to be based on science...
...He will be an outstanding director for the U.S...
...In August 2005, Fish and Wildlife officials announced plans to remove the owl from endangered status...
...It presents a very strong case for continued Endangered Species Act protection of the pygmy owl...
...Those field biologists described the Arizona pygmy owl as "a unique taxon" and separate species population...
...Who is responsible for political meddling at Fish and Wildlife...
...The white paper was sequestered in Hall's Albuquerque headquarters, as his staff continued making public statements about de-listing the bird...
...Agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown disagrees...
...Al Donner, an agency spokesman in Sacramento, responds that Carney's short time with the agency limited her exposure to the situations she describes...
...A perfect opportunity for weakening owl protection seemed at hand- until Tucson's field biologists threw in a wrench...
...But her stint left a bad taste...
...In April 2003, the Los Angeles Times revealed an internal Fish and Wildlife document detailing agency plans to delay critical habitat mapping for twenty-four endangered species, including the Northwest's bull trout and the pygmy owl...
...Carney was also appalled when only fragments of habitat were spared during huge housing developments...
...Dale Hall has been the source of our biggest number of intakes [of complaints] from biologists who say their research has been manipulated for nonbiological reasons," says Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER...
...Agency officials see a result they want to achieve, and they skew the data to get there-regardless of any balancing, or any effort to make a legitimate decision...
...Of those responding, nearly half reported having "been directed, for nonscientific reasons, to refrain from making . . . findings that are protective of species...
...In the Pacific Northwest, agency officials issued an economic analysis by a private firm regarding protection of the threatened bull trout...
...In March, however, Williams left his post to become head of the Wildlife Management Institute, a nonprofit group focused upon scientifically based wildlife conservation...
...Last winter, she helped draft an anonymous survey circulated by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER...
...The Bush Administration's attitude is quite different than what we've experienced," she says...
...When the Bush Administration came in, it made overtures to builders that "economic impacts" would play a prominent role in any decision on the owl...
...It used to be a few high-profile decisions that became political, and got influenced at a fairly high level in the agency," says Sally Stefferud, a biologist who spent twenty years with the agency before retiring in 2002...
...But he and the agency were at loggerheads when his research didn't jibe with a huge airport project slated for the cat's habitat...
...He says agency officials were made fully aware of his study's scope from the outset...
...That lawsuit simmered until August 2003, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Fish and Wildlife's original designation was "arbitrary and capricious...
...After a bitter dispute, the agency finally gave Eller his job back-on the condition that he not speak to reporters...
...But today, fewer than 100 panthers remain, as developers devour their dwindling habitat...
...The private firm "might have just made a mistake," says Joan Jewett, spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife's Pacific Region...
...During the time she was here, she was not assigned to work on any timber company activities," Donner writes in an e-mail...
...Highlights included a January 2005 memo directing his staff to limit inclusion of the most recent genetics research when endangered species decisions were being made...
Vol. 70 • February 2006 • No. 2
