Lynx Lies
(This column was first published in the February 18, 2002 Buffalo News.)
The
lynx is, to me, the handsomest of North America's wild cats. Bigger than a
bobcat with soft grayish fur, a streaked facial ruff that makes its head appear
wider than it is, tall hair tufts on its erect ears, and outsized feet that
help it chase its usual prey, snowshoe hares, it is a most attractive animal.
To
differentiate our lynx from its Old World cousins, biologists have named it the
Canada lynx. And for us in the east, that name is appropriate. Formerly ranging
south through this region and into Pennsylvania, they are now extremely rare in
the eastern United States. Still widespread in the boreal forests of Canada,
only a few are to be found in northern Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula
and northern New England. An attempt to reintroduce them in the Adirondacks in
1989 unfortunately seems not to have been successful.
But
in the west a few dozen lynx are still to be found in Washington and Oregon.
And there they have suddenly become the center of a major flak.
The
conservative press has trumpeted a story about Fish and Wildlife Service
employees who, as one article had it, "conspired to defraud the public by
planting lynx hairs into a wide ranging habitat survey to back some sort of
secret, illicit environmental agenda." Wall Street Journal writer
Kimberley Strassel called this "the latest Clinton scandal" and
claimed that "it underscores everything that is wrong with Fish and
Wildlife and the Forest Service."
The Washington
Times reported that "federal and state employees were caught planting
Canadian lynx hairs" on posts at lynx survey stations in the Gifford
Pinchot and Wenatchee National Forests and went on to say that if a
whistle-blower hadn't acted, the fake samples would have shut down public lands
to protect lynx that weren't even there. Other Times articles described "a
new breed of scientist and scholar to whom ideological or political agendas are
more important than truth" and suggested that "environmentalists will
say anything for the cause of land control through abuse of the Endangered
Species Act."
There
were calls by Republican senators for hearings and for major changes in state
and national wildlife policies.
When
the federal Forest Service looked into the matter, it found:
· Control samples, for which careful records were kept,
were submitted to test the accuracy of lab evaluations. No attempt to keep this
procedure secret was involved and the lab was informed that this was being
done. If errors had been detected, they would have called for additional
sampling, not for policy changes.
· No hair samples were planted in the field.
· Interviews with independent biologists indicated that
finding lynx evidence where none was expected would only have led to a broader
sampling effort.
· Federal agencies have not promoted lynx protection.
Quite the contrary, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service strongly opposed efforts
to list the lynx as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. It
was litigation against the agency that led to this listing.
· Despite the fact that the biologists were found not
to have violated any law nor to have attempted to influence survey results,
they were disciplined for their failure to keep appropriate administrators
informed.
The
Washington Times called the sources of that summary "left-leaning watchdog
groups," but invited them to buy space in the paper to post their
response.
So
there you have it: Biofraud or myth, you decide for yourself.
I
know where I stand when it comes to a choice between "Wise Use"
politicians and their journalistic supporters on one hand and biologists on the
other.
I
stand with the scientists.-- Gerry
Rising
Readers who are interested in this and other information about carnivores should keep posted on the Carnivore Ecology and Conservation website and at least temporarily to links related to this matter.