7 animals including the Arroyo Toad and the Calofornia Red-Legged Frog get a second chance from the "God Squad"
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7 Federal Wildlife Decisions to be Revised (from FrogWatch Digest)
Federal wildlife regulators will revise seven controversial decisions on endangered species and critical habitat made by an Interior Department political appointee who quit in the spring amid charges of improper meddling in scientific decisions.
California's arroyo toad and red-legged frog could regain protection that federal biologists determined was crucial to their survival, according to a letter the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent Friday to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.). Rahall released the letter publicly Tuesday.
Former Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Julie MacDonald, a civil engineer from California with no formal training in natural sciences, routinely questioned and sometimes overruled recommendations by biologists and other field staffers, according to documents, interviews and a review by the department's inspector general. The review outlined instances in which MacDonald advocated altering scientific conclusions in ways that led to reduced protection for imperiled species and that favored developers and agricultural businesses. And she was rebuked for providing internal documents to lobbyists.
She could not be reached for comment.
MacDonald "should never have been allowed near the endangered species program," Rahall said in a statement Tuesday. "This announcement is the latest illustration of the depth of incompetence at the highest levels of management within the Interior Department and breadth of this administration's penchant for torpedoing science."
The congressman held hearings on MacDonald's oversight of endangered species programs during her tenure.
MacDonald, who owns a Sacramento-area ranch with her husband, took a particular interest in California, forcing sweeping cutbacks in proposed habitat protection in the state, according to Interior Department staff.
Under her direction, proposed habitat protection for the endangered arroyo toad, a tiny amphibian that once inhabited many Southern California creek regions, was slashed by 93%. Similarly, the protected area proposed for the threatened California red-legged frog was reduced from 4.1 million acres to 450,000 acres.
Those species are among seven identified by federal regulators in the letter to Rahall as possibly needing further protection.
Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Valerie Fellows said decisions on whether to add back habitat could be made within a year. She said that the agency was short on funds and staff but "these species are a top priority."
Senior regional staffers and field biologists, who know the endangered species best, determined which of MacDonald's decisions needed reevaluation, Fellows said.
Kieran Suckling, policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Fish and Wildlife Service action was "nothing more than cynical damage control."
The federal agency is under court order to revise past actions pertaining to five of the seven species, Suckling said, and there has been extensive media coverage on the other two. "They're not giving anything up. . . . They're desperately trying to contain a public scandal rather than investigate the depths of corruption at Interior."
His group, which has successfully sued the Interior Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service over endangered or threatened species, filed suit in half a dozen federal district courts last week seeking to overturn other decisions made or influenced by MacDonald.
In all, the group has filed notice of intent to sue to gain broader protections for 55 species.
Fellows said she could not comment on active litigation but noted that agency staffers had reviewed all 55 decisions that MacDonald made during her tenure and had determined that her other actions were legal. Interior spokesman Hugh Vickery noted that although officials had concluded there were problems with MacDonald's work, she was legally entitled to make policy decisions on endangered species.
Jamie Rappaport Clark, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service under President Clinton, countered that political appointees are not supposed to pressure subordinates who are career scientists to change their findings. MacDonald regularly did that, investigators found.
"In my 20 years of government service . . . I've never seen anything like it," she said.
By Janet Wilson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 28, 2007
Reversal of Endangered Species Rulings
By H. JOSEF HEBERT – 22 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday reversed seven rulings that denied endangered species increased protection, after an investigation found the actions were tainted by political pressure from a former senior Interior Department official.
In a letter to Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the agency acknowledged that the actions had been "inappropriately influenced" and that "revising the seven identified decisions is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards." The reversal affects the protection for species including the white-tailed prairie dog, the Preble's meadow jumping mouse and the Canada lynx.
The rulings came under scrutiny last spring after an Interior Department inspector general concluded that agency scientists were being pressured to alter their findings on endangered species by Julie MacDonald, then a deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service.
MacDonald resigned her position last May.
Rahall in a statement said that MacDonald, who was a civil engineer, "should never have been allowed near the endangered species program." He called MacDonald's involvement in species protection cases over her three-year tenure as an example of "this administration's penchant for torpedoing science."
Acting Fish and Wildlife Director Kenneth Stansell wrote Rahall that the cases were reviewed "after questions were raised about the integrity of scientific information used and whether the decisions were made consistent with the appropriate legal standards."
He did not refer to MacDonald specifically.
Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists said the acknowledgment of seven instances of wrongdoing "does not begin to plumb the depths of what's wrong" at the wildlife agency and its implementation of the Endangered Species Act.
There are at least 30 cases "where we have evidence of interference" over the last seven years, maintained Grifo, director of the group's scientific integrity program.
Problems were found in seven of the eight cases, taken up for review after MacDonald's resignation.
The wildlife agency said it will reconsider a petition to list as endangered the white-tailed prairie dog. The petition had been denied, but the agency said after its investigation "the Service believes this decision should be reconsidered."
It also said it will examine the continued listing of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse, as well as a separate ruling that had been made concerning the mouse's critical habitat. The agency decision to take the mouse from under the protection of the Endangered Species Act was questioned after MacDonald's involvement became known.
Four other cases being reconsidered involved declarations of critical habitat for the Canada lynx, the Hawaiian picture-wing fly, the Arroyo toad, and the California red-legged frog.
The agency said it did not find any scientific evidence to warrant changes in another questioned critical habitat decision involving the Southwestern willow flycatcher, saying it was "scientifically supportable."
MacDonald resigned in May after the Interior Department's inspector general rebuked her for pressuring wildfire agency scientists to alter their findings about endangered species and leaking information about species decisions to industry officials. The IG found that she had broken federal rules by those actions.
In her three years on the job, MacDonald also was heavily involved in delisting the Sacramento splittail, a fish found only in California's Central Valley where she owned an 80-acre farm on which the fish live.
This is for real! This isn't some hair brained over caffenated conspirosy theory from a fiction novel, this is really happening. How is this possible in this day in age with all of the checks and balances that are supposed to be in place? I understand wanting life of your property to be better, but taking out other species to do so is unfathanable to me. How can this person look at herself in the mirror each day? I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I find it hard to see a worthy underlying reason in this case. This is .... I'm at a loss for words. It is great that the cases are being re-examined and that the protection these animals deserve will finally be given where its needed, but...AAAAARGGGGG!!!!! Extinction is the end of the line, there is no coming back. You don't "doctor" findings for personal gains. I'm on the edge of the cliff, please push me off so I don't have to struggle to get back. I think Lady Liberty would want to wear a blind fold today so she did not have to look upon such a tainted world.
Posted by wendellsfrogblog
at 7:45 AM EST