Environmentalists: Politics trumps science

Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 20, 2006 at midnight

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Environmental groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today, saying the agency put politics ahead of science in its decision to deny endangered species protection for the mountain plover.

The groups Forest Guardians and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance said in a press statement that the prairie bird was on track for listing under the Endangered Species Act when federal wildlife officials "pulled a sudden reversal" in September 2003 and eliminated a proposed rule to list the species.

Green activists cite documents recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that they say "indicated Service higher-ups rejected advice and biological data provided by their own career scientists that supported the mountain plover listing."

"The mountain plover case reflects a pattern of denying Endangered Species protection for purely political reasons," said Lauren McCain, Deserts and Grasslands Program Director for Forest Guardians in Denver, in a statement. "We’ve seen this with many other species, including the Gunnison’s prairie dog. Corporate lobbyists are currently dictating Endangered Species policy, not sound science."

The lawsuit comes three weeks after environmental groups publicly charged that a Bush appointee, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior Julie MacDonald, wrongly pulled four Colorado species — the Gunnison’s prairie dog, the Gunnison sage grouse, the white-tailed prairie dog and the roundtail chub — from the years-long process that selects candidates for ESA listing.

The groups asserted that documents showed that political manipulation involved was "shocking" and that MacDonald not only ignored scientific reports but ridiculed them.

MacDonald responded by saying there wasn’t sufficient scientific support for the listings, and added that there was no proof she ordered researchers to change their findings. She challenged the conservationists to come up with documents showing she did.

In the case of the plover, activists don’t have "clear, definitive evidence" that MacDonald was involved in the decision, said Lauren McCain of the group Forest Guardians. But, "We still see this as a pattern with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not using the best available science," she said.

Green groups complain fast-expanding oil and gas operations across the West are ruining living space for the plover, overrunning shortgrass prairie with drill pads, rigs and roads.

"The last mountain plover population in Utah went extinct recently in the midst of intense oil and gas development, proving this rare bird warrants the protection of the ESA," said Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.

In recent years, state officials have trumped collaborative efforts to preserve the mountain plover without employing the ESA, a powerful law often criticized by landowners who fear its regulatory reach.

Those efforts continue to be successful, said Diane Katzenberger, a spokeswoman for U.S. Fish and Wildlife. "Since the decision was made (not to list the plover) three years ago, we have been actively working with the state of Colorado, and the conservation efforts implemented with the state and the Colorado Farm Bureau have proven successful as far as saving (plover) nests," she said.

Katzenberger said the agency had not yet received the lawsuit, but questioned assertions that agency supervisors rejected scientists’ findings.

"I do know that there was back and forth discussion on the listing proposal and quite a bit of deliberation, and honestly that’s part of the process," she said.

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