SOME CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE is stronger than other, as when you find a trout in the milk–so wrote that old crank Henry David Thoreau. If there’s not quite a trout in the suspected biofraud by government biologists studying Canadian Lynx, there surely is a minnow or two in the milk. Not surprising that you may be drawing a blank about this sly affair, at least outside the Pacific Northwest: The story about seven federal and Washington state biologists who planted lynx hair during a survey of the “threatened” wildcat’s Northwest habitat has hardly been touched except by the Washington Times. The Washington Post ran a once-over-lightly piece in wake of the Times disclosures. Otherwise, the national media, print and electronic, have carefully avoided the story. The reasons are both obvious and perverse: The lynx caper raises suspicion that zealotry on behalf of the Endangered Species Act may involve manipulation of evidence and mendacity in this instance–and if in this, in how many others as well? The story to this point: A three-year survey was in progress to determine the natural habitat of the lynx and protect the critter–which shares turf with and regularly dines on snowshoe rabbits. A U.S. Forest Service employee blew the whistle on what appeared to be hanky-panky and notified the agency in September 2000. The agency did not respond to the whistleblower for six months, but finally looked into the case. It transpires that seven biologists planted false data in at least three and perhaps five instances–leaving lynx hair samples on rubbing posts to indicate the bobcat’s presence in several of the 57 forests in 16 western states covered by the survey. In fact, the hair was from lynx in protected reserves. Had the three phony hair samples been accepted, new land-use restrictions would have been imposed in the areas involved–the Gifford Pinchot and the Wenatchee National Forests in Washington. The protection of the supposed lynx could have involved limiting the thinning of forests to improve the neighborhood for the snowshoe hare, closing roads, and prohibiting off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, and similar intrusions by bipeds. The biologists–three from the Forest Service, two from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and two employees of the Washington fish and wildlife department–admitted the fraud, but contended they had done it only to test whether a laboratory could identify the species through DNA analysis. It is unclear whether the investigators bought the biologists’ hairy-dog story in part or in whole. In any event, one of the seven retired, and the other six were “counseled.” Legislators from the West have not found the lynx episode amusing. Rep. Scott McInnis of Colorado, chairman of a House subcommittee on forests and forest health, was unkind enough to wonder whether the Forest Service investigation “raises the specter that agenda-driven biologists may have taken matters into their own hands.” “[The survey] was rigged from the word go,” James M. Beers, a retired Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, told Audrey Hudson of the Washington Times. “I’m convinced that there is a lot of that going on for so-called higher purposes.” Chris West, of the American Forest Resource Council, charged that “these are cases of rogue biologists trying to influence natural-resources policy.” No Greenie has come forth yet to assert that such comments amount to biodiversital McCarthyism. But if House Republicans, who have asked the General Accounting Office for a complete audit of the lynx survey, hold hearings, you may count on hearing that nasty counterattack. The tendency of true believers is to defend any means to their end–to justify, in the name of Gaia or Good Housekeeping, any shortcuts to the finish line. And, this just in–the minnows may in fact be trout: There’s a report that a Washington state fish and wildlife biologist asked a taxidermist for grizzly bear hair samples last spring, which could have been used to taint a grizzly habitat study in that state. This may have led to further–and underhanded–regulation of recreation and the mining and timber industries. State Rep. Bob Sump of Washington, co-chairman of the Washington state House Natural Resources Committee, said the taxidermist became suspicious and contacted him. Curiouser and curiouser, isn’t it . . . By the way, doesn’t anyone care about the “privileging” of the lynx over the poor snowshoe rabbit? Woody West is associate editor of the Washington Times.
