Lynx, Lies and Media Hype

Finally, there was proof in the worst abuse of the Endangered Species Act ever exposed, state and federal scientists, fronting for environmentalists, had faked data--the better to lock up public land. The multiagency conspiracy to defraud the public had involved seven field biologists--three from the U.S. Forest Service, two from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and two from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

The story, first published on December 17, 2001, by the D.C.-based Washington Times and flashed around the nation the next day by the Associated Press, is still being reported as I write this in mid-March. As part of a cooperative survey to determine distribution of the Canada lynx, listed as threatened two years ago, the biologists had set up scented pads with nails stuck through them, then hung pie plates nearby. All cats--wild, feral, and domestic--like to investigate the pie plates and rub their cheeks on the pads, leaving fur that is later checked for DNA. So the biologists snuck into the Wenatchee and Gifford Pinchot national forests in Washington and planted fur on the pads.

The Forest Service's investigation of this "biofraud," reported the Times, "hit a dead end when some employees refused to cooperate." In a January 21 news story, the Times revealed the motive: "The admission that employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and Washington State falsified data confirmed what many rural westerners believe: Agencies are doctoring species and habitat studies to stop logging, ranching, and mining on the federal government's vast land holdings." At this writing, the Times has published 12 news stories, 3 editorials, and 2 op-ed pieces on the lynx scandal.

New investigations were launched by the Washington State legislature, the U.S. Congress, the General Accounting Office (GAO), the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior, and the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture. "Let's hope they dig deep . . . .," editorialized The Wall Street Journal. "These departments can no longer be trusted to make fair or competent decisions about our nation's resources. The lynx scandal underscores everything that's wrong with Fish and Wildlife and the Forest Service. It shows how the agencies succumbed to a Clinton-era culture that puts ideology ahead of science. It demonstrates the undue influence environmental groups hold over the departments. It also shows how vaguely written laws like the Endangered Species Act can be used to further political agendas."

Right-wing talking heads prattled gleefully. The property-rights community puffed and blew. Feeding the ravenous media were members of the U.S. Congress, most notably Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and Representatives Scott McInnis (R-CO), chair of the Forests Subcommittee; James Hansen (R-UT), chair of the Resources Committee; Barbara Cubin (R-WY); and Richard Pombo (R-CA). Craig called for oversight hearings; McInnis and Hansen scheduled them. In an open letter to the directors of the Interior and Agriculture departments, Pombo, Cubin, McInnis, and 16 other Republican representatives condemned the "unethical behavior [and] malicious activities that support the closet agenda of the 'green' community" and called for the termination of "those officials who knowingly and willingly planted unauthorized samples."

Washington State legislators roasted Forest Service and WDFW officials at a joint House-Senate hearing January 16 in Olympia. Particularly vocal were property-rights champions Representative Richard DeBolt (R-Chehalis) and Senator Val Stevens (R-Arlington). DeBolt testified that the lynx biofraud has cost his constituents their jobs. "We have totally emasculated communities in the name of the Endangered Species Act," he declared. "The community has had it with their property rights being trampled on, their jobs being taken away because someone feels they can manipulate data." Stevens spoke of "criminal action" and "possible jail time" and demanded that she and WDFW officials meet with the attorney general to discuss undertaking yet another investigation.

Among the many fascinating aspects of the story is the fact that it is utterly untrue. The biologists did not plant fur in the forests. They did not conspire. They engaged in no "criminal" or even "unethical" behavior. Nobody "falsified" data or admitted to it. The Forest Service investigation did not "hit a dead end." The biologists did not "refuse to cooperate." There had actually been two Forest Service investigations: one internal, one contracted out. Both had been completed, the last--the external one--six months earlier. Both had cleared the biologists. On March 7, after the GAO and the Interior Department's Inspector General had also cleared the biologists of biofraud, the Times reported that Forest Service biologist Ray Scharpf had been "the whistleblower who informed his supervisor of the unauthorized submission." But Scharpf's only motive had been professional courtesy--to let the lab know that blind samples were on their way and that he had popped them into the mail that day.

Independently, and with excellent reason, the biologists had come to the conclusion that the Forest Service's DNA analysis was flawed. For one thing, house-cat hair was turning up in high-elevation snowfields, far from civilization. For another, positive lynx hits had been reported up and down the Cascades in places where no lynx had been seen in decades and where snowshoe hare, its preferred prey, are rare. "That just didn't make any sense to us," says WDFW biologist Jeff Bernatowicz. "Lynx don't survive where there aren't many snowshoe hare." Lynx surveyors in the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service reached identical, independent conclusions.

In 1999, the first year the survey was conducted, Bernatowicz found four hair samples in the Wenatchee National Forest. One, from an animal he identified as a bobcat because of the field sign, came back "no quality," meaning the lab couldn't tell what it was. Another, which he had identified as a black bear, came back "cougar." Something wasn't right.

On September 14, 2000--the day after the end of that year's sampling season--Bernatowicz arrived at his Yakima office with the rubbing pads he'd pulled out the day before still in his truck. There, in the garage, was a caged lynx, an escaped pet captured by a game warden. Bernatowicz asked his supervisor, Lee Stream, if it would be okay to send in some of this lynx's hair as a "blind control" in order to check the lab's accuracy. Stream gave him permission.