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From PEER.org (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility)

http://www.peer.org/news/news-relea...sts-fish-and-wildlife-service-top-ranks/

For Immediate Release: Feb 25, 2015
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337

SCIENTIFIC FRAUD INFESTS FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE TOP RANKS
Whistleblower Hearing Traces Corruption and Retaliation Back to Director’s Door

Posted on Feb 25, 2015 | Tags: FWS, Scientific Integrity

Washington, DC —An explosive whistleblower hearing transcript paints a vivid picture of rampant scientific misconduct, callous reprisal and systemic mendacity within the upper echelons of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) which posted the full texts today. The transcript also illustrates how a highly-touted agency Scientific Integrity Policy has become a tool for just the opposite.

This whistleblower case is striking because it involves a high-level manager rather than a field biologist; Gary Mowad is a 28-year FWS veteran and former Deputy Director for law enforcement. For the past few years, Mowad had been the FWS Texas Administrator for the Ecological Services Division, handling a parade of thorny endangered species and natural resource issues arising out of the Lone Star State.

The hearing took place because Mowad challenged being placed on an open-ended “detail” causing him to leave Austin for Albuquerque for a position with no apparent duties. The reassignment followed his reporting a number of scientific integrity concerns, including what he termed a blatantly political decision by the FWS hierarchy to reverse the staff recommendation that the dune sagebrush lizard, with habitat in the heart of Texas oil country, be listed under the Endangered Species Act

In an August 18, 2014 hearing before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, testimony indicated:

Widespread scientific fraud, such as using models to classify paved parking lots as endangered species habitat, is facilitated by top FWS officials to accommodate a network of politically connected consultants called the “Texas mafia;”
Within hours after Mowad’s disclosure to the FWS Scientific Integrity Officer, it was relayed to top headquarters officials, and he was ordered to vacate his office. An arrangement to end Mowad’s exile was personally quashed by FWS Director Dan Ashe; and
The Whistleblower Ombudsman for Interior’s Office of Inspector General testified that “Months of pointed discussions and stern warnings…have not resulted in any formal and permanent action” to discipline managers guilty of misconduct or protect whistleblowers from further retaliation.
Mowad’s case quickly settled after MSPB Judge Mary Ann Garvey summarized what she had heard by saying “it appears that the history of the Fish and Wildlife, and specifically …Regional Director Benjamin Tuggle, [Deputy Director Rowan] Gould, and Ashe is that whistleblowing retaliation is tolerated or even condoned. Apparently someone got promoted or something good happened to them after they retaliated.”

“Political skewing of science in today’s Fish & Wildlife Service is just as rife and blatant as it was during the darkest days of the Bush years,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization represented other FWS scientists working in the Southwest Region under Tuggle. “The Service’s entrenched culture of corruption persists with the full knowledge and blessing of Director Dan Ashe.”

Currently, PEER is in federal district court trying to pry records out of FWS detailing the role Ashe and his top deputies played in derailing scientific misconduct cases. Ashe’s office maintains that no records exist documenting what others have testified about his actions. Adding injury to insult, the Interior Department, FWS’ parent agency, weakened its Scientific Integrity Policy, just before Christmas to make it even harder to discipline managers who override science in pursuit of agency agendas.

“After reading this transcript, it is hard to dispute that emerging safeguards against politicized science are stillborn,” added Ruch. “Until these agencies admit the problem exists, there will be no progress. The first meaningful step toward reform would be removing Dan Ashe as Director.”


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Read key excerpts from the hearing testimony

View the full 673-page hearing transcript

Volume I

Volume II

Note recent weakening of Interior's Scientific Integrity Policy

Review recent FWS scientific intergrity scandals

This stems from indoctrination at university.

http://eatonrapidsjoe.blogspot.com/2014/03/etheostoma-americas-most-political-fish.html

And they tastes like fish sticks!

I believe wildlife science has always been wildlife science. IMHO these treehugger attitudes in FWS arise from the backgrounds of the personnel themselves, heavily selected for female and minority (mostly urban) hiring for decades now.

People with rural hunting/fishing backgrounds form a minority of those going into the field as a career choice just as they are in the general population. Add to that the fact that to get ahead in a government bureaucracy ya gotta at the very least be a loyal company man, if not outright suck up.

Nothing new in USFWS, we seen it first hand twenty five years ago when they were evaluating the status of the golden-cheek warbler here in Texas. I did census field work at that time for a Prof at a major university, and they interpreted our data far different than we did.

Birdwatcher

USFWS insiders will note that this began back in the (failed) Carter administration. Then, Carter & his minions hired great numbers of anti-hunters, anti-use oriented greenies into the Service. Some of them remain, and many there now espouse the greenie view.
They will lie & do what it takes to advance their anti-use views. In my not-so-humble view, folks in our 60’s will last hunting & fishing & enjoying some freedoms. However, our children & grandchildren will not. Liberalism is a mental disorder. And they have beaten us at every intersection, every pass, and at every agenda.

I'm sure this schitt is all peer reviewed.

They need to put all those bastards in jail.

Oh for God's sake.
This release is from a bunny-hugger group. The whistle blower is tooting about " termed a blatantly political decision by the FWS hierarchy to reverse the staff recommendation that the dune sagebrush lizard, with habitat in the heart of Texas oil country, be listed under the Endangered Species Act" --
something PEER just loves. List everything, especially species about which little is known. Especially species that are inherently thin on the landscape, reproduce slowly, or otherwise would hog up land.
Yes, there is fraud and hidden agenda in the USFWS ranks that is completely out of control, and much of it comes from employees who belong to, or sympathize with, groups like PEER. PEER in fact does all it can to promote fraud and bad conduct.

We are reaping what we sewed with the hiring of environmental nuts to the very agencies they infest now. A couple of decades of this, and now we are seeing the nutjobs not only within the ranks, but taking over management positions.

Much as the teachers we have now are flaming liberals, and they too infest our public schools.

Look the problem isn't the hiring policies, it is the power of the agency (and others).

There are far more people who grew up in urban environments than those who grew up in rural ones. Those who grow up in urban and suburban environments and have an affinity for the outdoors and wildlife are going to be bunny huggers. That is just the way it is. They didn't grow up on a farm. They don't have the same ideas about wildlife and land that normal people do. Not a damned thing in the world we can do to change that. The urban verses rural divide is so old that the Greeks and the Romans wrote funny stories and fables about it.

But, if the world were a normal place and we hadn't let this damned government take so much power, the urban fruitloops wouldn't bother any of us at all and their ideas would merely be the quaint affectations of those who could afford them because of their lack of actual experience with the real world. As it is, they control the all powerful leviathan and their silly notions are forced on us all.

Fraud infests every branch of our .gov,not just the FWS. The trash needs to be taken out.

For God sakes read and comprehend ! This is a greenie pos and and organization crying they didn't get to classify a freaking Lizzie's endangered to stop drilling in the heart of the American oil patch ! I wished they had put a bullet in the SOB's head so we didn't have to hear all this crying !

20 or so years ago, I read an article in one of the hugger magazines about how they planned to use large predators to reduce game animals to unhuntable numbers to eliminate sport hunting. They estimated at the time that it would take 10 to 15 years to get their people in positions of power to get it done. During the next 10 to 15 years, just as they'd planned, they infiltrated the FWS and other agencies and voila', we have wolves.

I thought it was nonsense at the time so I didn't keep the article. I've sorely regretted that every since so I could show it to those who won't believe it was an anti-hunting plan from the beginning.

No read it more closely. It is about retaliation against a whistleblower exposing corruption and attempts to suppress exposure of the scientific fraud occurring, not the underlying issue.

Scientists need to stick to objective science. Leave policy to the elected officials to decide based on honest and objective science.

Of course there is rampant corruption throughout .gov. Dave Skinner has a point on this one, to a point.

That said, the most objective and accurate science possible could be delivered to "policy makers" today, as you suggest. Do any of us really believe that it would result in objective, scientifically based policy or law given what we have in Congress and agencies to decide those policies and laws?

I, for one, do not.

We can at this point, in truth, trust no level or branch of the government.

You cannot trust any research that receives funding based on doom and gloom prophecy. Unless they paint a bleak picture they have no money.

But, if those who attempt to expose the corruption are crushed without consequence, then the corruption will grow even worse. The case was about the whistleblower, not the critter.

That group may have its own agenda, but exposing corruption and hammering it is the only way to clean up the place.

If a person lives in an area where that agency has worked its will in certain "protected/endangered species" programs, none of the exposed misbehavior and corruption is any surprise. The local wolf program is a glaring example and the names of some of those accused in that report are very familiar here. Sad state of affairs. Who will clean it up/

We're already there, and have been.

This shows the value of "peer reviewed" papers.