National Alternative Pet Association
Press Releases
| ANIMAL WRONGS AT INTERIOR DEPT. Whistle-Blower's Beefs Unearth Varied Abuses http://www.house.gov/resources/press/1999/990802investorsbusinessdaily_doi_prdj.htm Friends of animal rights have found allies in Washington -in the Interior Department's hunting and fishing enclave, the Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency that oversees animal populations on federal lands seems an odd place to find a sympathetic ear for hunting foes and anti-fur activists. Still, observers say, government workers trying to follow the law have found themselves hounded by higher-ups trying to satisfy animal-rights groups. Animal activists are also diverting taxpayer dollars to causes that would halt hunting and fishing and impede management of wildlife on public lands. Interior has other troubles. Like a number of Cabinet departments, it's dogged by the taint of political scandal. Charges of undue influence and mismanagement have become a staple of its news diet. Secretary Bruce Babbitt faced allegations that he denied a dog track license to Chippewa Indians due to political donations from a rival tribe of Oneidas. Later probes found that Interior has lost track of billions of dollars in trust accounts held for Indians. News has also surfaced that the department's Bureau of Insular Affairs has taken part in illegal political activity. The latest troubles are at Fish and Wildlife, centering around possible illegal grant-making by the department with an animal-rights twist. One FWS veteran trapped by the troubles was Jim Beers. The 31-year Fish and Wildlife mainstay retired officially in June. It wasn't by choice. The service stripped Beers of his job after he refused to green-light a grant to an applicant he deemed unqualified. ''(The applicant was) ineligible on four points from the Federal Register; one was sufficient to bar it from funding,'' Beers testified before the House Resources Committee July 20. Beers added that he was ''badgered and intimidated to change that finding.'' The applicant was the Fund for Animals, an animal-rights group with a Web site featuring book titles such as Doris Dixon's ''Memoirs of a Compassionate Terrorist.'' In an interview, Beers said: ''They wanted to put together literature to pass out, not only in the Yellowstone Park area but throughout the U.S., saying that hunting was not necessary . . . to manage the elk and buffalo and predators in the park.'' His refusal to approve the request led to payback. Beers was offered a nonexistent post in Massachusetts at lower pay. He was locked out of his own office, forced to collect a paycheck at home. In reaching a settlement, Beers got help from the federal government's personnel lawyers and from the National Wilderness Institute, a conservation group based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Beers would not discuss its terms. But in a press release, the Office of Personnel Management's lawyers announced a $150,000 payment, a letter of apology and full retirement benefits. Workplace-induced grief extended elsewhere in the FWS. Bonnie Kline, a colleague of Beers, landed in hot water for cooperating with FBI probes of Beers' complaints and other agency matters. Interior, though, stoutly defends itself and its grant-making procedures. ''Everything has been done with perfect legitimacy,'' said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Mitch Snow. ''You can go through and you'll see all the recipients of those grants are wildlife management, fishing, hunting and boating groups.'' Snow declined to discuss Beers' situation, citing confidentiality of personnel matters. Insiders and outsiders who keep tabs on the agency but don't want to be named cite a culture eager to listen to animal-rights activists. Some name officials who may be doing the bidding of outside groups. One regularly named is Dan Ashe. Ashe is the service's assistant director for refuges and wildlife. Before that, he was staff director for the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee chaired by former Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass. An animal-rights sympathizer, Studds gained notice for sponsoring a bill making tuna harvesting safe for dolphins. Still, observers think Ashe is more a political animal than an ideo-logue. Another name that crops up is Susan Lieberman, the head of the scientific authority office in the service's international affairs division. Prior to joining the FWS in February 1990, she was associate director for wildlife at the Humane Society of the U.S. Most think of the Humane Society as a be-kind-to-pets group. Yet in the 1993 book ''Animal Rights: The Inhumane Crusade,'' Capital Research Center scholar Daniel Oliver notes that, over time, the Humane Society's agenda has changed. Oliver says the Humane Society has become the nation's leading anti-fur group. It has also sued to prevent medical research on animals and opposes hunting, trapping, rodeos and modern animal agriculture. Animal-rights groups are having an impact on the way the FWS interacts with state wildlife agencies as well. Bruce Taubert, assistant director of wildlife management at the Arizona Game and Fish Department, cites actions by the Fund for Animals and other groups in using the FWS to influence state-level wildlife management. Taubert, an 18-year veteran of the department, notes increased activity in his state over the past decade. Right now, his chief concern is the management of bighorn sheep herds. Growing mountain lion populations are eating bighorn sheep faster than the sheep can reproduce. Taubert's department wanted to do a study and take action to cull the mountain lion population. The agency sent a proposal for FWS approval. ''We received a categorical (approval) from the Fish and Wildlife Service (office) in Albuquerque,'' Taubert said. Animal-rights activists intervened. The regional office rescinded the approval, he says. ''I was surprised that given the amount of background that we provided and the type of documentation that we provided, that they reversed it,'' Taubert added. Congress has taken note. ''I've had suspicions for some time about other decisions of the Clinton administration (on) restricting forest access for hunters and fishermen (on public lands), with road closures and other things,'' said Rep. Rick Hill, R-Mont., who heard Beers' charges at the hearing. Beers' ordeal exposed a bigger problem. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have been busy siphoning funds they're supposed to send to the states. Under a pair of decades-old laws, hunters and fishers pay excise taxes on the guns, fishing tackle and related equipment they buy. The revenues Uncle Sam collects get sent back to the states to finance programs to expand wildlife and fishing opportunities. In short, hunters and anglers indirectly fund their future outings. There's one catch: The Fish and Wildlife Service gets a cut of the money for running the programs. In fiscal 1998, for example, the Treasury Department sent $30.8 million to the FWS to administer the programs. Boosted by programs like these, hunting- and fishing-related industries employ nearly 2 million people; the industries were responsible for $22.1 billion in retail sales in 1996, reports Southwick Associates of Alexandria, Va. That's what the programs are supposed to do, anyway. Instead, FWS officials created two new funds for handing out grants - the Administrative Grants Program and the Director's Conservation Fund. The Interior Department published a Federal Register notice killing the first July 26. Fish and Wildlife has pledged to kill the second. Days earlier, a statement by Congress' General Accounting Office said the Administrative Grants Program growth has ''spawned a culture of permissive spending.'' The statement noted that similar problems the GAO found in an audit six years ago remained. ''I think that it's very unusual and, quite frankly, quite alarming when federal employees are told that they are not doing things correctly and then they persist in doing that,'' said Rep. Owen Pickett, D-Va. ''It's no longer accidental; it's intentional misconduct, in my mind.'' Fish and Wildlife spokesman Snow sees it differently. He says the service deals with thousands of small grants every year. Plus, the agency had to deal with installing new accounting programs and transferring old data to them. Still, some projects do seem to stray from the service's mandate to promote conservation. One aims to expand the Hooked on Fishing - Not on Drugs program. Another seeks to assist states in ''addressing the barriers . . . to women of color and low-income women in the Becoming an Outdoorswoman program.'' Laudable goals, longtime observers agree, but they could be legally suspect. (C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business Daily, Inc. |
| Zoological Education Network - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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| Circus Sues Animal-Rights Group In Domain Dispute (04/24/98, 7:24 p.m. ET) By John Borland, Net Insider |