The Associated Press
Robert Davison, former deputy assistant secretary of the interior in charge of fish, wildlife and parks from 1993 to 1996, speaks to a gathering of wildlife biologists and other natural resource professionals in Reno on Wednesday.

Wildlife conference tackles Species Act

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published September 28, 2001

RENO, Nev. -- A wildlife scientist who helped write the Endangered Species Act as a Senate aide, then helped enforce it as an Interior Department official, says the nation's premier conservation law is getting a bad rap.

"Frankly, I think we've been guilty of letting the Endangered Species Act take the blame for a lot of our problems," said Robert Davison, former deputy assistant secretary of the interior in charge of fish, wildlife and parks during President Clinton's first term.

"There's too little attention on how effectively we are protecting the environment under the myriad other laws that supposedly have that as their goal. It's a form of blaming the victim," he said in a speech to the Wildlife Society's eighth annual conference, being attended by more than 1,000 wildlife biologists and other natural resource professionals.

Davison works as a wildlife ecologist and Northwest field representative in Bend, Ore., for the Wildlife Management Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based professional conservation group founded in 1911.

He wrote many of the most recent amendments to the Endangered Species Act while working on the staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee during the 1980s.

Davison singled out the Clean Water Act, National Forest Management Act, Federal Land Policy Management Act and National Environmental Policy Act as lacking the teeth necessary to adequately protect fish and wildlife and guard against destruction of their habitat.

"The fact three-fourths of the freshwater mussels in this country are threatened or endangered should not lead to an indictment of the Endangered Species Act but an indictment of the way we enforce the Clean Water Act," he said.

"Let's focus on improvements in other laws that make the Endangered Species Act irrelevant or largely silent," he said, suggesting the "burden of species regulation be shouldered far more broadly" by state and local laws as well.

Wildlife Society President Lynn Carpenter agreed.

"If those other laws were doing their job, the Endangered Species Act would not be viewed as such a bad fellow," he said.

The Wildlife Society is a 64-year-old professional group made up of biologists, students and other scientists and natural resource professionals working for governments, private companies and special interest groups.

Much of the weeklong conference is focussing on new approaches to managing human-wildlife conflicts in the West.

Davison spoke on a conference panel with John Mumma, a former regional boss for the Forest Service and ex-director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, and Greg Schildwachter, a policy adviser to Republican Gov. Dirk Kempthorne in the Idaho Office of Species Conservation.

Schildwatcher's office, established earlier this year as the first of its kind in the country, emphasizes cooperative efforts that provide incentives for private landowners to protect fish and wildlife -- from ground squirrels and grizzly bears to salmon and white sturgeon.

"We hope to show land management and conservation are not two separate things but one single thing. We see a day where endangered species work is not about conflict, but conservation -- where we put dollars into land instead of lawyers," he said.

Mumma said it's wrong to try to measure the success of the Endangered Species Act by scoring the number of species listed or delisted under the law. A better gauge is "how our views have changed" since major environmental laws first were enacted in the 1970s, he said.

"Go into any classroom and engage a child in a conversation about the importance of wildlife," Mumma said. "Look at the expressions on the children's faces and listen to what they have to say, and I'll think you'll come away impressed with what we have learned about endangered species."

On the Web

The Wildlife Society: www.wildlife.org

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