Interior Disarray Causes Lack of Wildlife Law Enforcement

WASHINGTON, DC, February 22, 2007 (ENS) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's law enforcement program is plagued by weak leadership and oversight that has contributed to "a general mistrust of senior management," according to a new report by the U.S. Interior Department's Office of Inspector General. The report is a harsh critique of the program, calling into question its effectiveness and noting that one interviewee said "the ship is rudderless at the top."

The assessment of the law enforcement office, issued earlier this month, is the first review of the program since 2001. The office's 208 special agents are charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and other federal wildlife laws.

The report found that less than half of the law enforcement employees trust senior management. In addition, the program lacks a system of quality control to reliably assess the "efficiency and effectiveness" of its work.

Since 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service, FWS, law enforcement program has moved to a "direct-line authority" model in which there is a separate law enforcement chain-of-command, apart from other FWS programs, such as refuges and ecology. The direct-line model places more emphasis on the role of top leadership.

Recently, however, the long-time law enforcement program chief, Kevin Adams, was removed and has not been replaced.
"Our principal federal wildlife protection program is now a headless horseman," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, a national association of workers in natural resource agencies.

Ruch noted that one of the main reasons to move the enforcement program to direct-line authority was to insulate sensitive investigations from political interference.

"The wildlife agents are saying that politics still impedes enforcement and that the reforms have not yet taken hold," he said.
At the same time, criminal enforcement of wildlife protection laws under Interior Department jurisdiction has fallen to decade-low levels, according to Justice Department figures compiled and released Tuesday by PEER.

According to Department of Justice figures, criminal referrals of wildlife offenses from all Interior agencies, principally the Fish and Wildlife Service, dropped by more than half since 2000. During the same period, federal prosecutions filed on these cases fell by more than a third.

"Federal wildlife protection appears to be moving in the wrong direction at a time when the need for effective enforcement of these laws has grown more acute," Ruch said.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Can YOU balance
our budget? Click on the Capitol and spend 3 minutes. It's FREE, It's educational and it's FUN.