CBD Claims CA Fish & Game Cooked Report On Pacific Fisher To Favor Logging Industry

[hatrack]

Wildlife experts allege that a new status report on the rare forest-dwelling Pacific fisher was altered by state officials to favor the logging industry. The sleek and carnivorous fisher, a cousin of the weasel, has long been thought to favor old-growth forests, and its decline in the Sierra Nevada has been linked in part to logging that eliminated such habitat.

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the state to list the fisher as endangered. The state Department of Fish and Game's recently published status review concludes the fisher does not warrant protection under the state Endangered Species Act, in part because of information that they appear able to survive in logged forests if some large trees are left uncut. The outcome is politically sensitive. If the fisher is eventually recommended for protection by the state Fish and Game Commission, new logging restrictions could harm the timber industry.

Reginald Barrett, a professor of wildlife management at UC Berkeley and an expert on the fisher, on Friday sent the commission a 15-page critique of the final report. Barrett in January reviewed a draft report, which he praised as supporting a conclusion to protect at least the southern Sierra Nevada fisher population as "threatened." But in his Friday letter he called the final report "so different in content and tenor." "It is evident that more emphasis was placed on timber industry input via personal communications and unpublished industry reports than the scientific literature," Barrett writes. "What I am concerned about is the fact that the Commission is being given a recommendation by DFG that has apparently gone beyond the expected biological, scientific information to include political and economic considerations." Barrett did not respond to phone and e-mail requests for comment.

His letter highlights 21 sections that were deleted and 16 others added between the draft and final reports. The changes appear to strengthen arguments that the fisher population isn't harmed by logging, and to weaken support for protecting the species. In numerous instances noted by Barrett, the final report deletes references to evidence that fishers depend on older and deeply shaded forests, and adds other information – largely based on unpublished studies – that fishers can survive in habitats altered by logging.

EDIT

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/31/2645032/california-fisher-report-challenged.html