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Herald and News: Klamath Falls, Oregon
http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2003/09/18/viewpoints/editorials/views.txt

Editorials  

Using private firms' research worthwhile

Published September 18, 2003
Fish, Wildlife Service still able to review it

Give the Bush administration credit for following up on the experience it gained during the 2001 water crisis in the Klamath Basin. Irrigation water to the Klamath Reclamation Project was held back then to provide for fish in a decision that was later determined to have insufficient scientific merit.

What the administration learned then is that letting narrowly focused fish biologists make the decision in such matters - especially without some form of review - can be wrong. A lot of farmers got hurt when the Fish and Wildlife Service cut off the water and a review panel from the American Academy of Science said there was no scientific basis for the decision.

In 2003, the controversy continues, but pushed by concerns about government objectivity that developed during the Klamath Basin water crisis, the Fish and Wildlife Service will hire a private firm to help decide if two bird species should receive protection under the Endangered Species Act.

It's a change, and a worthwhile experiment - and an experiment is how it should be viewed.

The Fish and Wildlife Service will pay private firms $800,000 to review the status of the northern spotted owl and the marbled murrelet. To meet what are believed to be the species' habitat needs, large regions of forest lands were put off limits to loggers in the early 1990s.

After a firm is chosen and the study conducted, the results will be reviewed by the Fish and Wildlife Service

It's too early to say if this approach will be successful, and even deciding what "success" is may be difficult. But it does open up the process rather than encouraging an insular view from an insular agency. That's probably to the good, and it could be so without leaving Fish and Wildlife biologists totally bypassed. Those considerations, it seems to us, make it worth trying.

The "H&N view" represents the opinion of the newspaper's editorial board, which consists of Publisher John Walker, Editor Tim Fought, City Editor Todd Kepple and Opinion Editor Pat Bushey.



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