USDA Wildlife Services responds directly to BAX co-director over Change.org petition

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Monte Merrick

by Monte Merrick

Last week, I initiated a petition on Change.org, as an individual, to the three people responsible for the Department of Agriculture’s ‘wildlife damage control’ program, known as Wildlife Services. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack; USDA-APHIS, administrator Kevin Shea; and APHIS Wildlife Services deputy administrator, William (Bill) H. Clay. (read the petition, read more about Wildlife Services)

Within a day, the petition had gathered 500 signatures. At about the time that it passed that number, 500, I received an email from Bill Clay, deputy administrator for USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services. While it’s odd that he has replied directly to me, rather than to Change.org, which also didn’t share my email address, I am glad that USDA staff are aware that public light is being cast on Wildlife Services.

In any case, Bill Clay wrote to me, and I wrote him back. Here’s what we had to say to each other:

On 20 Jun 2014, , at 12:39, Clay, Bill H – APHIS wrote:
Mr. Merrick,

In regards to your Change.Org petition expressing concerns over our program, let me address some of your concerns by clarifying the misinformation that you have heard or read about the Wildlife Services (WS). First, WS works closely with State and Federal wildlife agencies which regulate resident and migratory birds and threatened and endangered species and which set management goals for various wildlife populations. The professional wildlife agencies strongly support our program and recognize the need to manage wildlife damage as part of responsible wildlife management and the North America model of wildlife management. Lethal take is an important component of wildlife management.

While the concern expressed regarding the lethal removal of over 4 million animals during an entire year over the entire United States is noble, it indicates a lack of understanding of overall wildlife populations, mortality, recruitment and population dynamics. Quoting raw numbers, taken out of context, without indicating the overall wildlife population or other sources of species mortality is irresponsible. Although it generates an emotional response it does not indicate the overall impact to wildlife populations. For example, cats kill from 1.3 to 4.0 billion birds each year in the United States. Hunters harvest over 50 million mourning dove each year out of a population estimated to be well over 300 million birds. More than one million deer-vehicles collisions occur annually, often deadly to deer, which have a population of over 30 million deer. Disease, predation, age, and many factors all contribute to wildlife mortality.

Our lethal take last year involved the removal of approximately 3.5 million birds, nearly 80% of which were invasive species. A Presidential Executive Order 13112 on Invasive Species (Section 2) clearly directs Federal agencies to control invasive species and prevent their spread. I understand that many people object to the use of lethal control; however, regulated hunting and trapping is an important tool to manage overabundant wildlife populations and is supported by professional wildlife biologists and wildlife agencies that are mandated to manage them.

In responsible [sic] to the allegations of being a secretive and unaccountable program, anyone who has ever reviewed our website knows that Wildlife Services annually provides the Program Data Reports and other information, including budget information, (which your petition requests) and has provided this information for over 20 years. Through the website we seek to inform the public of actions as a responsible and accountable federal program. The recent Washington Post article criticizes our program because of the numbers of animals killed each year. It’s ironic that we make this information available each year regarding how many animals are killed, species, methods used, nontarget take, etc., and then are criticized for not being accountable to the public.

During the past 5 years, WS has invested more than $50 million to identify and develop new nonlethal methods of control. Most of the effective nonlethal methods currently used by farmers, ranchers, and the public has either been developed or tested by our program.
The implication that WS is mainly funded by Federal dollars is also incorrect. Over $100 million non-Federal dollars is provided to WS each year from the people that request our services. In fact, WS is one of the very few Federal agencies where the recipients of our services pay at least half, and in some cases 100 percent, of the cost of the project.

Articles about WS often fail to indicate that over 80 percent, or 18 million animals, are moved or dispersed each year by WS using nonlethal methods, or that we work at most airports across the country to protect airplanes and people; that we protect over 150 threatened and endangered species for other wildlife threats; or that we conduct one of the largest programs in the world to stop the spread of the Mid-Atlantic strain of rabies commonly carried by raccoons in the Eastern United States. The article also failed to document that the WS program is managed by professional wildlife biologists. To obtain accurate information on the WS program, please visit our website.

William H. Clay
Wildlife Services

Here is my reply:

Mr. Clay,

Thank you for taking the time to respond directly to me in regard to the petition I initiated on Change.org.

As you know, the 50,000 people who have signed this petition so far are not the only critics of the opacity of USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services.

In December 2013 Wildlife Services was petitioned by Center for Biological Diversity, Project Coyote, Animal Welfare Institute, and Animal Legal Defense Fund to begin the rule-making process for the same reasons I started the Change.org petition; that is, to bring transparency and accountability to WS, to ensure humane treatment of animals, and to protect public safety and interests. (read legal petition)

I am sure that you are aware of the highly regarded series published in the Sacramento Bee in 2012 that sheds light on a governmental branch that operates outside of the values of most Americans. Covering up unintentional kills, shooting animals from helicopters, irresponsible use of poisons, suffocating and burning young mammals in their dens – these are revolting, unnecessary and cowardly acts. Citizens have a right to know how their contribution through taxes (whether federal, state, county or municipal) are spent, and a right to object to these repugnant practices. Suggesting that such well-documented and long criticized practices are either necessary or insignificant is a failure to address our petition. We are petitioning for information regarding these kills, not excuses or rationalizations.

Transparency and accountability demand more than the assertion that critics are misinformed. As a wildlife professional, I am well aware of the numbers of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians that are killed or injured by various anthropogenic causes, such as feral and free-roaming domestic cats, vehicle traffic, windows, wind farms, toxic pollution and so on.

You reference the large number of birds killed by cats and imply that such a high mortality somehow absolves WS of wrongdoing for the lesser number of animals reported to be killed WS agents. These are unrelated issues. Mass fatalites are not judged against each other but against what is right. Besides this point, in regard to the numbers of animals reported to be killed by WS agents, the figures provided by your agency are not trustworthy, especially in light of former agents who have consistently described the culture of “shoot, shovel, and shut up” that permeates WS.

And none of these issues that plague WS are new. Multiple reviews and reports, from as early as Olaus Murie’s 1931 internal report, through the Cain Report from early 1972 (formally titled Predator Control 1971: Report to the President’s Council on Environmental Quality by the Advisory Committee on Predator Control, S.A. Cain, et al) have clearly indicated that Wildlife Services practices are out of step with science, decency and democratic values. While critics have consistently identified these key areas for reform, this agency, under various names, has consistently failed to enact these reforms in a meaningful fashion.

The history of Wildlife Services is not a noble one, nor has it met its purported mission. Even the federally mandated task of invasive species control that you reference (which is the reason for the existence of Wildlife Services, from its inception as the Division of Economic Ornithology in 1885) has been a failure. As an example, House Sparrows, which your agency’s first administrator sought to “attack and destroy*,” launching Wildlife Services’ official methodology, have been neither eradicated nor controlled.

Frankly, your response to this petition appears to be further stonewalling. It is easy to understand why Congress member Pete DeFazio has referred to WS as the “one of the most opaque and obstinate” agencies he’s encountered. Moreover, for the administrator of the WS program, with its history of wolf eradication, well-documented cruelty, and broadcast use of highly toxic poisons across our natural heritage, among other reprehensible actions both large and small, to accuse one who questions these practices of being “irresponsible” neither addresses the concerns nor is befitting your role as a public servant.

Sincerely,
Monte Merrick

(*) C. Hart Merriam, MD was the first director of the Division of Economic Ornithology, established inside the Department of Agriculture July 1, 1885. After a year, the division was expanded to include Mammology and soon after that the word Economic was dropped. In his first annual report Merriam discussed areas for USDA work, for legislative action, and for general recommendations. While regarded by his own Department as an impediment to its mission to eradicate avian and mammal economic threats to agriculture, here’s what Merriam had to say about House Sparrows: “The English Sparrow is a curse of such virulence that it ought to be systematically attacked and destroyed before it becomes necessary to deplete the public treasury for the purpose, as has been done in other countries.” https://ia601206.us.archive.org/33/items/reportofchiefofb1886unit/reportofchiefofb1886unit.pdf

Petition to USDA-Wildlife Services Receiving Broad Support!

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Monte Merrick

Click here to see Change.org petition

Petitioning USDA Deputy Administrator William Clay, Administrator Kevin Shea, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack: Take immediate steps to make USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, Wildlife Services program transparent and accountable.

This petition was initiated by Bird Ally X co-founder/co-director Monte Merrick due to shockingly high numbers (4.4 million reported in 2013!) of wild animals killed each year by Wildlife Serives, the well-documented culture of “shoot, shovel, and shut up” that permeate the agency, the repeated instances of shocking cruelty to wild and domestic animals on the part of Wildlife Services agents, including irresponsible trapping in BAX’ own community on California’s North Coast.

As of this post, the petition has gathered nearly 45,000 signatures in only 5 days, easily demonstrating that Wildlife Services practices are out of step with not only science, the laws that protect endangered species, migratory birds, and all animals from unnnecessary suffering at human hands, but also the core values of Americans from all walks of life, from hunters to vegans.

Bird Ally X supports this petition. We ask you to do the same. Help demand that USDA brings accountability and transparency to USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services program. Or shut it down.

Wildlife Services. “Opaque and Obstinate”

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Monte Merrick

A Mystery Trapper

The morning of May 21, 2014 began with a phone call.

“Wildlife care center,” I answered.

“Yes, Wildlife Service?” the caller began, “The raccoon you trapped had babies and now they’re dead. My mother needs them removed.”

For a second, I wondered if we had done this. Like many wildlife care organizations, we try to help people humanely resolve wildlife conflicts, sometimes, if necessary, encouraging wild mothers to pack up their babies and leave. Usually we counsel people to tolerate the animals’ presence until the babies are ready to leave the den, and then close up whatever access allowed the situation to begin with.

And we don’t use traps. It couldn’t have been us.

We quickly sorted out the case of mistaken identity and I offered to send a team over to her mother’s house to look for the problem. Then I got on the internet to find out who would have been the trapper.

The homeowner’s daughter said he called himself Wildlife Services, which struck me as odd.

As an oil spill response team member, I’ve worked alongside agents from US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (USDA-APHIS) animal damage control branch, called Wildlife Services (WS). Although rarely, WS agents have been brought in to these tragedies as experts in wildlife capture. This is not a universally held view. WS agents could be said to be experts in rounding up birds.

Over the last decade WS has been in the news more and more often, developing a reputation. That reputation isn’t good. If I was trying to drum up business, I certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with these guys.

In Southern California, January 2005, I had my first experience with Wildlife Services, when a WS agent used a cannon net (a large net rapidly deployed by fired 2 pound projectiles) to capture oiled and beached Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis).

42 of these sick and cold seabirds were huddled out of sight next to a slough that drained to the Pacific Ocean. Unable to tolerate the water due to their oil contamination, they were now consigned to slow death by dehydration and starvation unless they were rescued.

The cannon net was used on this group of 42 birds. Unfortunately, the net killed two Grebes, cutting them in half. Had these wild birds been people or even domestic animals in jeopardy, there would be no discussion of using potentially lethal means to attempt rescue. Animals in need of rescue are patients, not targets.

USDA Wildlife Services agent Dave Marks and colleague prepare cannon net for use during Kalamazoo River Enbridge pipeline spill response (photo: USFWSMidwest(1))

Christmas Eve 2009, WS agents shot and killed at least 60 birds out of thousands who were attracted to a school of fish in San Franicisco Bay at the end of one of Oakland Airport’s runways. These birds included Comorants, Gulls and even Brown Pelicans who had been taken from the Federal Endangered Species list only a week before the shooting. Carcasses and wounded birds alike were left behind by the agents. Witnesses managed to bring five wounded birds into care. Sadly, none survived.(2)

This was an entirely natural situation where a very temporary condition, a flock of birds feeding on a moving school of fish, were cruelly gunned down and left to suffering deaths, when clearly some knowledge, common sense, or observation, would have demonstrated that as the fish moved away from the airport, so would the birds. This is in fact what happened. No matter how you look at this it was stupid and senseless.

In Michigan in 2010, a pipeline carrying tar sands oil ruptured leaking over one million gallons of diluted bitumen into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. I worked with several WS agents who consistently chose life-threatening measures that ignored the well-being of our patients in order to rack up captures. Techniques such as the use of drugs (alpha-chlorolose), hand-held net guns, and cannon nets were used, against the advice of experienced oiled wildlife caregivers. And in one very memorable meeting, wildlife caregivers had to threaten to leave the response in order to prevent WS agents from shooting oiled Canada geese rather than rescue them.

‘Opaque and obstinate’, Wildlife Services ignores calls for reform

Wildlife Services (WS), under various names and assigned to various departments, has been in action for nearly 130 years. Their “mission” has been to control wildlife that has been deemed an economic threat to agriculture – whether eating grain or eating livestock. Beginning early in the 20th century, Wildlife Services turned its attention to Wolf eradication. At this same time, WS began to receive funding from Congress, from States and from institutions to use strychnine and other means to kill not only Wolves, but Coyotes, Squirrels, Prairie Dogs and many more species, whose only threat was their existence.

As early as 1931, internal reports expressed alarm over the methods of killing, the numbers of animals killed, the mistaken kills, the cover-ups, the stonewalling, the secrecy. Olaus Murie, a biologist and early conservationist who worked for the agency (then named The Bureau of Biological Survey), who had killed many Wolves, Coyotes, Mountain Lions and more, wrote a report (i.e. the Murie Report) critical of their practices, and opposing the goal of predator eradication (3). Through the following decades, appointed advisory panels submitted reviews, such as the Leopold Report in 1964 (4), and the Cain Report in 1972 (5), that have consistently taken to task WS practices, citing excessive killing, inappropriate methods such as aerial gunning, and irresponisble use of poisons, as serious problems in need of reform.

Almost more importantly, reviewers find the lack of transparency and accountability within the program as perhaps the most urgently needed reform. The Cain Report (1972) is worth quoting at length:

“[I]t is clear that the basic machinery of the federal cooperative-supervised program contains a high degree of built-in resistance to change. Not only are many of the several hundred field agents the same former “trappers,” but the cooperative funding by federal, state, and county agencies, and by livestock associations and even individual ranchers, maintains a continuity of purpose in promoting the private interest of livestock growers, especially in the western rangeland states. The substantial monetary contribution by the livestock industry serves as a gyroscope to keep the bureaucratic machinery pointed towards the familiar goal of general reduction of predator populations, with little attention to the effects of this on the native wildlife fauna.

Guidelines and good intentions will no longer suffice. The federal-state predator-control program must be effectively changed. It must take full account of the whole spectrum of public interests and values, not only in predators but in all wildlife. This will require substantial, even drastic, changes in control personnel and control methods, supported by new legislation, administrative changes, and methods of financing.”(4)

Yet reform doesn’t come.

Now this “rogue” agency (6) is in the news again for the staggering numbers of wild animals that it kills each year. June 7 the Washington Post published the latest statistics reported by Wildlife Services. In 2013 WS agents killed over 4.4 million animals. Roughly half of those killed were native species, including River Otters, Bald Eagles, Black Bears, Bitterns, House Finches, Cougars, and Coyotes.(7) This is a nearly 25% increase over 2012’s 3.4 million killed, about half which were also native species. Why the increase? No explanation was offered.

Characterized by Congressmember Pete Defazio as “one of the most opaque and obstinate” agencies he’s had to deal with, Wildlife Serivces operates in nearly every level of our public life with very little accountability, from remote wild lands to highly developed urban regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area.

Two years ago, in the Sacramento Bee, in Tom Knudson’s series on Wildlife Services, former WS agent Gary Strader describes being told by his supervisor, when he first snared a Golden Eagle, that if no one else knew about it, he should just bury the federally protected bird and forget about it.

Strader says that the motto of WS has been, “shoot, shovel, and shut up.”

He says that after that eagle, he just never asked again, figuring it was WS policy.(8)

Wildlife Services kills family pets, threatened and endangered species and other animals who were not targeted, but who are now dead all the same.(9)

Against decades of scientific, practical and ethical recommendations, Wildlife Services continues to trap, shoot from helicopters, poison, even burn young mammals in their dens. These practices can only occur behind a wall of secrecy.

The opacity of Wildlife Services prohibits public debate and understanding, making regulatory oversight impossible. Without oversight, WS has been shown time and again to kill animals, both wild and domestic, in any manner or number which they see fit and literally bury the evidence.

Wildlife Services in your hometown

When our team arrived at the scene of the raccoon trapping incident, they found a horrible mess of maggot-eaten baby raccoon carcasses. The homeowner was heart-sick. Her daughter was angered. She said that the trapper assured them that he had searched for babies and found none. He assured them that is was a single male adult raccoon causing the problem. He told them that there was only one legal course of action: trap and kill the racoon.

Infant raccoon in care whose mother was trapped. Most baby mammals brought into our hospital are the victims of thoughtless trapping. (photo: L. Corsiglia/BAX)

We were told that the trapper had been recommended by Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Animal Control Service. Animal Control had given them his telephone number.

The trapper either lied or he is incompetent. The raccoon babies were in the typical location that mother raccoons select as safe a den site. They were in the void between the bathtub and the wall. Anyone who has tried to locate raccoon babies in a house quickly learns to look there first. Obviously this trapper had not done so. With both venting and education on my mind, I wanted very much to speak with the trapper.

We had only his first name and a phone number. His outgoing message is eerily terse, “You have reached Wildlife Services.” So far he hasn’t returned our calls.

That number isn’t on the Animal Control website. Apparently you have to ask.

However, now that I knew I was looking for the so-called county trapper, I finally discovered what I was looking for. And it was disturbing.

Our county trapper is a USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services agent.

As it turns out, Humboldt County spent $67,000 this year on its contract with USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services for so-called integrated wildlife damage management. This was up $14,000 from the previous year.(10) There have been contracts every year as far back as the late 1990s. I presume that years prior have simply not yet been digitized so are inaccessible through the internet. Yet even with this regular yearly contract, I can find no report detailing the activites of WS in our county, and the county has yet to respond to my request for any such reports.

According the Humboldt County contract, 40 of the 58 counties in California have a cooperative agreement with USDA-APHIS, with values ranging from $20,000 to $140,000 or more.

USDA – Wildlife Services took in $116 million in 2013 from various contracts and cooperative agreements. Over $7 million came from California and over $4 million of that from cooperative agreements like the one WS has with Humbodlt County.(11)

And all this money funds unnecessary death and inexcusable cruelty. This raccoon family was killed, not because they were denned in a house, but because an irresponsible WS agent took actions that he either did not understand, or knew were cruel.

This need not have happened. Wildlife rehabilitators across our state, our country, and the world routinely help our neighbors co-exist with wild animals. Respect for the wild and living with our wild neighbors are the approaches most aligned with the values of communities everywhere. In this age, WS practices are outmoded, outdated and an out and out shame. If members of the public weren’t opposed to these practices their would be no need for WS to hide. No one wants a secretive agency stalking through our neighborhood, indiscriminately killing animals.

The secrecy of WS is a threat to our communities. In our neighboring county, the WS agent who holds the county contract is called “Dead Dog” by county residents due to all the family pets he is believed to have killed.(12) Yet when I asked if people would attend a meeting of their county’s Board of Supervisors to complain or seek his termination, I was told by one resident that “it would never happen. He knows where we live.” Other residents have said they just try to get along with him, and avoid provocations. Meanwhile, as long as he can kill with impunity, people’s pets, livestock and property are not safe.

There is legitimate need to manage the interactions between human society and wild animals. A mountain lion in the lambing shed is a situation with no good outcome. Humane solutions – non-lethal, science-based and shown to be more effective in the long run – exist. But without transparency and accountability, there can be no assurance that this or any agency will make real effort to seek these solutions, which we demand again, as we have over the course of this program’s existence.

sources

(1) photo: Dave Marks (L) and Tim Wilson (R) (USDA Wildlife Services) https://secure.flickr.com/photos/usfwsmidwest/5239068994/

(2)“Birds killed to protect planes at Oakland airport” by Jason Sweeney, Oakland Tribune, Dec 30, 2009(2) Thinking like a Wolverine: The Ecological Evolution of Olaus Murie; James M. Glover Environmental Review: ER Vol. 13, No. 3/4, 1989 Conference Papers, Part One (Autumn Winter,1989), pp. 29-45 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3984389

(3) Thinking like a Wolverine: The Ecological Evolution of Olaus Murie; James M. Glover Environmental Review: ER Vol. 13, No. 3/4, 1989 Conference Papers, Part One (Autumn Winter,1989), pp. 29-45 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3984389

(4) Predator and Rodent Control in the United States, Advisory Board on Wildlife Management, appointed by Sec of Interior, S Udall; A.S.Leopold, et al, March 9, 1964 (Leopold Report)

(5) Predator Control 1971: Report to the President’s Council on Environmental Quality by the Advisory Committee on Predator Control, S.A. Cain, et al; January 1972 (Cain Report)

(6)“Petition targets ‘rogue’ killings by Wildlife Services” by Darryl Fears, The Washington Post, December 15, 2013 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/petition-targets-rogue-killings-by-wildlife-services/2013/12/15/c749b3b2-5e8b-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html

(7)“USDA’s Wildlife Services killed 4 million animals in 2013; seen as an overstep by some” by Darryl Fears, The Washington Post, June 7, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/governments-kill-of-4-million-animals-seen-as-an-overstep/2014/06/06/1de0c550-ecc4-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html

(8) “The killing agency: Wildlife Services’ brutal methods leave a trail of animal death” by Tom Knudson, The Sacramento Bee, April 29, 2012 http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/28/4450678/the-killing-agency-wildlife-services.html

(9) “Suggestions in changing Widllife services range from new practices to outright bans” by Tom Knudson, The Sacramento Bee, May 6, 2012 http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/06/4469067/suggestions-in-changing-wildlife.html

(10) Approval of United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services Agreement No. 13-73-06-0254-RA http://co.humboldt.ca.us/questysgranicus/144400/144403/144404/144468/144494/approval%20of%20united%20states%20department%20of%20agriculture%20wildlife%20services%20agreement%20144494.pdf

(11) Wildlife Services Federal and Cooperative funding by Resource Category FY 2013 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/prog_data/2013/A/Tables/PDR_Table_A.pdf

(12)“Lunch with Dead Dog” by Bruce McEwen, The Anderson Valley Advertiser, March 26, 2014 http://theava.com/archives/30044