Cash Strapped Biologists Lean on Volunteers

  • The lynx was recently considered extinct in Michigan until a trapper caught one. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

For years, federal and state governments have cut funding for wildlife protection. That’s led to complaints from biologists who say they don’t have enough money to adequately do their jobs, but it’s also led to a new movement. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports on how citizens are starting to take over duties once performed by trained scientists:

Transcript

For years, federal and state governments have cut funding for wildlife
protection. That’s led to complaints from biologists who say they don’t
have enough money to adequately do their jobs, but it’s also led to a new
movement. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee
reports on how citizens are starting to take over duties once performed by
trained scientists:


Ray Rustem says wildlife biologists these days are often chained to their
desks.


“Years ago, when I first started with the Department of Natural
Resources, wildlife habitat biologists spent quite a bit of time in the field
actually doing fieldwork. With the types of things that are going on now,
they’ve become much more in getting the planning done and we’ve had
to shift some of that fieldwork done to the technician level. Frankly,
yeah, we could always use additional people out there.”


Rustem is with the Wildlife Division of the Michigan Department of
Natural Resources. He says state funding has fallen steadily for years,
and one way he’s made up the difference is by involving Michigan
citizens. Rustem says the DNR uses dozens of volunteers for its frog and
toad survey in the early part of the summer.


“This is our tenth year and we’ve got at least 120 people who’ve been
doing this all ten years. That’s a tremendous amount of data that’s being
provided for us on information about species and where they’re located.”


Many groups are now using so-called citizen scientists to collect data.
Sally Petrella is a biologist who works with the non-profit organization
the Friends of the Detroit River.


“We’ve cut out so much of the funding for regular science that there’s a
real lack, and citizen scientists can cover far more areas than
professionals can, at a much lower cost.”


Petrella is standing beside the murky, reed-choked waters of the Rouge
River Watershed. It’s home to six species of frogs and toads. Every
summer, Friends of the Detroit River enlists the help of 700 people to
listen for the creatures as they call to each other from the marshy
grasses.


Petrella is standing beside one of her more loyal volunteers… Al Sadler.
Sadler admits that part of the appeal is the walk along the banks of the
river… but he also believes that public participation in wildlife
protection has become an absolute necessity.


“I think that it’s required if we plan on keeping any wildlife areas
around. I think that if citizens don’t get involved, I think that people
won’t know what they’re going to miss, and before we know it, there
won’t be much wild places left.”


Sadler is a fairly typical citizen scientist. He has a day job as an engineer
and volunteers in his spare time, but there are also people with advanced
degrees in biology and wildlife management who are called citizen
scientists simply because they don’t work for the government.


Dennis Fijakowski is one of those people. He’s the executive director of
the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy.


“We can’t count on the government to do everything for us. We have to
be a part of the solution.”


Fijakowski says ordinary people have made important contributions to
wildlife conservation. He says the lynx was considered extinct in
Michigan until a trapper caught one, and a rare Great Gray Owl was
discovered on a national wildlife refuge last spring by a photographer.


“You look back at the conservation history of our state and it was citizen
led. All of the important, the milestone decisions, legislation… it was
citizen led.”


John Kostyack with the National Wildlife Federation says involving
citizen scientists is great, but…


“They’re not really a substitute for having staff in the wildlife agencies…
state and federal and tribal. Because they are the ones who are going to
take this initial data, which is going to be very rough from volunteers,
and then use it to decide upon where to take the research next.”


And there have been cases in which citizen scientists have clashed with
state and federal governments. They are consistently at odds with government
officials over issues related to global warming and the Michigan Wildlife
Conservancy is locked in a bitter battle with state biologists over whether
the state is home to a viable cougar population.


The Conservancy’s Dennis Fijakowski acknowledges that the union
between government biologists and citizen scientists may not always be
an easy one, but he says the involvement of residents in the protection of
their state’s wildlife can only be a good thing.


“Because all anyone of us wants is that we pass on a wild legacy to our
children and grandchildren… and we’re not going to if we don’t get our
acts together.”


Many organizations offer citizens the opportunity to get involved in data
collection, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.


For the GLRC, I’m Celeste Headlee.

Related Links

Safer Winter Home for Whooping Cranes?

The small flock of whooping cranes being reintroduced in the eastern U.S. may have a safer time at their winter home in Florida this year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach explains:

Transcript

The small flock of whooping cranes being reintroduced in the eastern U.S. may have a safer time
at their winter home in Florida this year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
explains:


Last year, bobcats killed two of the migrating whooping cranes that were staying at the
Chassahowitzka wildlife refuge in Florida.


The cranes like to roost in a certain amount of water, but when the tide level inside their pen
wasn’t right, the birds went to an unprotected area and the bobcats attacked. This year, refuge
managers have taken steps to help the 20 or so cranes roost inside their pens.


Whooping crane Eastern partnership spokesperson, Heather Ray, says many tons of oyster shells
have been dumped into a protected area where the tide flows in and out.


“As the tide goes out, the birds can, you know, move down on this oyster bed and still be in water
and as it comes in move up on it and still be in water, so they will hear predators approaching.”


It took about 300 helicopter loads to build the oyster reef. The whooping cranes will stay in
Florida until February or March, then are expected to head back toward Wisconsin.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach reporting.

Private Endangered Species Sites Made Public

The courts have ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot keep the whereabouts of endangered species secret. The ruling comes in a case where a builder tried to find out whether there was an endangered species on land he wanted to buy for development. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The courts have ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cannot keep the
whereabouts of endangered species secret. The ruling comes in a case where a builder
tried to find out whether there was an endangered species on land he wanted to buy for
development. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The Fish and Wildlife Service says it didn’t want to reveal whether it found endangered
species on private property, afraid it would lose the trust of private landowners if it made
the information public. So, when the National Association of Home Builders filed a
request for the locations of an endangered species, the Fish and Wildlife Service omitted
all the sitings on private land. Jerry Howard is the CEO of the home builders group. He
says builders need that information.


“Our members who are looking at buying land in areas affected will be able to make
informed decisions and comply with the regulations because they’ll know what they’re
walking into. And we’ll be able to protect the species ’cause we’ll know that they’re
there and we’ll be able not to do things that harm their habitat.”


The Fish and Wildlife Service could appeal the ruling because it sets a precedent that
could be used by any group to determine where endangered species are located.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.