Federal Biologist Blows Whistle on Florida Panther Science

WASHINGTON, DC, May 5, 2004 (ENS) - A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed a complaint against the agency Tuesday for knowingly using flawed science in its assessment of the habitat and population of the endangered Florida panther. The conservation implications of the problems "are that future generations will see the Florida panther only on personalized license plates," said Andrew Eller, Jr. in his complaint.

Eller has worked as a Fish and Wildlife biologist for 17 years and has spent the past decade working in the Florida panther recovery program.

"I could no longer tolerate the scientific charade where agency officials pretended that the Florida panther was not in jeopardy," stated Eller in the complaint, which was filed under the federal Data Quality Act of 2000.

The act requires the federal government to ensure information used in decision making and disseminated to the public be based on accurate, objective and peer reviewed science.

Eller, who was joined in the complaint by the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), says the Fish and Wildlife Service knowingly uses faulty studies to inflate the Florida panther population and minimize the species' habitat needs in order to put the interests of developers ahead of one of the nation's most endangered species.

Only 50 to 80 adult Florida panthers are believed to remain in the wild - the species was listed as endangered under federal law in 1967.

According to the complaint, the Fish and Wildlife Service has relied on panther literature that "contains unsupported assumptions, uses inappropriate analytical methods, and selectively uses data to support conclusions."

The Florida panther once ranged throughout the American southeast, from the lower Mississippi River valley eastward to Florida and the Atlantic coast - today it survives only in the subtropical swamps and forest of southern Florida. (Photo by D.W. Pfitzer courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Specific errors cited in the complaint include equating daytime habitat use patterns - when the panther is at rest - with nighttime use patterns, when the cats are most active.

The complaint says the agency uses studies that assume all known panthers are breeding adults, discounting juvenile, aged and ill animals.

In addition, it faults the use of population estimates, reproductive rates and kitten survival rates not supported by field data.

"The prevalence of these errors handicaps the agency's ability to ensure the survival and recovery of the panther," Eller wrote in the complaint. "The panther monitoring project authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to identify or correct these errors and has instead contributed to them."

The Fish and Wildlife Service had no comment on the report - agency officials have 60 days to decide whether to accept or contest the complaint.

But this is not the first time the agency's Florida panther recovery effort has been called into question and there is ample evidence the species is running out of time. Scientists believe at least two additional populations somewhere other than south Florida need to be established in order to reduce the threat of extinction.

The primary threat to the species is habitat loss and fragmentation - a problem that has worsened as development in Southwest Florida has boomed in recent decades and one that is unlikely to improve.

Some 50 percent of occupied panther habitat now consists of private lands and much of this lies in three Florida counties - Lee, Collier and Henry.

Recent housing research indicates Lee and Collier are among the top four hottest housing markets in the country.

And a report released in January by conservation groups details that the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have permitted development throughout thousands of acres of Florida panther habitat in southwest Florida, much of which the the Fish and Wildlife Service has deemed "essential" to the panther's survival in its own scientific documents.

Critics worry the Florida panther recovery effort is being undermined by decisions that offer little protection for the species long-term future. (Photo by John and Karen Hollingsworth courtesy Fish and Wildlife Service)

Similar to the allegations made by Eller in his complaint, the report finds the Fish and Wildlife Service has rationalized its approvals of this extensive habitat loss by using a body of scientific work that has been disputed by all of the panther scientists on the agency's own recovery team except the author of that work.

It noted that an agency commissioned independent review of this scientific controversy issued a report in December 2003 further questioning the agency's decisions to allow destruction of panther habitat.

"These scientific problems have been known for years by the Fish and Wildlife Service but to correct them would require that the Service actually object to mega-developments planned in the Western Everglades," said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "The Fish and Wildlife Service is under severe pressure from its political superiors to commit scientific fraud to avoid inconveniencing campaign contributors."