The hair-raising tale of the lynx
January 23, 2002

Westerners have for years believed themselves the target of a national government in league with environmental extremists out to destroy their traditional way of life and deny them the use of the land that makes that way of life possible.

Now, it appears that the Westerners have proof not only of the existence of a war against them, but of the willingness of their enemies within the environmental movement and federal government agencies to lie, cheat and misuse the law to accomplish their ends. Indeed, for perhaps the first time, the proof that even paranoids have enemies is coming to light for all to see. The question is whether anyone, anywhere will do anything about it.

The favored weapon of the environmental community and its governmental allies has been, and continues to be, the Endangered Species Act allowing federal bureaucrats, once they get an animal listed, to figure out where it lives and what it needs to survive and to then slap all kinds of prohibitions on how the land on which it lives can be used.

The response to all this from government regulators has always been that, say what you want, they have no choice because what they do is based on “science.” Westerners and others argue that the “science” with which environmentalists justify their actions is often suspect. They’ve argued, for example, that many of the studies classifying some species as endangered or establishing the range that needs to be protected for others have been exaggerated, but through it all, though they’ve harbored their suspicions, they’ve never been able to demonstrate that their opponents simply make things up to justify what they’re doing.

But all that is changing because of a few hairs from an endangered lynx.

It seems that one of the ways wildlife scientists determine the range of an endangered species is to put little sticky patches on trees in parts of the forest they might inhabit and then check them periodically to see if there are any around. The Canadian lynx is just such a species and the environmental police suspected some of them might be roaming around state and forestlands in Washington state. So, they put out their patches and waited, but found no hair,

Not to be deterred, however, and in the name of saving this animal, three Forest Service employees and two Fish and Wildlife Service officials, along with a few like-minded Washington state employees, took matters into their own hands. They went out, found some lynx hair and planted it. When they got caught, they argued — like former Rep. Kelly of Abscam fame — that they were “conducting their own investigation to see if government labs could, in fact, distinguish between the real thing and planted sample.”

Right.

Congress has, of course, promised to investigate the matter along with charges, but no one seriously believes that anything will come from this except some congressional breast-beating.

The fact is that federal government employees were caught planting evidence that could be used to deny citizens and taxpayers the right to use lands to which they would otherwise have access. That’s not all that much different from the horror stories that have surfaced in recent years about police planting drugs on suspects so that they could confiscate their property under civil forfeiture laws. The difference is that cops who do such things are — when caught — fired and prosecuted.

These guys haven’t been fired. Instead, the Interior Department refuses to release their names, but has said they are receiving counseling and won’t be allowed to participate in completing the study, according to Audrey Hudson of The Washington Times.

One has to assume that these remedial steps were taken by their bureaucratic superiors — men and women who share their view that the end justifies the means in the campaign to protect the lynx at whatever cost. There are, however, non-bureaucrats at Interior and at the Department of Agriculture. The secretary of the interior should move now to fire these people. She, after all, is a Westerner and if she and an administration that came to power by appealing to the victim of this hoax for votes won’t do anything about it, other Westerners have every right to conclude that there’s something in the air and water in this city that makes those who come here sworn enemies of an entire region of our country.