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Sunday, May 23, 2004
Scientific method causes disagreement among biologists, environmental groups
Panther conservation research center of heated debate
By DINAH VOYLES PULVER
NEWS-JOURNAL ENVIRONMENT WRITER
A growing debate over the academics of Florida panther science could have widespread repercussions to the endangered cat’s fight for survival.
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Did You Know? Ways to turn things around for the Florida panther: 1. Stop using the faulty forest-habitat model until more analysis is done. 2. Reanalyze existing data on the panther obtained through modern techniques (i.e. collar tracking). 3. Establish an independent science steering committee. 4. Have more genetic monitoring. 5. Research where the panthers go at night. |
Is the current science the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses to determine critical habitat flawed? Four papers in the last two years say yes and they’re bringing into question a decade of policy and the work of a longtime expert.
On one side are several major environmental groups, a biologist with the federal agency overseeing panther protection and a number of nongovernment biologists and scientists.
On the other side are a biologist who has worked with the panther for nearly 20 years, his former co-workers at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the wildlife service.
The two agencies are responsible for panther protection in Florida. The wildlife service advises the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on permitting issues in a panther priority area in South Florida.
The method the wildlife service and the Corps use to determine panther habitat, whether it can be damaged and how much land developers should preserve to make up for the habitat loss is critical, environmental groups say, especially in rapidly growing South Florida. Two of the counties with the most critical habitat, Lee and Collier, are considered among the hottest housing markets in the country.
Environmental groups say the service “repeatedly bows” to “enormous pressure from politically connected developers.”
The service argues that it has pushed to have developers preserve or restore with native vegetation an acre of land for every two acres disturbed or destroyed.
The service is “on the forefront of scientific advances in understanding how to recover the Florida panther,” said Jay Slack, field supervisor for the service’s South Florida Ecological Services Office. “The service is using this new information, as we speak, to advance panther conservation in Florida.”
Much of the work being questioned was done by David Maehr, an associate professor of conservation biology at the University of Kentucky, and several colleagues.
Maehr, who has a doctorate from the University of Florida, worked for the wildlife commission for nine years in the 1990s and wrote a book on panther conservation, “The Florida Panther: Life and Death of a Vanishing Carnivore” (Island Press).
A respected biologist, Maehr had 17 journal articles published in the past two decades.
In 2002, Jane Comiskey, a researcher with the Institute for Environmental Modeling at the University of Tennessee, and others, wrote a paper critical of Maehr’s work. Comiskey published another article in April. Those reports and others say the work by Maehr and colleagues contains errors and uncertainties and excludes data for unexplained reasons.
By not collecting radio collar readings when panthers are most active in the evening, Comiskey’s team wrote, Maehr put “undue emphasis” on daytime land use. They said large areas of South Florida with abundant prey used heavily by panthers would score low if evaluated using the existing method.
The National Wildlife Federation and the Florida Panther Society also published an article critical of Maehr’s work, including the philosophy that panthers prefer forested areas.
But Maehr, in a written response to some of the criticisms, said other biologists also have written that forests are the most important habitat.
The value of forested land, especially just to the north of existing panther populations in South Florida, can’t be overemphasized, Maehr wrote. “The importance of these areas should be above all debate.”
Maehr said he fears an emphasis on nonforested land could result in the destruction of critical forested land.
The wildlife service convened a panel of four independent scientists last year to review and analyze the available panther literature. The team not only criticized some of Maehr’s work, but also the agencies.
“Progress has lagged on ecological and social research needed to reintroduce panthers outside of South Florida,” the team wrote.
It concluded two of Maehr’s studies had poorly supported inferences and did not rigorously compare habitats available to radio-collared panthers.
In his written response in January, Maehr challenged the team’s conclusions and said they unfairly misrepresented and targeted his work while overlooking the work of other biologists.
“A healthy, professional debate is essential in the evolution of our understanding of Florida panther ecology and conservation needs,” Maehr wrote.
State biologists and others compare the criticisms against Maehr to armchair quarterbacking, saying the information was collected over nearly 20 years, dating back to a time when today’s technological advances weren’t available.
One member of the review team, Paul Beier, scientist with the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University, said he regrets that some have turned the report into a personal attack on Maehr.
“It is our job to evaluate scientific inferences not the scientist,” he said. “I have no qualms about David’s professional ability. He’s done some great work.”
The science team recommended ways to turn things around.
The team said the wildlife service should immediately stop using its habitat model and its beliefs about panthers’ reliance on forest until more analysis is done.
Existing data should be reanalyzed, the team said. It also recommended establishing an independent science steering committee and called for more genetic monitoring and research on where panthers go at night.
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