During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing last week, Rep. VAl Hoyle (D-OR) spoke about mass layoffs at agencies in the Department of the Interior.
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NewsTranscript
00:00for her five minutes of questioning.
00:05Thank you very much.
00:09This question is for Dr. Kariva.
00:13As we've seen, and certainly we've seen in the Pacific Northwest, the
00:19gutting of
00:21federal agencies with without any concern about
00:27the importance of the jobs that are being done. This is being done in a very non-strategic way, and we've seen
00:34lots of effects.
00:35Could you
00:37speak to how these firings at the Fish and Wildlife Service and
00:42National Marine Fisheries Service would affect the ability of services to identify,
00:47interpret, and carry out the basic science necessary to make informed ESA decisions?
00:53Sure, I'll be glad to.
00:58So most of my experience with these federal agencies is in the field, and
01:03what is happening, you have to realize, there's field biologists out there every day collecting information on water quality,
01:10how inflammable the vegetation is, keeping track of our environment.
01:16I know from our collaborators in
01:19Southern California that one of the cuts that have been made is with the credit card limits.
01:23You're a field biologist, and you can't buy equipment like a water quality
01:27sample sampler, and it hampers, even without the firing, it hampers the ability to collect baseline information.
01:35It's, you know, it's like a fire alarm in your house.
01:38It's the field biologists that are the fire alarm for the planet, and we need them out there every day.
01:48So,
01:49it's vitally important that we get this information, that field biologists are able to get this information.
01:56Can you talk about
02:01the,
02:03where we get certain sources of information?
02:06What is the best available science, and why is mandating the use of certain sources of data
02:12a good or a bad idea?
02:14You know, best available scientists, sometimes when I hear that, I think that it's, what's my most favorite science?
02:20I like to think of it as the weight of evidence. Science is continually evolving. The best available science
02:28changes from year to year. It's interesting with my wolf colleague here.
02:33The wolf recovery goals were set before we had any genetic information.
02:37We couldn't even collect DNA and sequence it like we can
02:40now. If you sample wolves from 90 to 150 years ago and look at their genetics and compare them to the wolves today,
02:49they've lost half their variability.
02:51That doesn't show up in numbers,
02:53but losing half the variability in genetics is like losing half of your stock portfolio and just having a much diminished option.
03:01So, the best available science changes from year to year, and it has to be updated,
03:06and it's really peer-reviewed science that is the best available science.
03:11So, with your background and your
03:14studies, what do you feel is the best approach?
03:18I didn't catch that last phrase. What do you feel is the best approach for addressing wolves and the,
03:27through the perspective of the Endangered Species Act? I think the best approach for handling wolves right now is
03:33updating the science, both the genetics and what's going around, you know, think about it.
03:39There were half a million to two million wolves in a country before.
03:44Now we're down to six to eight thousand.
03:47The five-year plan, you know, for delisting in only five years. In the last five years, we killed
03:543,500 wolves. Down to six to eight thousand wolves in the last five years, we killed 3,500 wolves
04:00when the population used to be, at a minimum, half a million. So that we would update the science,
04:08and we would also take into account, our recovery should take into account,
04:13livelihoods of their ranchers and that, and we would have a management plan that accounted for wolves
04:19and accounted for ranching. You could do that with the best available science. You could have both.
04:24Great. Thank you so much, and I yield back.