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Outside Magazine April 2002

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Dispatches: Investigation
Debunking Lynxgate
As lawmakers accuse seven government biologists of fraud, the truth is drowned out by the headlines

By Daniel Glick

"THE ONLY THING we were doing was trying to get to the truth," says Mitch Wainwright, a 46-year-old Forest Service wildlife biologist based in Amboy, Washington. Instead he got an unwanted starring role in the most bizarre environmental flap of recent memory: Lynxgate.

Details of "the great biofraud," as the The Washington Times has dubbed the affair, first emerged just before Christmas. Wainwright and six other state and federal wildlife scientists in Washington State allegedly "planted" clumps of wild lynx fur in the Gifford Pinchot and Wenatchee national forests. The intent, say their accusers, was to trigger the protections that are imposed when a threatened species like the Canada lynx is found living in a new area, namely closure of the forest to recreationists and loggers. For their roles in a green conspiracy that seemed worthy of Oliver Stone, Wainwright and five colleagues were reassigned to other programs—one other retired—and were told to keep their mouths shut. Wainwright was very reluctant to speak to Outside, fearing not only for his job but also for the future of all endangered-species programs in the United States.

Why? Because industry groups, pundits, and conservative lawmakers—led by Republican House Committee on Resources chairman James Hansen of Utah and Scott McInnis of Colorado, the Republican who chairs the subcommittee that oversees national forests—are using the lynx controversy to launch wide-ranging attacks on endangered-species policies past, present, and future. "There is so much fear out there about how [the Endangered Species Act] works," says McInnis spokesman Blain Rethmeier. Then again, at least some of the fear has been inspired by McInnis himself. Last year, after four wilderness firefighters perished in a blaze in Washington State, he charged that Forest Service officials may have been culpable by delaying a decision allowing a helicopter to scoop water from a river containing threatened fish. The charge was later proven false.

What emerges is not a scientific scandal but a case study in media-amplified demagoguery.

It's all pretty rousing stuff, but the real untold story is that the great lynx biofraud is baloney. Outside interviewed 25 scientists, investigators, and policy makers familiar with the incident, and reviewed all the relevant reports. What emerges is not a scientific scandal but a case study in media-amplified demagoguery. There is no evidence whatsoever to support either a conspiracy or a cover-up. The scientists didn't "plant" lynx fur in the forests. They didn't plot to invoke the Endangered Species Act through falsified data. And even if they had, it wouldn't have worked, because any evidence of lynx would have to be confirmed with further research before new management decisions could be made.

Lynxgate's selectively told tale of environmental skullduggery has so angered some biologists that they've started using the M word. "It's McCarthy politics all over again," says Elliott Norse, a founder of the Society for Conservation Biology, an Arlington, Virginia-based group that encourages biodiversity research. "It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

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