Manning calls for common sense dialogue
By BRODIE FARQUHAR Star-Tribune staff writer
Wyoming Game and Fish Director Brent Manning said he’ll rely on large doses of “common sense” to guide the department’s internal discussions as it develops a wolf management plan for the state.
Manning’s department was criticized recently when newspapers learned wolf biologist Dave Moody had been sent home for a week, with pay, after Moody had discussed problems facing department efforts to delist the gray wolf in Wyoming earlier this month.
All that Manning would say Friday about Moody is that he is “a department employee in good standing.”
Manning said he encourages vigorous debate and discussion within the department as the best way to reach hard decisions, but emphasized that once a decision is reached, he expects everyone to get on board and help implement that decision.
“For example, there are many, many opinions about when we should set certain hunting seasons,” Manning said. If he has a dozen biologists weigh in on the issue and 11 agree with one set of recommendations, Manning doesn’t want the twelfth biologist “throwing rocks” later on.
If it turns out that the lone dissenting biologist was right all along, “I’ll put more stock in what he says the next year,” Manning said.
The director laughed and said he’d heard the old human resources adage that if something isn’t on paper, it doesn’t exist. “My goodness, if we put everything that was common sense on paper, there’d be a lot of unread documents,” he said.
Manning said he’s trying to communicate to department employees what his values are, regarding open discussion.
“If it is good for the state, good for the department, if it is logical and ethical, then by all means talk about it,” Manning said. Yet he cautioned that he doesn’t want management options thrashed about in public, before the department’s management team has had a chance to weigh in on the topic at hand.
Manning re-emphasized his belief that the department is filled with good people and that open dialogue is the best path toward good science.
Regarding the development of a wolf management plan, Manning said the department will craft the best plan possible, within the constraints of legislation passed this year by the state Legislature. Wildlife officials will draw upon all resources, including Moody’s years of expertise, in developing that plan, Manning said.
The state Legislature passed a bill that treats the wolf both as a trophy game animal in a limited area around Yellowstone National Park, and a predator everywhere else in the state.
In his comments to fellow biologists at the 15th annual North American Interagency Wolf Conference, Moody noted that wolves will be regularly moving in and out of protected areas, and regularly run the risk of being shot as predatory animals. In Wyoming, predatory animals can be shot on sight.
That mixture of regulated killing of wolves as trophy animals, and unregulated killings of wolves as predators, would be a problem, warned Moody. “That does not provide long-term, adequate protection” of wolves currently under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, he said, and could delay the species’ delisting.
“Caution”
The Washington, D.C., watchdog group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), has had extensive experience with free speech and whistleblowing cases around the country. Jeff Ruch, PEER’s director, said some states have better track records than others.
“It really comes down to the federal and state Constitutions,” Ruch said. Some states are more protective of free speech and whistleblowing than the federal government, he said.
In PEER’s experience, administrators can sometimes quash free speech among employees, while trying to control public perception of their agencies, Ruch observed. Under the Clinton administration, Ruch appreciated efforts by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to protect free speech. Babbitt had zero tolerance for reprisal against employees who raised issues internally, Ruch said, which fostered the kind of scientific debate that good science requires.
PEER has tangled with the National Park Service, for example, over an effort to control what Park Service employees can and can’t say on their free time, Ruch said. The Park Service wants the right to grant permission to speak, Ruch said, and has been challenged by PEER.
“In order to get straight information, some legislatures have passed laws protecting state employees in their communication with legislators,” Ruch said.
Yet there are limits to free speech for public employees, he acknowledged. For example, a public employee can’t disrupt an agency investigation, said Ruch, or disrupt agency efficiency. While disrupting an investigation is pretty clear, Ruch said, the limits for disrupting agency efficiency and who decides is less certain.
Ruch said a “no surprises” policy for management can be a double-edged sword. For example, if Manning doesn’t want to be surprised by radio or newspaper coverage of his employees, Ruch said, maybe Manning should have anticipated coverage coming from a scientific conference about wolves.
Bottom line, said Ruch, the recent controversy over wolf expert Moody has to have a chilling effect on Game and Fish employees. “They’re going to have to think twice,” Ruch said, “wondering how much does the director know” and whether administrators will be surprised about future news accounts.