The federal government has suspended a wildlife biologist whose sightings of dead polar bears in Arctic waters became a rallying point for campaigners seeking to blunt the impact of global warming.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement notified the biologist, Charles Monnett, on July 18 that he had been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into “integrity issues,” according to a copy of a letter posted online by the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
Documents posted by the group indicate that the inquiry centers on a 2006 report that Dr. Monnett co-wrote on deaths among polar bears swimming in the Beaufort Sea.
Dr. Monnett and a co-author, Jeffrey Gleason, prepared the seven-page observational report for the peer-reviewed journal Polar Biology after spotting four dead polar bears during an aerial survey of bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea in 2004. As word of the sightings spread, images of drowned polar bears became a staple for activists who warned that global warming and the retreat of sea ice were threatening the bears’ survival.
Dr. Monnett did not respond to a voicemail message left at his home near Anchorage. Efforts to reach Dr. Gleason were also unsuccessful.
So far there is no indication of personnel action taken against Dr. Gleason, who now works for the bureau in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jeffrey Loman, the ocean energy bureau’s deputy regional director for Alaska, who signed the July 18 letter informing Dr. Monnett that he was being placed on leave, declined to comment on Thursday on the reasons for the suspension. “It’s an ongoing investigation, and we don’t talk about these things, especially when it involves personnel matters,” he said.
On Thursday, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which defends workers in the environmental field against what it regards as abuses, filed a complaint accusing the ocean energy bureau of scientific misconduct. It said that in banning Dr. Monnett from conducting scientific work, it had disrupted his research, including at least one continuing study of polar bears.
A spokeswoman for the bureau said management of all science remained in competent hands.
Transcripts of an interview with Dr. Monnett posted online by the public employees group indicate that the bureau’s inspector general is focusing on calculations that Dr. Monnett made to estimate a 75 percent mortality rate among bears caught in a mid-September storm in the open sea.
Aside from the order to take administrative leave, no other documents have been made available specifying the accusations against Dr. Monnett. But a transcript of a Feb. 23 interview of Dr. Monnett by two special agents for the bureau’s inspector general, posted online by the employees group, indicates that they questioned him about a contention in the 2006 report that no dead bears had been seen in aerial surveys for 17 years before the 2004 sighting.
Dr. Monnett said that information had been relayed by a predecessor in his position, Steve Treacy.
In an interview, Dr. Treacy said that when he was in charge of the surveys on Alaska’s North Slope, “We recorded all the polar bears we saw. If there were dead ones, we would have noted that as such.” He added, “I don’t remember anything in the way of dead polar bears.”
He said of Dr. Monnett: “I think his integrity is good. What I’ve seen of it, he’s an honest guy who would tend to treat fairly with the data.”
The polar bear report had been approved by Dr. Monnett’s superiors at the bureau, which until last year was called the Minerals Management Service. But the approval was short-lived. In the interview transcript, Dr. Monnett is quoted as saying that “we got blasted, you know, really hard, by the agency” after the reports of the drowned bears circulated.
At another point, he said of his superiors, “They don’t want any impediment to, you know, what they view as their mission, which is to, you know, drill wells up there” and “put areas into production.”
Documents posted by the group indicate that the inquiry centers on a 2006 report that Dr. Monnett co-wrote on deaths among polar bears swimming in the Beaufort Sea.
Dr. Monnett and a co-author, Jeffrey Gleason, prepared the seven-page observational report for the peer-reviewed journal Polar Biology after spotting four dead polar bears during an aerial survey of bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea in 2004. As word of the sightings spread, images of drowned polar bears became a staple for activists who warned that global warming and the retreat of sea ice were threatening the bears’ survival.
Dr. Monnett did not respond to a voicemail message left at his home near Anchorage. Efforts to reach Dr. Gleason were also unsuccessful.
So far there is no indication of personnel action taken against Dr. Gleason, who now works for the bureau in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jeffrey Loman, the ocean energy bureau’s deputy regional director for Alaska, who signed the July 18 letter informing Dr. Monnett that he was being placed on leave, declined to comment on Thursday on the reasons for the suspension. “It’s an ongoing investigation, and we don’t talk about these things, especially when it involves personnel matters,” he said.
On Thursday, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which defends workers in the environmental field against what it regards as abuses, filed a complaint accusing the ocean energy bureau of scientific misconduct. It said that in banning Dr. Monnett from conducting scientific work, it had disrupted his research, including at least one continuing study of polar bears.
A spokeswoman for the bureau said management of all science remained in competent hands.
Transcripts of an interview with Dr. Monnett posted online by the public employees group indicate that the bureau’s inspector general is focusing on calculations that Dr. Monnett made to estimate a 75 percent mortality rate among bears caught in a mid-September storm in the open sea.
Aside from the order to take administrative leave, no other documents have been made available specifying the accusations against Dr. Monnett. But a transcript of a Feb. 23 interview of Dr. Monnett by two special agents for the bureau’s inspector general, posted online by the employees group, indicates that they questioned him about a contention in the 2006 report that no dead bears had been seen in aerial surveys for 17 years before the 2004 sighting.
Dr. Monnett said that information had been relayed by a predecessor in his position, Steve Treacy.
In an interview, Dr. Treacy said that when he was in charge of the surveys on Alaska’s North Slope, “We recorded all the polar bears we saw. If there were dead ones, we would have noted that as such.” He added, “I don’t remember anything in the way of dead polar bears.”
He said of Dr. Monnett: “I think his integrity is good. What I’ve seen of it, he’s an honest guy who would tend to treat fairly with the data.”
The polar bear report had been approved by Dr. Monnett’s superiors at the bureau, which until last year was called the Minerals Management Service. But the approval was short-lived. In the interview transcript, Dr. Monnett is quoted as saying that “we got blasted, you know, really hard, by the agency” after the reports of the drowned bears circulated.
At another point, he said of his superiors, “They don’t want any impediment to, you know, what they view as their mission, which is to, you know, drill wells up there” and “put areas into production.”
No comments:
Post a Comment