Tribes were treated unfairly by USFWS

Editor,

The recent events at the National Bison Range have compelled me to voice my observations while working at the NBR as a volunteer. I believe the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) employees were not treated fairly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). I would like to add that I was formerly employed by the FWS and have previously had a very positive opinion of this federal agency.

In 2004, prior to management negotiations between FWS and CSKT, I began volunteering at the NBR on a weed mapping project. Sometime during the winter of 2004/2005, the CSKT and the NBR implemented the annual funding agreement (AFA) that turned over some management duties at NBR to the Tribes. Although I was aware of this change I did not expect this to affect me as a volunteer. In the spring of 2005, I sent an email to FWS inquiring about volunteer opportunities at the NBR. I received a reply that there would no longer be any volunteer opportunities due to the AFA and that the weed mapping project had been canceled. FWS listed the many hours of work provided by volunteers and mentioned what a loss this would be to NBR. I was confused why the AFA would exclude volunteers.

During the summer 2005, I discovered that the CSKT was accepting volunteers for projects at the NBR, and that in fact, the AFA did not eliminate volunteers from the refuge. I volunteered to assist the CSKT with the bison roundup in October 2005 and 2006. During both of these roundups I witnessed animosity from some of the FWS employees towards employees of the CSKT.

In particular, I noticed a FWS employee giving incomplete orders to CSKT biologists and shrugging off their questions. Also, CSKT biologists were told they were too careless to use an expensive microchip scanner and were restricted from using this tool. Despite these conditions the CSKT employees and volunteers worked hard and made both the 2005 and 2006 roundups a success.

I believe that FWS employees misrepresented the options for volunteers to continue to help at the NBR and treated CSKT employees and volunteers in a condescending and unprofessional manner. This leads me to believe that some FWS employees are more concerned with politics than they are with the refuge itself.

In comparison, the CSKT employees that I worked with seemed to have a genuine concern for the refuge and this was supported by their hard work. I do not feel the FWS was willing to work with the AFA and their actions on Dec. 11, 2006, only reinforce this opinion. As a volunteer who has invested time and energy at the NBR and a former FWS employee, I have lost a lot of respect for FWS.

Dennis Lichtenberg

Ronan