The United States Fish
& Wildlife Service Mistaken Location of the Endangered Pilosocereus robinii, Key Tree Cactus
Overview
As a young naïve,
recently graduated, graduate student, I was excited about going out and working
helping to save endangered species. Since then I’ve worked to try to do such a
task. During the course of that work I contacted many employees who work in agencies
directly responsible for endangered species programs. Some are very nice and
they did the best they could to help me. Others are very rude and are verbally
abusive. I have had multiple cases of both. Some of my questions still haven’t
been answered. This is years later.
First I want to say if
you want to help endangered species you are in for a horrible, frustrating
road.
Second I suggest you
document everything.
For my research I
needed data from the United States Fish & Wildlife Service. During my
search I found an error by the “Service,” as they call themselves. I’ve found
these things before. I’ve ignored them before. So I thought, well let me tell
someone so maybe they will fix it. I’ve told people before, and the results
varied. From those past times, I learned I need to document stuff.
My research took the
state location of where species are found. Through the service website, I
obtained this information as is available for any school student with interest
in such a topic. Pilosocereus robinii,
the Key Tree Cactus, was shown to be in Florida and California. To this day I
guess “Key” in the common name comes from the Florida Keys. Anyway, California
and Florida are far apart. How is an endangered plant rare yet found on
different coasts? I then researched more into this question by reading the
available recovery plan and status reviews. The researched did not provide
evidence for California. I concluded it as an error, the plant is NOT found in
California. Funny the website map for the species didn’t even show Florida,
rather it focused on California completely omitting the species range.
I documented the
mistake so that I could explain the problem to a service employee. That was my
original rational for why I still have the following information. I saved the
website view as a PDF, that PDF is pictured below. Take note that the species
is believed to occur in California (red circle) and that Florida wasn’t even
pictured (part of circle because Florida wasn’t available).
I think, obviously an
error. Let me contact someone to confirm, then maybe contact someone to fix the
problem. The FWS has a great ask a question spot. It has both helped me and not
helped me in the past. In this case they didn’t help me, but it did help me.
The response I received and the message I submitted is below (my information
blotted out):
I applaud whoever
responded. They tried to help me. They looked at what I found out and went with
what they saw. They even suggested I contact another office. Well I called that
office, they transferred me multiple times, eventually leading to a Mr. Olah. I
think I got his answering machine, but in any case the person in charge was not
available. I searched the internet and found his contact information and sent
him an email. That email is below (I censored my identification information).
It is February 2017 as
I type this. Maybe they still have me on the list to return my email.
Well then I had to go
away from my quest for answers due to work. While away one night, I thought to
look up the website again. To my surprise the site had changed! California was
no longer listed. My email showed no reply from anyone, it was late April 2016 when
I checked. So within 6 weeks of my email, the website was fixed! No thank you
or anything for my email. Now February 2017, I show what the site looks like
now: https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp0/profile/speciesProfile?spcode=Q208
also pictured below.
No more California.
Look I even helped them find Florida!
Thanks to my research,
I helped the service determine and remove a federally endangered species from
the State of California of the Endangered Species Act. It was unfortunately for
all the school children, scientists, and government employees who were misled
by the erroneous information, as I had been. Yet for future children,
scientists, and government employees this information has been corrected!
Mistakes do happen.
This mistake wasn’t that big of a deal. When you think of cactus, you might
think of Arizona or New Mexico. Maybe even California. Florida has fewer
species. Maybe they mixed cactus with cactus somewhere that originally caused
the mistake. So much other information I found does appear to be correct,
mistakes are way fewer. Thank you to the Service for making information
publicly available. Unlike me thanking the Service, the Service has yet to
thank me for helping them. I don’t care so much about credit. What I care about
is helping recover endangered plant species.
Helping endangered
species is a brutal fight, an uphill climb against the Service. I have asked to
help the Service recover species. They tell me no. They tell me no every single
time. Well so I need to make them see I can help. By showing them such an
example, I hope they will listen.
This was an example I
had documented. So many other, more worthy, activities I don’t have documented.
Yet the Service has thwarted my efforts. The Service is only hurting itself
when they ignore citizens. The current state of the Service produces a lot of bureaucracy
without return of species recovery. It will take big changes. The Endangered
Species Act is great and has the potential to be great. Unfortunately they have
some bad people managing it. They will have to change before endangered and
threatened plant species can be expected to recover. They will have to work
with private citizens, not ignore and reject them.
Thank you for reading.
Comment for discussion if you would like. Have a nice day!
