One-third of wildlife refuge managers threatened

Scott Sonner

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 1999 | 10:26 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - More than 70 managers of national wildlife refuges across the country have experienced threats or harassment to their family or refuge staff, including at least three death threats, a worker advocacy group says.

Refuge workers across the country report an increasing number of potentially violent situations with hunters and other land users upset about federal policies, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

The group's survey, conducted in recent months, shows 32 percent of the refuge managers questioned have experienced some sort of trouble over the course of their career.

"It is past time for the Fish and Wildlife Service to take this issue seriously and take steps to better protect its field people," said Gene Hocutt, a recently retired veteran of the agency who worked 29 years on wildlife refuges in five states.

Fish and Wildlife Service officials said Tuesday they were taking the report seriously and would consider establishing a system to better track such cases.

The department does not keep centralized track of threats against employees. In Washington, it has a record of only one such incident: A mailroom clerk threatened a supervisor in Washington, D.C., last year.

"We are really concerned about the well-being of our employees out there. It is no secret that refuge managers and other federal conservation employees are sometimes harassed in the line of duty. Refuge managers are often in the hot seat," said agency spokesman Eric Eckl from Washington.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility surveyed all 380 federal refuge managers in recent months and 225 responded. Of those, 73 acknowledged threats, harassment or attacks against their families or refuge staff.

The survey didn't categorize the kinds of threats, although some workers described their encounters in an open-ended essay section at the end of the survey.

"At the time I didn't bother to report the threatened death of my children - I dealt with it," wrote one manager.

Jeff Ruch, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said most of the anecdotal reports his group has received directly from refuge managers in recent years have involved threatening phone calls or "messages spray painted on the wall of a manager's house and things of the like."

The group conducted a similar survey of Forest Service workers in 1995, with similar results, and the Forest Service adopted a tracking system, Ruch said.

In 1997, about one-fifth of refuge managers reported harassment, threats or attacks to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

"National wildlife refuges are under increased pressure from an array of user groups," said Hocutt, now a member of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The nonprofit group was founded in 1992 and claims 10,000 members.

"In order to protect the resource, the refuge manager sometimes just has to say 'No,' and it is becoming more common in this day and age for people to take exception in an uncivil way," said Hocutt, who lives in upstate New York.