WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, December 19, 2012
WildEarth Guardians Sues Federal Wildlife-Killing Agency

USDA-Wildlife Services Improperly withholds Public Records
Contact: Wendy Keefover 505 819-5925

Albuquerque, NM. WildEarth Guardians yesterday sued Wildlife Services, the agency that kills millions of wild and domestic animals annually on the taxpayers’ dime, after it failed to produce timely records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Guardians’ records request concerned emails to and from Wildlife Services Deputy Administrator Bill Clay with regards to communications about the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

“The singular purpose of FOIA is to give citizens the ability to watch their government and hold it accountable,” stated Wendy Keefover, Director of Carnivore Protection for WildEarth Guardians. “Yet, Wildlife Services never fails to disappoint.”

Wildlife Services has a long history of failure to disclose it records to the public. In addition to the Bill Clay emails failure, other recent incidents include:

• In August, WildEarth Guardians had requested time-sensitive records concerning the Fox Mountain Mexican wolf pack and its alleged livestock-killing tendencies. (Because of Wildlife Services’ allegation about livestock losses, the Fox Mountain wolf mother of several pups was captured and removed from the wild.) After months’ long delay, Wildlife Services finally produced 900 pages of records but completely redacted 700 pages. On October 30, WildEarth Guardians appealed Wildlife Services’ response. Under FOIA, has 30 days to issue a new record, but it hasn’t.
• More recently, Guardians requested records from the Wildlife Services’ employees who administer the agency’s animal-killing database, the Management Information System (MIS). Wildlife Services claimed it could not produce two years of employee emails because they were “inadvertently purged.”

Today’s litigation seeks to garner over 1,000 pages of documents that the agency claims it has found, but will not release to Guardians, despite assertions otherwise.

“In this era of much needed federal budget cutting, Congress should take a hard look at Wildlife Services, its record of consistent accountability failures, and then ax the federal wildlife-killing tax for good,” added Keefover.