Wildlife manager or exterminator?

Alaskan wildlife biologists are questioning the new head of the linkurl:Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation at the Department of Fish and Game;http://www.wildlife.alaska.gov/ (ADFG) -- both his qualifications (or lack thereof) and his pro-hunter management strategies. A group of nearly 40 retired state biologists wrote a linkurl:letter;http://media.newsminer.com/docs/2010/rossiletter.pdf last month to linkurl:Denby Lloyd,;http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/commissioner/commissioner.php commissioner of ADFG, asking for a reconsideration of the recent appointment of Corey Rossi as the new department head. The letter argues that Rossi is a single issue advocate for hunting, and lacks basic qualifications to be an entry-level scientist with the department, and that the appointment "marks a departure from a science-based approach" to wildlife management.

Image: Wikimedia commons, Carl Chapman

"Wildlife is a public trust resource belonging to all Alaskans and, as such, there are additional management and conservation needs along with hunting," John Schoen, primary author of the letter to Lloyd, said in an email to...