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QUOTE
Biologist looks back at 31-year state career
Will High laments effects of political pressures on his craft
HENRY MILLER - Statesman Journal
May 8, 2006
After 31 years with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, including the past 20 in Salem, biologist Will High has retired.
He started out as a fisheries technician -- becoming the department's explosives expert for a time -- out of the Rogue Valley and Cole Rivers Hatchery after getting out of the Peace Corps in 1975.
He shared his experiences during a recent "exit interview."
Question: What's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you on the job? What's the weirdest call you ever went out on?
Answer: The weirdest thing ... let me think (chuckles). One of the strangest was a caller who wanted a copy of our Bigfoot management plan, and he was serious. They wanted all of the data in our files about the local population of Bigfoot, and they thought we ought to have a management plan for it.
And it took a while to convince him that, unfortunately, we did not have any active files or a management plan for an organism that we could not observe, count (laughs) or inventory.
Q: What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?
A: I consider one of my successes, one of the things that I did that made a difference in the long run, is the good working relationships and cooperation that I had with the (timber and agricultural) landowners.
It gave us a place to put all of our ideas on the table and find some common ground. As far as the longevity of that goes after I'm gone, I can't even speculate.
Q: Disappointments?
A: The (newly adopted) cougar management plan. Because the money for it, the way I understand it, comes out of hunter dollars.
One of my disappointments is that the plan is addressing as best it can the concerns of the general population. But that population, through its legislators, has chosen to take no part in the financial responsibilities to make it happen.
And I don't think that was fair or reasonable to ask a user group that does not benefit significantly from that part of the plan to pay for it.
Q: In that regard, do you see more so-called wildlife management as being more social management now?
A: I think the general trend is to sublimate biology to political pressure. In the last bunch of years, I think that I could accurately say that 80 percent of my job was conflict resolution instead of biology.
Q: In what respect?
A: Conflicts between people that revolve around wildlife, conflicts between people and wildlife. ... There's wildlife damage in the timberlands and in agriculture and in rural suburbia.
There (are) neighbor conflicts where turkeys come into a neighborhood because one landowner is feeding them, and the rest of the neighbors hate them because of the damage they do. It's all of those kind of conflicts."
Q: Do you leave as an optimist, a pessimist or as a guy who's going to say, "I think I'll stick around and see how this turns out?"
A: I won't be sticking around to see how it turns out. I would like to be more optimistic than I am. I would like to think ... I think there are some really first-class people trying to do the best they possibly can who work for the department.
Let's just say I'm concerned about the increasing trend to make political decisions rather than biological. And I'm a biologist, not a politician.
Q: Is that a concern, the politicization of resource decisions?
A: I do know that if we're going to get back to our core direction from Oregon law, which is to "protect and enhance the resource for present and future generations," that we need to do it better from the top down.
You can't do it from the bottom up.
There are some really terrific people who work for us who are trying, if they're allowed to do their jobs, (to) do wonderful things for the resource. But an awful lot of people in power see us as an impediment to what they want to do.
And I think we're getting crushed.
Q: I've heard it from people in various agencies, partly because of the PERS changes causing a rash of retirements and partly because of the demographics of the boomers, that a lot of agencies are losing their institutional memory. Do you see that?
A: Yes, folks unfortunately are having to take what they know out the door with them. And I really don't know what that strategy benefits.
At the time when I was young, and the earth was young (laughs) and the earth had cooled, I got the job when there were more field jobs than there were headquarters jobs. You had entry-level jobs and you did a lot of field work. And that gave you the experience to make reasonable, supportable decisions when you got to a higher level.
But now, if you think about it, there's no entry-level jobs in the field. There's no place to start and to get the experience at a lower level before you're hired to make decisions that affect the resource and the people in the area.
I don't think that's a good trend, and the loss of staffing has been in the field. They haven't lost staff at headquarters. In fact, headquarters is far larger than it ever has been.
And in the early part of my career, I was told by those above that the most important people in the department were those in the field. I haven't heard that in a long time.
Q: How do you think you will be remembered?
A: (Laughs) That all depends on the person you talk to. I have been accused of being rough, blunt, all of that stuff, and it's probably true.
But I have tried to be honest and to treat everybody with an equal amount of respect. And I guess I would have spent a lot less time on conflict resolution if I could have expected that from everybody else.
hmiller@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6725
Will High laments effects of political pressures on his craft
HENRY MILLER - Statesman Journal
May 8, 2006
After 31 years with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, including the past 20 in Salem, biologist Will High has retired.
He started out as a fisheries technician -- becoming the department's explosives expert for a time -- out of the Rogue Valley and Cole Rivers Hatchery after getting out of the Peace Corps in 1975.
He shared his experiences during a recent "exit interview."
Question: What's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you on the job? What's the weirdest call you ever went out on?
Answer: The weirdest thing ... let me think (chuckles). One of the strangest was a caller who wanted a copy of our Bigfoot management plan, and he was serious. They wanted all of the data in our files about the local population of Bigfoot, and they thought we ought to have a management plan for it.
And it took a while to convince him that, unfortunately, we did not have any active files or a management plan for an organism that we could not observe, count (laughs) or inventory.
Q: What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?
A: I consider one of my successes, one of the things that I did that made a difference in the long run, is the good working relationships and cooperation that I had with the (timber and agricultural) landowners.
It gave us a place to put all of our ideas on the table and find some common ground. As far as the longevity of that goes after I'm gone, I can't even speculate.
Q: Disappointments?
A: The (newly adopted) cougar management plan. Because the money for it, the way I understand it, comes out of hunter dollars.
One of my disappointments is that the plan is addressing as best it can the concerns of the general population. But that population, through its legislators, has chosen to take no part in the financial responsibilities to make it happen.
And I don't think that was fair or reasonable to ask a user group that does not benefit significantly from that part of the plan to pay for it.
Q: In that regard, do you see more so-called wildlife management as being more social management now?
A: I think the general trend is to sublimate biology to political pressure. In the last bunch of years, I think that I could accurately say that 80 percent of my job was conflict resolution instead of biology.
Q: In what respect?
A: Conflicts between people that revolve around wildlife, conflicts between people and wildlife. ... There's wildlife damage in the timberlands and in agriculture and in rural suburbia.
There (are) neighbor conflicts where turkeys come into a neighborhood because one landowner is feeding them, and the rest of the neighbors hate them because of the damage they do. It's all of those kind of conflicts."
Q: Do you leave as an optimist, a pessimist or as a guy who's going to say, "I think I'll stick around and see how this turns out?"
A: I won't be sticking around to see how it turns out. I would like to be more optimistic than I am. I would like to think ... I think there are some really first-class people trying to do the best they possibly can who work for the department.
Let's just say I'm concerned about the increasing trend to make political decisions rather than biological. And I'm a biologist, not a politician.
Q: Is that a concern, the politicization of resource decisions?
A: I do know that if we're going to get back to our core direction from Oregon law, which is to "protect and enhance the resource for present and future generations," that we need to do it better from the top down.
You can't do it from the bottom up.
There are some really terrific people who work for us who are trying, if they're allowed to do their jobs, (to) do wonderful things for the resource. But an awful lot of people in power see us as an impediment to what they want to do.
And I think we're getting crushed.
Q: I've heard it from people in various agencies, partly because of the PERS changes causing a rash of retirements and partly because of the demographics of the boomers, that a lot of agencies are losing their institutional memory. Do you see that?
A: Yes, folks unfortunately are having to take what they know out the door with them. And I really don't know what that strategy benefits.
At the time when I was young, and the earth was young (laughs) and the earth had cooled, I got the job when there were more field jobs than there were headquarters jobs. You had entry-level jobs and you did a lot of field work. And that gave you the experience to make reasonable, supportable decisions when you got to a higher level.
But now, if you think about it, there's no entry-level jobs in the field. There's no place to start and to get the experience at a lower level before you're hired to make decisions that affect the resource and the people in the area.
I don't think that's a good trend, and the loss of staffing has been in the field. They haven't lost staff at headquarters. In fact, headquarters is far larger than it ever has been.
And in the early part of my career, I was told by those above that the most important people in the department were those in the field. I haven't heard that in a long time.
Q: How do you think you will be remembered?
A: (Laughs) That all depends on the person you talk to. I have been accused of being rough, blunt, all of that stuff, and it's probably true.
But I have tried to be honest and to treat everybody with an equal amount of respect. And I guess I would have spent a lot less time on conflict resolution if I could have expected that from everybody else.
hmiller@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6725
