Trout Meeting Is Exclusive
(From For the Record, Tuesday, May 9, 1995): Steve Kelly, of Friends of the Wild Swan, no longer is a leader in the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. His affiliation was misstated in a Friday article about bull trout.
Former Gov. Cecil Andrus is holding a conference on bull trout, but isn’t inviting the people who are fighting for an endangered species listing for the big native fish.
Steve Kelly of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies asked Andrus if there was a place at the June 1-2 gathering for him. The alliance, along with Friends of the Wild Swan, and the Swan View Coalition, petitioned the federal government to list the species back in 1992.
Andrus wrote back, acknowledging the groups’ role in bringing public attention to the trout. But he refused to invite Kelly.
“The purpose of the conference is to bring together scientists, government policymakers, and business interests to meet in open discussion with the goal … of determining the best ways to protect and encourage the bull trout,” Andrus wrote from his Andrus Center for Public Policy in Boise.
“Comments attributed to you in the media and elsewhere lead me to believe that your mind is already made up and that you feel there is no reason to talk about bull trout because the plans are in place,” Andrus wrote.
The Idaho Conservation League is a co-sponsor.
John McCarthy, the league’s conservation director, said Thursday that his organization had encouraged Andrus from the start to invite Kelly. The league supports an endangered species listing for bull trout, McCarthy said, but has not been a lead player on the issue.
The Idaho Fish and Game Department also has sought an invitation to the conference but so far hasn’t received one, said Will Reid, coordinator of the state’s proposed bull trout conservation strategy. “We’d love to participate,” he said Thursday.
The program also includes biologist Bill Platts, who was hired by the timber industry and has produced a report saying there is not enough evidence to list the bull trout as endangered.
Andrus is strongly opposed to an endangered species listing for the trout.