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The Biocrat: Some say Phil Detrich was a sellout. Others, a savior. He says he was just doing his job.

Posted by: Maven on March 18, 2010 at 7:01 am

From the North Coast Journal:

“Actually, it’s probably safe to say that “Phil Detrich” isn’t one those names bandied about when certain cronies gather around the campfire to talk about the good ol’ days. You know, the heydays of blockading timber roads and sitting in old-growth redwoods to save spotted owls from the cuts of Pacific Lumber. Or the days of climbing hundreds of feet up to haul down treesitters. The days of storming PacifiCorp shareholder meetings in Scotland, or lately Omaha, to urge the demolition of the Klamath dams to save the salmon. Or the days of gathering the red-blooded forces from every Western resource battlefront, past and present, to haul symbolic buckets to Klamath Falls in support of water-starved farmers.

Indeed, Phil Detrich is no Julia Butterfly. Nor is he a Charles Hurwitz. He is a nerdy, good-humored guy with the words “bird” and “fish” in his e-mail address. And he is an agency man. A seasonal wildlife biologist turned full-time bureaucrat — a “biocrat,” as he puts it. Someone who’s had to walk a narrow ledge of law and regulations amid a soupy storm of competing interests, and biological variability, and try to wring some balance out of the mess. And though you might not have heard of Detrich, the 62-year-old’s 30-year career twined intimately through some of our mightiest North Coast battles — including in his recent position, which he just retired from, as Field Supervisor for the Yreka Fish and Wildlife Office, which along with offices in Arcata and Klamath Falls primarily works on fish and wildlife protection and restoration in the Klamath River Basin. … “

What is Phil’s take-away message?

” … “The only thing we can really do about species decline is to reduce consumption of resources on an individual basis,” he said. “It’s choices that society makes that we are trying to compensate for. Recycling has increased. In general we’re driving cars that get better mileage than 30 years ago. But we’re building huge houses, we’re still using a lot of water, at least in this culture. It may well be that in the future the Julia Butterflies of the world will be scaling smokestacks in China. I mean, I guess we all pick battles that are of the scale we can handle personally. But the real need is to carry out our conservation ethic in a much broader scale than just a redwood grove.” “

Phil Dietrich takes a look back at his career and the difficult decisions he had to make in this article from The North Coast Journal – click here.

March 18, 2010 · Filed Under Wildlife & Endangered Species

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