Scientists rip U.S. salmon recovery policy

WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- Six scientists, paid by the U.S. government to advise it on marine wildlife but then allegedly ignored, have published their views anyway.

The National Marine Fisheries Service had hired the six as consultants on salmon recovery. But in an article published Friday in the journal Science, charge the agency ignored their views.

"We were trying to do an honest job and we were called radical environmentalists," said Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist from Dalhousie University in Canada.

"It was troubling to administrators we objected to the policy that habitat did not need to be protected. There was a clear implication if we continued to talk about policy, the group would be disbanded."

The group recommended the agency rewrite its regulations to ensure the continuation of federal protections for salmon and steelhead in California, Oregon and Washington state in the wake of a federal court ruling that put those safeguards in jeopardy.

William Hogarth, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, disputed the scientists' claims that their views were squelched.