San Diego

A study of the habitat of the threatened Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) in US forests is embroiled in fierce controversy, after it emerged that wildlife biologists sent fur samples from captive lynx to a laboratory that was supposed to be monitoring the whereabouts of the animals in the wild.

The Washington Times published allegations last month that the biologists were seeking to distort a national survey of the lynx by planting the captive animals' fur in the forest.

Critics of wildlife-conservation measures in the United States — including powerful figures in both Congress and the Bush administration — have pounced on the allegations, claiming that they confirm their worst fears about how far government scientists will go to justify wildlife protection.

But the biologists involved hotly deny any intent to deceive, saying that the samples were never “planted” in the forest, but were sent to the laboratory to check that it was testing properly.

The existence of Canada lynx in the western United States is a highly charged political issue. Under the 1973 Endangered Species Act, areas that are populated by the threatened cat are subject to restrictions on logging, mining and public access.

The population has been monitored since 1998 by a national lynx-detection programme, conducted by the US Department of Agriculture's Forest Service in cooperation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal and state agencies. Under the scheme, biologists place scratch pads in the forest to snag lynx hair, which is then submitted to a laboratory to confirm its identity.

In 1998, federal officials say, a private contractor hired to carry out the survey's first season found the lynx in several forest regions in Washington state. The next year, biologists at the Forest Service took over the study, but found the lynx in only one region of the state.

But in 2000, confusion arose among the various state and federal biologists who were sending samples for DNA analysis to the Forest Service's Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montana. In interviews and statements, several biologists questioned the laboratory's capabilities.

These concerns prompted seven wildlife biologists — in at least three independent instances at three separate agencies — to submit samples of captive lynx hair as 'blind controls'. “Everyone in the field was questioning the DNA analysis,” says Jeffrey Bernatowicz, a biologist at the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, “so people sent in control samples independently.”

When these controls came to the attention of the Forestry Service over a year ago, the agency hired a private Oregon firm to investigate. Last summer, the firm reported details of the control-sample methods, and the seven biologists were removed from the survey.

Although none of the 'control' specimens was included in the detection programme's data, the survey may now be discredited. The episode is being investigated by the inspector generals of two US government departments, and Congressional hearings are likely.