What's the real motive?

Protests against federal job purges

• Staff of crucial scientific and medical research CUT

• Stewards of our public lands: parks, forests, refuges, and rangelands CUT

• Federal grants to universities conducting cutting-edge research FROZEN or CUT

• EPA staff and regulations that protect our air, water, and land and enforce environmental legislation CUT

• National Institutes of Health staff CUT

This is a short-list of the continuing harm to public services that protect Americans' health and environment and that make America the world leader of innovative science. And to what end when the firings are done without regard for how department and agency missions will be impacted? Much less the lives of public servants handed "clean out your desk now" pink slips? It's like a blitzkrieg of daily "shock and awe" headlines. Perhaps that's the intent.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know that I avoid posting about political tampering with science and resource management. But I want to shed some light on how non-normal this disregard for public servants and services is. My guest editorial in last week's Bozeman Daily Chronicle provides some food for thought and clarity.

P.S. My next post, I promise, will be something educational or even uplifting, like new insights into dung beetle behavior or discovery of a new trout species (hey, we fly fishermen can always hope!).