Fort Collins – The Preble’s meadow jumping mouse went on trial Thursday as a scientific panel called two researchers, with opposing views, to defend their work.
The panel is charged with sorting through the conflicting science behind a proposal to take the mouse off the nation’s list of “threatened” species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expects to make a recommendation by the end of this month regarding the status of the mouse – often seen as an obstacle to Front Range development.
First the panel must unravel the science supporting the work of Rob Roy Ramey and Tim King,
the two scientists who reached very different conclusions regarding the mouse’s genetics.
Ramey, formerly of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, concluded in 2003 that the mouse is not genetically distinct from the more common Bear Lodge jumping meadow mouse and doesn’t need federal protection.
Ramey’s study sparked a heated debate over the mouse.
In January, King, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in West Virginia, released a study rebutting Ramey’s work.
King followed up with a published report last month saying Ramey used flawed data to reach his conclusions.
The dispute got ugly when Ramey charged, in published interviews, that King was conducting “scientific colonoscopies.”
Thursday’s proceedings started with Ramey offering a mea culpa to King, who sat just a few feet away from the Denver scientist during the session.
“I want to offer a personal apology to you for comments that ended up in the press,” Ramey said to King.
The panel then quizzed both men in detail regarding the methodology they used when analyzing mouse tissue.
The panel asked, for example, whether the researchers dipped scientific instruments in a bleach solution before taking a tissue sample or whether they dunked the tools for a longer period of time.
Other questions focused on the cleanliness of the labs analyzing the genetic samples.
Ramey was asked to call a lab assistant in Denver on his cellphone to inquire about the protocols used when extracting mouse DNA.
A court reporter transcribed the testimony, which will conclude today at Colorado State University.
“We’re not doubting anyone’s scientific integrity here,” said panelist John Dumbacher, department chairman and assistant curator of the California Academy of Sciences.
“We’re just looking at how these scientific studies were done,” Dumbacher said.
The panel was convened by Sustainable Ecosystems Initiative, a Portland, Ore.-based consultant hired by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The firm provides scientific advice on natural-resource issues.
The consultants have assisted the Fish and Wildlife Service with its five-year review of the northern spotted owl – the animal at the center of one of the most contentious environmental battles in recent years.
The panel will issue a report to the Fish and Wildlife Service in the next three weeks, and the agency will issue its recommendation within a week, said Sharon Rose, an agency spokeswoman.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
