Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Hitch-hiking herpetofauna are largely ignored by USDA but may be referred to
state agriculture officials should a state have an interest in their interception (this
sometimes occurs in Hawaii, for example). With the exception of brown treesnakes,
three tortoises, and unlicensed CITES-protected species, no alien herpetofauna are
prevented entry to the United States, so prohibition, risk assessment, and cargo
inspection for other species liable to be invasive are not required. Further, the Lacey
Act, the primary legislative vehicle for prohibiting invasive vertebrates entry into
the United States, has been shown to be highly ineffective unless used before a spe-
cies is ever imported (Fowler et al., 2007). It has, however, more often been used
(ineffectively) to ban further import of species already present or established in the
country. Should a species naturalize in the United States, control responsibilities are
not mandated but might be undertaken by a host of federal, state, or private inter-
ests. Primary responsibility for wildlife management lies with states, but many
states have no staff herpetologist and no mechanism for addressing invasive reptiles
or amphibians. Federal involvement is mandated only if the invader causes a native
species to become endangered, but by then the infestation is well advanced and
generally irreversible. Some of the applicable agencies may work at cross purposes
- for example, states have sometimes promoted the deliberate introduction of spe-
cies banned by adjacent states. Hence, a state that will ultimately suffer from the
range expansion of an introduced reptile or amphibian will have no say in eradica-
tion of an infestation arising in another state. Research on alien species, including
alien herpetofauna, may of course be undertaken by any interested party. But such
research is not an assigned responsibility for any particular government agency and
is generally undertaken only in response to a colonization. To the best of my knowl-
edge, no federal agency has accepted responsibility for researching the prevention
of reptile or amphibian invasions. The number of different agencies having some
hand in invasive-species issues in the United States is approximately 36-40
(National Invasive Species Council, 2005; C. Dionigi, National Invasive Species
Council, personal communication, 2007). Instead of having a single federal man-
agement authority responsible for preventing alien incursions and responding to
those incursions that do occur, the United States defaults instead to a patchwork of
dozens of agencies and programs whose jurisdictions may overlap but often fail to
connect. Because it is in the nature of bureaucracies to pursue their particular man-
dates and vigorously defend their jurisdictions, cooperation among this assortment
of agencies can be difficult to achieve. Lastly, in the United States, political
appointees extend much farther down the executive structure than in New Zealand.
Cabinet members (secretaries), deputy secretaries, under secretaries, assistant sec-
retaries, and bureau directors are all political appointees, providing 3-4 layers of
political appointees above the permanent civil service. Below this is the senior
executive service, whose members serve at the pleasure of the political appointees.
This heavy layering of appointees makes decisions based on political interference or
accommodation far more likely to occur than in New Zealand, and consistent policy
and programmatic development by civil-service professionals is correspondingly
constrained and liable to change with changing administrations. These systematic weak-
nesses have been recognized for some time (Office of Technology Assessment, 1993),
