Building a Better Mousetrap

Ramey now thinks it was a mistake to release his findings in a politically charged petition to delist the mouse before his research had been vetted and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. "If I had to do this all over again, I wouldn't have entered into any kind of cooperative agreement or contact with a government agency where I had to produce results by a certain date," he says. "I would have gotten the results, then gotten them published on my own timetable. But that's not the way it worked this time."

By releasing his findings to the State of Wyoming, he'd pulled the trigger and fired the dart. Now the environmentalists turned and charged. They attacked Ramey's ethics and character, suggesting that he was in the pocket of pro-development forces and that his research was skewed to support a personal crusade to revamp the Endangered Species Act.

Earthjustice and the Center for Native Ecosystems, both Denver-based organizations, accused Ramey of "doing everything possible to hijack the science," branding him "the leader of a high-profile campaign to remove protection for the Preble's mouse." But so far, none of Ramey's critics have presented any scientific evidence to refute his team's findings.

"They don't have any data to back them up, so their strategy has been to discredit and to obfuscate to the maximum extent possible," says Ramey. "You think I'm wrong? Prove it. You think my science is bad? Go ahead and try to prove me wrong. I'll take anybody to the mat on this."

On an October panel debating the proposed Preble's delisting, Jacob Smith, founder and director of the Center for Native Ecosystems, repeatedly stressed the fact that Wyoming had funded Ramey's study. "When you consider the validity, it's important to recognize who paid for Mr. Ramey's findings," Smith said.

Listening to this, Ramey angrily drummed the table in front of him with a pen, looking as if he wished the tabletop were Smith's head.

"Mr. Ramey has participated in politicizing what is supposed to be an objective scientific process by releasing his findings in...a premature and public manner," Smith continued.

Ramey rolled his eyes and looked toward the heavens, as though God might deliver him from the inanity.

"Mr. Ramey has -- " Smith began again, before he was interrupted by a voice in the audience belonging to a representative of the governor of Wyoming's office.

"Excuse me, excuse me! I believe you mean Doctor Ramey."

At that, Smith turned and asked Ramey, "Oh, would you prefer I called you 'Doctor'?"

"Sure, why not?" Ramey replied. "I worked hard for it."

Ramey's findings on the Preble's jumping mouse have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. "We're tight-lipped on when and where that's going to happen," he says. But last year, before the State of Colorado joined Wyoming in arguing in favor of delisting the mouse, the state's Department of Natural Resources solicited comment, and thus far, Ramey's findings have stood up to the scrutiny of scientists across the country.

"The conclusions are right on," says Keith Crandall, a biology professor at Brigham Young University. "It's clear that the [Preble's jumping mouse] is not a valid taxon and that the animals on the Front Range of Colorado are genetically represented in other areas."

Krutzsch himself, now eighty and retired in Tucson, submitted a review of Ramey's research in which he stated that the findings of the team "clearly invalidate" the original classification.

"The tools of today are indeed cutting-edge," says Krutzsch. "Ramey should be satisfied with the in-depth and reproducible analysis he presents. I can think of other listed endangered species that could have benefited from a prior, detailed, scientific appraisal, and I thank him for his eloquent study."

But even that ringing endorsement hasn't quieted the smack talk in what Ramey says has devolved into "a sandbox issue."

"I don't think anyone is saying that Rob Ramey rigged the results, exactly," says Erin Robertson, staff biologist for the Center for Native Ecosystems. "But I do think that Rob Ramey has made it clear that he has an agenda, that is he is working to remove the Preble's jumping mouse, and that he believes there are major flaws in the Endangered Species Act. I think the fact that Wyoming funded the study doesn't automatically make it suspect, but the fact that Ramey is on this traveling speaking circuit against the Endangered Species Act and is using the Preble's as a main example of the ESA's flaws makes his results seem biased."

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Tacked to a wall in Ramey's office is a copy of an illustration depicting Galileo being interrogated by Vatican inquisitors, demanding that he renounce his findings that the universe does not revolve around Earth. Ramey has drawn his own cartoon word bubbles on the drawing so that the chief inquisitor now says: "The mouse is a unique sub-species! The mouse is threatened with extinction! How dare you question our authority!" To which Galileo responds, "It may not be politically correct, but it is factually correct that the mouse is neither!"