had arrived at regarding the animal damage control policy. The 

 Secretary's decisions were made following a 21 -month review of the 

 federal role in controlling predator damage. Shortly after the 

 Secretary's policy was made known, our Director, Mr. Lynn Greenwalt, 

 who you will speak tonight at your banquet, issued a concise 

 memorandum to the Service personnel with his initial interpretation to 

 the Secretary's policy. Mr. Greenwalt pointed out that the Secretary's 

 directive would result in some important changes but he noted that all 

 could not be achieved immediately. "Boiling down the immediate effect 

 on our operations," Mr. Greenwalt said, "the only immediate changes 

 required at the field level other than the elimination of denning and 

 further research, are development of potential uses of Compound 1080." 

 In other words, the research on that chemical was stopped under that 

 level of intrepretation. Now that was last November. Since then there 

 has been slight modifications of both of these changes. Although 

 denning, as a general practice has been eliminated, coyote pups still 

 may be taken from dens when the mother has been killed and so it is 

 likely that they would starve to death if they were left in the den 

 alone. Now obviously this exception is made in the name of humane 

 activity and is not designed to control a local coyote population. This 

 was announced in April by Mr. Greenwalt. 



The other exception and one which I believe you will have the 

 greatest interest, either now or probably in the near future, was the 

 announcement by Secretary Andrus on May that the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service is authorized to work out an agreement for further reserach on 

 Compound 1080. The cooperative agreement will be for university 

 research into the effects of 1080 and the toxic sheep collar. Probably 

 many of you are convinced already that the secondary poisoning effects 

 of 1080, if any, are negligible. Many other Americans are just as 

 convinced that compound 1080 is a dangerous chemical, unfit for field 

 use in any setting. The Secretary obviously hopes that this continued 

 research in Texas will be conclusive and convincing to those who now 

 hold separate points of view on this matter. 



Assistant Secretary Bob Herbst, before the House Agricultural 

 Committee on April of this year, made some further comments about the 

 overall intent of the Secretary's policy memorandum and I quote him: 

 "The Secretary's decisions were designed to restructure the Animal 

 Damage Control Progam to better assist the sheep industry in reducing 

 losses from predators in an environmentally acceptable manner. He set 

 long-term goals such as minimizing the use of lethal controls, but 

 recognize that these goals cannot be achieved until research develops 

 effective alternative methods. In the meantime he will continue to 

 employ our short-term strategy and that strategy is the continued use 

 of present control techniques such as aerial gunning, trapping and the 

 use of M44's or getters. These will be used in the most selective 

 manner possible." That ends the quotes attributable to Mr. Herbst. 



I think the key phrase here was that "we will continue to employ 

 our short-term strategy." The Secretary's policy, as you know, also 

 calls for increased field research on both lethal and non-lethal control 

 techniques and the effectiveness of various husbandry practices in 

 reducing livestock losses. 



