I am compelled to respond to the anonymous posting by someone who apparently works for BLM in the Bakersfield, California office, however, I am including my name.

[Read the outrageous claims made by cowardly "Anonymous" refuted here.]

You see, I too watched Marlene's tragic story unfold "from the sidelines." I worked for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) from January 2000 until February 2005. TNC and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) since 1996 have been the "managing partners" with BLM for what is now the Carrizo Plain National Monument, some 250,000 acres formerly known as the Carrizo Plain Natural Area. In my five years with TNC, I spent hundreds of hours in meetings and on field trips with others from BLM, CDFG and TNC talking about and observing the impact of grazing on the native species of the Carrizo. I am not a trained ecologist or biologist, but in that time I learned a lot from those who are. I would bet that in 2004 alone, people from TNC, CDFG and BLM collectively devoted well over 1,000 hours focused only on the Resource Management Plan -- the document at the heart of this very sad story -- and primarily on the role of grazing in that plan. By that time, we were hardly watching from the sidelines, we were fully engaged in the game.

So, in response to the September 24 posting from the anonymous person from BLM:

1. Yes, Marlene could be stubborn and headstrong and a real pain in the ass sometimes, but she listened to plenty of experts in the course of developing her views on the role of grazing and resource management at Carrizo -- and many of them wholeheartedly shared her views. Perhaps you think that only someone in a BLM uniform is an "expert" on Carrizo? It is important to remember that the Carrizo is unique from most other BLM's holdings in that some 115,000 acres is not designated under Taylor Grazing Act leases, so grazing is optional and is supposed to happen only for the benefit of the native species.

2. Marlene was hired and given very specific marching orders by Ron Fellows, the Bakersfield Field Office Manager prior to Ron Huntsinger, including to restore the working relationship with TNC and CDFG and to take a look at BLM's historical and entrenched love affair with grazing as usual on the Carrizo. I have seen the memo he gave her when she was hired. She did not come in with her mind made up, she came in a mandate that put her immediately at odds with some at BLM who were staunchly resistant to change.

3. I sat through many, many meetings where discussions focused on specific species occurring in specific pastures, what the recommended residual dry matter (RDM) levels should be in those pastures, and the extent to which grazing should be used to benefit those species. Never did I hear Marlene or anyone else question that for some species, such as the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, controlling annual gasses in wet years is important. I also observed the fight that ensued when CDFG asked BLM a few years ago to not graze certain pastures where the pronghorn antelope drop their fawns in order to provide more forage for the moms and better cover from predators. BLM reluctantly relented, but that change has paid off dramatically for the pronghorn without harming any other species.

4. Your statement that "Marlene didn't want to follow these laws" in reference to the Endangered Species Act is outrageous! And posing the question; ... if she had gotten her way, what species would we have lost on the Carrizo?" is worse than outrageous. CDFG has been surveying many of the species at the Carrizo for several years, and in recent months their numbers for San Joaquin kit fox, pronghorn and other species are off the charts. Marlene did sometimes get her way for the last few years in terms of not allowing grazing when there was no benefit to be had, and the numbers DFG has been counting are her legacy.

5. You have made this story all about Marlene and the difficulty you and others in Bakersfield had in getting along with her. You have missed the real story. The real story is that some at BLM turned a deaf ear as a talented and dedicated employee was systematically demeaned and humiliated for doing her job. Trying to make this all about Marlene does not change the fact that BLM -- at some level and in some way -- played a role in her painful last few months, her undoing and her decision to take her own life. While Marlene's story may be unusual in its finality, she was certainly not the only federal employee who has suffered for taking a stand for protecting public lands over profit and greed.

When I got the news the day that Marlene killed herself, I strangely and immediately understood her decision. I had spent a couple of wonderful days at Carrizo with Marlene in the weeks before she died. She understood and loved and breathed the Carrizo in a way that words cannot describe and that I am sure you could not understand. I am disgusted to read that "most of us [at BLM] are not saddened that Marlene is no longer the Manager of the Carrizo Plains NM." I feel almost as sorry for you as I do for the Carrizo and all of its inhabitants who have lost a champion and friend.