20110729_GN
Source: The Guardian
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/29/transcript-jeffrey-gleason
Date: 27/07/2011
Event: Biologist Jeffrey Gleason is interviewed by agents from the U.S. Department of Interior
Attribution: The Guardian
People:
- Jeffrey Gleason: Wildlife biologist
- Eric May: Special agent with the U.S. Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General
- John Meskel: Special agent with the U.S. Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General
Eric May: It is January 20, 2011. This is Special Agent Eric May with the Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General. I'm accompanied by Special Agent John Meskel with the Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General, and we're with Jeffrey Gleason. Jeff, do you consent to the tape recording of this interview?
Jeffrey Gleason: I do.
Eric May: Okay, we're located at 1201 Elmwood Drive Boulevard in New Orleans, Room 665B. And Jeff has signed the Garrity warning. Jeff, can you tell me your current title and how long you've been with this agency?
Jeffrey Gleason: Avian Ecologist or General Biologist, either/or. I started here, would have been around July 18th or 20th of this year, 2010, right around there. Previous to that, I'd worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service in North Dakota on a Wetland Management District for a period of about two years. The year prior, I was with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Division of Migratory Bird Management in Portland, Oregon about a year, and prior to that, about two, two and a half years with MMS in Alaska.
Eric May: Okay, your position now, what are, in a nutshell, your responsibilities?
Jeffrey Gleason: Contracting Officer Technical Representative on potential avian projects primarily, research projects in which the agency funds research relative to potential impacts, offshore oil and gas resources, so pretty similar duties and responsibilities as my position in Alaska. So I'm just starting, of course, so I'm trying to catch up and get to know the resources, avian resources and marine mammals and that sort of thing here as well. Very similar duties and responsibilities as when I worked in Alaska.
Eric May: Okay, when you worked in Alaska, what was your title?
Jeffrey Gleason: Wildlife Biologist.
Eric May: Okay, so let's go into your work with the bowhead whale migration surveys.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: Let's start at the beginning and take me through the –
Jeffrey Gleason: At that time, the agency contracted the actual aircraft time out, and I think, starting in 2007, it was done through an interagency agreement with NOAA, I think. But they've since basically taken over the entire program.
Eric May: NOAA has?
Jeffrey Gleason: NOAA NEMS, yeah. Before that, MMS would staff the aircraft, and I was typically either an observer, primary observer or sort of the crew leader on the aircraft. So the survey started around the first week of September and would run typically up to freeze-up, which, you know, mid- to late October. So we counted, of course, primarily bowhead survey, but we counted all marine mammals along transects offshore, and I did that for 2004, 2005 and 2006. And the time spent on them, doing that, for me varied from two weeks to a month at a time, so we'd kind of trade off.
But one of my first duties, once I got to Alaska in June of 2004, was the previous bowhead Project Manager had submitted a paper for publication, and it got rejected from my supervisor at the time. And I said I would sort of revisit that, and he ended up publishing that like a year later or something.
Eric May: What was the publication?
Jeffrey Gleason: I've got a copy of it. Let's see –
Eric May: And you said this was previously submitted for publication, and it had been rejected?
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, it had been previously submitted. Steve Treacy was the Project Manager prior to my arrival, and he was, you know, the originator of the article. So I spent a fair amount of time reworking the paper and resubmitting it, so we got it published.
Other than that, I collaborated with Dr. Chuck Monnett on several papers stemming from the survey work. I worked pretty closely with him on some of the survey design issues and that sort of thing in the final reports. I think there were probably two final reports during my time there.
Eric May: You're talking about the bowhead whale survey?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, the BWASP annual reports. I helped him out with those, but as far as the contracting, any aspects of the contracting stuff, I never dealt with any of that.
Eric May: Okay, did you have to have any experience or qualifications to be an observer on these?
Jeffrey Gleason: We did. There were some safety – we had to meet with both the contractors who actually did the aircraft and go through safety briefings before each flight, of course. And then there was a safety briefing for equipment, safety equipment on the aircraft, before each year, and we would do that as well.
Eric May: So as an observer, you didn't need any specific experience or qualifications to observe the bowhead whale migration?
Jeffrey Gleason: I had previous experience doing waterfowl and migratory bird surveys from aircraft, so I did have some experience.
Eric May: So you did have some experience, okay. And how many surveys did you conduct during that period of time?
Jeffrey Gleason: We'd have to look at those annual reports, and I don't have those handy. It really varied by weather. Some days, we just couldn't get out. I mean, in some years, you'd have weather seven to 10 days straight where you simply didn't fly. In a perfect weather year or a really good weather year, you might fly two months. You might get in 45 flights over a period of two months in a good year, but it might be as few as 20 flights. The flights varied, you know, from maybe two hours up to about eight or 10 hours. Typically, we'd refuel in the case that the aircraft had extended capacity, you know, internal fuel tanks. But, typically, six hour I think was max capacity for the fuel.
Eric May: So describe to me a typical day conducting an aerial survey. What did you do?
Jeffrey Gleason: Sometimes, I was a data recorder, which is basically the computer person. Each individual, typically there were pilot, copilot, data entry and primary and secondary observers in the back of the aircraft. And everybody had headphones, and everything was linked to the computer. You know, they had a software and hardware program set up on the aircraft. You get geospatial referenced information with each sighting. So you would call out a sighting, they'd hit "enter," and then this access database would pop up, and the data recorder would populate that with information: species, weather-type variables, sea state and that sort of thing. So it's actually a very amazing program.
Eric May: So if you spotted a whale, what would you call out to the data person, what type of information?
Jeffrey Gleason: A bowhead whale.
Eric May: And that was it?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, mark bowhead whale, and then you might give size of the whale, if it's a single or a group, behavior, feeding or swimming. You'd take a clinometer; you'd get an angle, and that would give you sort of a distance, how far that whale is away from the transect line. So there is –
John Meskel: What's a "transect line"?
Jeffrey Gleason: Sort of the imaginary path that the plane is going. So when they push the GPS coordinates, it gives you the location of the aircraft but not the whale. Theoretically, with the inclinometer reading, you can get the distance from the transect line, straight line distance. Basically, it's, you know, get the reading, you can get the distance to the whale. So I can't remember, there's probably 20 different sort of cells that you'd have to populate for each observation.
John Meskel: Cells in this database you were talking about?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes, yeah, so you had to be pretty quick because a lot of times there were multiple sightings. And in some cases, we'd have to divert from the transect and do some circling to get a better count.
Eric May: How far up in altitude were you?
Jeffrey Gleason: Typically 1,500 feet, which was I think the marine mammal permit that we were working under, so I think it was 1,500. We could go down to 1,000 but, typically, between 1,000 and 1,500 feet.
Eric May: Okay, the data operator, was it always the same person?
Jeffrey Gleason: No. Typically, we tried to get people that had done it before, but that wasn't always possible. So sometimes I would do it and, you know, the first time is always a little stressful. But it's something you kind of pick up on the shortcuts in the system and picking up on it pretty quickly. But over the course of three years, we probably had four to six different data recorders, I would think.
Eric May: And then how long would a typical survey take?
Jeffrey Gleason: In a given day, you might be out six to eight hours, but it might be as little as an hour. You know, the weather might be fine right at the terminal where we were taking off. Deadhorse has a small airport facility, and the aircraft was basically stored inside. And we'd look at all these different weather things online, and you might go, you know, 50 miles one direction and fog, so we can't do any surveys, so you basically turn around and go right back. So it was pretty variable.
I'm trying to think the first, 2004, 2005 were pretty good; 2006, as far as weather goes, wasn't quite as good conditions, so we didn't get near as many flights I don't think in 2006. But real specific information regarding the surveys themselves and number of transects and number of hours, I think if you look in the BWASP Annual Reports, the 2005, 2006 reports should have all that information, very detailed.
John Meskel: What was that program, BWASP?
Jeffrey Gleason: BWASP, Bowhead Whale Aerial Survey Program.
Eric May: It's the acronym.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: And there's an annual report for each year, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: Basically for each year, yeah.
Eric May: So the observations in 2004 would fall under –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Typically that calendar year.
Eric May: Okay. Do you participate in putting that together, the report?
Jeffrey Gleason: Very limited assistance with that report. It's sort of an update from the previous year's report, so it's almost a cut-and-paste job from one year to the next. You create new figures, which the software, the program basically spits out for you, and there's very little what I would consider details, statistical analysis treatment of the data in a given year. It's just sort of an overall report.
Eric May: Okay, back to the process of this survey, so you land. What do you do with the data that was inputted into the laptop on the plane?
Jeffrey Gleason: Typically, we would store it on the memory stick. We'd bring that from the aircraft to a laptop in the room and download it there and get it on the hard drive there. At that time, we'd print sort of a daily report and, typically, that got faxed back to the office.
Eric May: Okay, you mentioned earlier other mammals, so are all mammal observations recorded in that database?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes.
Eric May: Okay, so give me an example, what other mammals?
Jeffrey Gleason: Bearded seals, walruses, ringed seals, polar bears, beluga whales, gray whales. That's sort of the big ones.
Eric May: So if you see another mammal, you just call out what it was?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, like I said, when you call out, the data recorder would hit "enter," and this menu would pop down. And one of the first items was a species list, and there was 10 to 12 species. And once they entered that information, we'd provide them with a lot of this auxiliary information, the observer or secondary observer.
John Meskel: What program was this?
Jeffrey Gleason: It's an Access database that was created specifically for the BWASP program probably 2003 or 2004, and it's pretty cutting edge in that it allows you to get geospatial information, you know, when you call it out. Basically, you hit "enter," and there's a length to the aircraft GPS. And it basically plugs that information right in, so it gives you a point. It's an excellent, excellent database program.
Eric May: How many observers are typically on a flight?
Jeffrey Gleason: Two observers, primary and secondary, and a data recorder, and then the two crew members.
Eric May: So if you call out a sighting, is it verified or validated by the other observer?
Jeffrey Gleason: Only if there's a question about the observation.
Eric May: For instance?
Jeffrey Gleason: For instance, if we were in the Eastern Beaufort Sea over along the Canadian border, and we saw somebody said a gray whale or a killer whale or something that you wouldn't typically expect in that area, the primary observer ultimately made the decision on what it was. So we might do some circling. And typically it was either Lisa Rotterman or Chuck were the primary observers. And, you know, if it went down, and it never came back up, if there were questions, it'd probably be "unidentified whale" at that point. But for the most part, the species are pretty easy to identify at the altitude we're flying.
Eric May: Now other than your observation, do you record it in any other manner, photographs or video or –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Occasionally, if there were ships, we might take pictures of ships, that sort of thing, but anything to do with sort of the habitat on that day or anything like that, we'd probably take pictures. Feeding aggregations of bowhead whales, where there are multiple animals, and there's mud, and we took pictures of those. The quality of the pictures, even with the camera that we had, were typically not that good because of the vibration and shooting through glass and that sort of thing.
Now, the NOAA aircraft have multiple cameras in the belly of the aircraft, and they're motion sensitive, so the quality of the pictures are so much better and remotely triggered. I'm not exactly sure, but they're pretty amazing now compared with what it was back then.
John Meskel: So were you having to shoot through the windows of the plane?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes, so the quality of the pictures were often pretty poor.
Eric May: What kind of camera were you using?
Jeffrey Gleason: It was an EOS, one of the upper-end EOS Rebels, great camera, and it had a good lens. But between the vibration in my hands in the aircraft and shooting through glass, it just –
Eric May: Pretty difficult.
Jeffrey Gleason: Pretty difficult, yeah.
Eric May: When you did take the photos, were you able to tell what they were?
Jeffrey Gleason: Most of the time, yeah. We saw some dead polar bears at one time, and it was pretty obvious with the naked eye what it was. But the pictures, they just kind of turned out to be a white blob in the photos. And I can't remember, we probably took three or four pictures, and it's sort of white blob floating in the ocean, so it's pretty hard to tell.
Eric May: Dead polar bears, how far off the land were you?
Jeffrey Gleason: I can't remember. We published a paper on that as well, 20 to 50 kilometers I suppose.
Eric May: And were you the primary observer on those?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, I think Chuck was the primary on those.
John Meskel: Chuck who?
Jeffrey Gleason: Chuck Monnett, Dr. Monnett was the primary, and he's the Project Leader for that program.
Eric May: He was the primary, so you were the secondary observer?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. Basically, I was in charge of all the camera operation during my three years, but we did take quite a few pictures. But for the most part, it was habitat, ice conditions, weather, you know, and some marine mammals, but most of the marine mammal pictures I think were taken probably that first year. And having downloaded them and looked at the quality, we'd keep the camera, you know, I'd keep it between my feet, but I knew that such poor quality and resolution, that I took very few pictures the next two years.
Eric May: The photos, what did you do with the photos at the end of the survey?
Jeffrey Gleason: They're downloaded to the laptop, the working laptop.
Eric May: That was used by the data recorder?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: Is that the one on the plane or the one you referring to in the office?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, the one back in the room, and also I would put them on my work machine back at the office.
Eric May: Okay, do you have those by chance?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't. All those files were left on that machine.
John Meskel: Where was your office?
Jeffrey Gleason: I can't even remember which floor. It was in the Centerpoint, the main office in Anchorage. Yeah, I can't remember which floor I was on.
Eric May: How did you like Anchorage?
Jeffrey Gleason: I loved it, yeah.
Eric May: It's too cold for me, not that that's relevant to this interview.
Jeffrey Gleason: I gave you a copy of that first paper, right?
Eric May: Yes.
Jeffrey Gleason: And here's a list of pretty much all peer-reviewed publications that were generated, that I authored or coauthored from the survey. And I included – there were a couple posters that we presented at meetings. One was at the Wildlife Society Meeting in 2006, I believe, and the other was at the Marine Mammal Conference, and that was I think in 2005. But that's basically pretty much complete list of all publications.
Eric May: So, Jeff, and I looked at those, how many dead polar bears did you observe during the – was it one year or both years?
Jeffrey Gleason: Just that one year.
Eric May: What year was that?
Jeffrey Gleason: Oh, boy, it's in that one paper.
John Meskel: This one?
Jeffrey Gleason: No.
John Meskel: This one?
Jeffrey Gleason: No. I'll have to get that one for you. I think that was in 2004 maybe. And it was not just the dead polar bears that was of interest to us, but it was the number of swimming polar bears and the distance we observed some of those polar bears offshore. And we went back, you know, you noted at the time and I was pretty curious. So we went back into the database, which is, you know, 30 years of records, and it was the most swimming polar bears that had been observed and the distances. And there were no records of any dead polar bears floating out there.
You start thinking about probabilities, detection probabilities, which is basically what is the potential that I'll actually observe an individual on these surveys, on these transects. It's not like you're covering the entire ocean. It's a needle in a haystack. And when you start thinking about seeing a swimming polar bear or a dead polar bear out in the middle of an ocean from an aircraft moving that fast, covering roughly an observation transect of maybe a mile, half a mile out of each window under ideal conditions, it's staggering what the potential is. I mean, it's really low.
So when we started putting it together, that particular paper, there was a windstorm that came up. I'm trying to remember how that fell out that year. There was a windstorm. We had done some survey work about three days prior, and there was about three days of very strong winds. And we had seen these animals swimming offshore that last survey. And then, following that windstorm, it was pretty calm, and that's when we saw the dead ones.
Eric May: So is that what attributed to them dying?
Jeffrey Gleason: We attributed it to that. Of course, we have no way to determine actual cause of death. We can't pick them up. There's no way. But given the distances and the number of polar bears we saw preceding the storm, and then the dead polar bears after the storm, it seemed probably the most parsimonious explanation for what happened.
John Meskel: The most what?
Jeffrey Gleason: The simplest sort of rationale and reason.
Eric May: Because from what I understand, the bears used the scent from the land as a guidance to their swimming. Is that correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, they can actually smell or detect the ice from long distances, and at that period of time, using satellite imagery, we estimated that distance from shore to ice was something like 100 kilometers or 150 kilometers, something like that. I'll print that paper out. I thought I got it for you, but I can print that off for you.
Eric May: So the windstorm, could that have contributed to them losing ground possibly?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think what had happened was some of the bears decided, given the ideal, I mean, it was like glass out there, so they just started to make the swim. They decided to make that journey. Under glass conditions, an easy trek for those individuals. Once out in it, the wind came up to like, I can't remember, it's in the paper, like 30 knots or, you know, something really crazy, and I think it was out of the northeast. And we got weather data from one of the local weather things. So we had pretty accurate information on wind speed and direction and that, and the wave height, fighting big waves, if you can imagine a Labrador retriever trying to retrieve a duck under really heavy wind conditions, the waves are breaking over the top of the animal and that sort of thing.
I think that happens probably more frequently than people recognize, but you just don't see it, because there's nobody out there doing these surveys. And I think there's a poster that's recently been presented. One of the satellite transmitter to animals up in Alaska, they have good data that they swam like 200 kilometers or some amazing distance. So they're capable of doing it under ideal conditions.
Eric May: Now you mentioned a poster presentation. Was that your conclusions in that poster presentation, that the storm caused –
Jeffrey Gleason: I think we touch on it in this one. This was the first poster.
Eric May: That was at the 13th Annual Wildlife –
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: I'm familiar with that one.
Jeffrey Gleason: This one was the one that led to The Wall Street Journal article I think, and this is just basically a blurb about it right there, and we talk about, you know, distances. And soon after we finished this poster, then we put that paper together. I mean, this one, it kind of talks about changes in sea ice conditions over time and sort of distribution of polar bears. And this one sort of led to this paper here.
John Meskel: Is there a quick title that we can refer to these by so we can keep them straight?
Eric May: Oh, that's a good point, yeah.
Jeffrey Gleason: "Sea ice and swimming polar bears" for this one, and then "changes in habitat in polar bears" for this one probably.
Eric May: And what was the date of the first one you just mentioned?
Jeffrey Gleason: I'd have to look at the file, the file date. I guess there's a date on the inscription there. This was September or October 2006 on that one, and that was I think December. This was in San Diego, December 2005 on this one.
Eric May: Now the one that's talking about the space between the ice caps, what was the conclusion on that? What was causing that?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, we don't really get into, you know, the distance in this paper to the pack ice edge, but rather the change from BWASP data in ice conditions and how that related to distribution of polar bears, both east to west and north to south. So there's this tendency to see – early on in a survey, there appear to be more polar bears further west and more of them on ice. And later on in the survey, you seemed to get this eastward shift, more over towards Kaktovic, and there were more bears on land. At the same time, there were major changes in sea ice conditions based on what we observed. So basically we were trying to link some of these things and how that influenced polar bear distribution.
Eric May: Now back to the four polar bears you indicated?
Jeffrey Gleason: I can't even remember the exact number. I think we saw 10 swimming polar bears and there might have been four dead ones. I can't remember.
Eric May: Okay, other than you and Mr. Monnett, who else observed those dead polar bears?
Jeffrey Gleason: I'm trying to remember who was the data recorder that year. The pilots obviously, and then the data recorder for that year. I can't remember who it was, but it would be in the Annual Report for 2005.
Eric May: Actually, it was Mr. Monnett who called out the observation of the dead polar bears, and you were the secondary, or did you first identify them?
Jeffrey Gleason: I have to look in my notebook. I think actually one of them for sure I called out. I wasn't sure what it was initially, a white blob out in the middle of nowhere, and there were some birds around it. And so we spent a bit of time circling, and it became pretty obvious, because I also had binoculars handy. And though there is some vibration, it becomes pretty obvious even at 1,000 feet.
Eric May: Did you have a camera?
Jeffrey Gleason: [Inaudible] get that aircraft to turn, and it's almost standing still. [Inaudible] the Twin Otter is pretty slow, and we circled it several times.
Eric May: On all of the observations?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yep. Yeah, I think if you actually got into that database and looked at sort of the flight lines, it would show at that particular point in time this sort of circling of the aircraft in the database. It actually shows the track.
Eric May: The database shows the track of the aircraft?
Jeffrey Gleason: Exactly, so those polar bears, it was obvious that those were dead polar bears.
Eric May: Can you elaborate a bit on –
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, through binoculars, it becomes pretty easy, the shape. And in the one case, you could actually see what appeared to be almost looked like intestines coming out of the rear end. So I'm assuming they got bloated, and they're just sort of distended. And the presence of birds suggests something dead as well. Gulls tend to congregate on floating dead things, so it had become pretty obvious that it was something dead. And much too small to be a beluga whale, and it couldn't be a calf beluga whale because of the color. There was no ice anywhere in the area. You know, it was pretty warm during that period of time, and like I said, it was like glass.
And there were some cases where you could see bowhead whales like way out in the distance. I mean, it was perfectly calm, and that's so rare you get that kind of conditions. If the conditions were different, you know, or it was really choppy waves and overcast and, you know, there's a lot of things that could influence it, and it probably went down "unknown." But we had high skies, high ceilings, sunny conditions, basically glass, the water was like a glass surface. It was amazing. So under pretty much all those observations, I think conditions were perfect for making those sorts of decisions.
Eric May: And did you take photos of the –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, I took of the one.
Eric May: That's right, I asked you that before, of one of them. Of the other ones?
Jeffrey Gleason: No. No, we took, I don't know, three or four I think, but they were such poor resolution. And we took them to a camera place, thinking, you know, is there a chance they could enhance the quality, and the original was so poor, that there was nothing that could be done to those.
Eric May: So you only took of the one dead polar bear, photos of the one dead polar bear?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, and that was the one that appeared to have intestines sort of coming down, almost like a thing sticking out.
Eric May: You mentioned you took it to what place?
Jeffrey Gleason: There was a camera place. I didn't even save it. I had it on a thumb drive, but I wanted them to look at it and see if they could – you know, I had actually printed out a hard copy, too, and they basically said there's nothing we can do to increase the quality of that picture because it's so poor to start with. Initially, in that paper, we were hoping to provide an actual photograph, but when you start with a poor quality image, and then you put it on paper, it's pretty bad.
Eric May: Now why didn't you take photos of the other dead polar bears?
Jeffrey Gleason: I guess we either never thought of it or the screen shot that I was giving on the first one was so poor that I didn't think it was worthy of attempting again. That's the only reason I can think of why we wouldn't do that again.
Eric May: So the first dead polar bear you observed, that's when you took the photos?
Jeffrey Gleason: We're pretty sure that was the very first, yeah.
Eric May: Then the subsequent one, you just didn't try?
Jeffrey Gleason: Um-hm [yes].
John Meskel: Was this a significant thing at the time, to observe these dead polar bears?
Jeffrey Gleason: Oh, like I'd mentioned before about detection probabilities, it seemed pretty interesting to us, both of us, in that there's a dead polar bear out in the middle of the ocean. Now like I said, the chance of actually seeing something like that, when they're on the ice, oftentimes, you'll see, not all the time, but frequently, you'll see blood smears where they've killed a ringed seal, and that stands out on the ice. But while they're on the ice, they can be pretty challenging to detect unless they're moving. Or the other advantage, if there's snow on the ice, you see their tracks, and then you'll pick the tracks, and then you'll pick the animal.
In this case, the swimming was interesting, given the distance for several of the animals, and the dead ones following that was interesting. It's just a needle in a haystack, the chances of your transect line falling exactly on that spot, because it's random. The start and end points of the transects are random. The computer generates these random lines, and that's where you fly.
And like I said, typically, your left and right observer might only actually be able to see out maybe a half mile. It varies a little bit by their conditions and lighting and that sort of thing but, typically, you're flying right down a line. So the chance that your transect intersects the presence of an individual animal, and you see it, detect it, all those things, I mean, infinitesimally small.
John Meskel: And if you did see something like this, and you called it out, would the plane then deviate and circle, as you've indicated before?
Jeffrey Gleason: In that case, it did, yeah. If we just saw a polar bear, typically no. Bowhead whales, for most things, you typically don't want to deviate, but if there's questions about numbers of individuals, or there's a big feeding group or aggregation of whales, typically we would deviate to try and get exact numbers, cow/calf ratios, that sort of thing. You might spend, you know, five minutes kind of circling that area, and then you get back on the transect.
Eric May: Each dead polar bear observation was called out, I assume?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Did it all occur within the same month, two months?
Jeffrey Gleason: It did.
Eric May: It did, within the same month?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Is there a possibility that you would see the same dead polar bear during a different mission?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think all of these were, given the distance between the transects, the probability of seeing the same bear were pretty slim, and I think that most – I have no memory, it's been so long since I've dealt with that one, but we might have got two on the one survey, and one or two on the other. And they're, you know, 50 to 100 miles apart, given the ocean currents, they're not going to move that much. They're basically stationary when it's calm, for the most part.
The probability is pretty small. And, again, the probability of detecting one floating out in the middle of an ocean, that's not like a big ocean cruiser out there, like, oh, yeah, there's – see that, you know, 20 miles away. This thing is a little white speck.
Eric May: How big of a deal was the observation within the scientific community?
Jeffrey Gleason: A lot bigger than I ever anticipated. I mean, the paper itself is just a note. It's six pages maybe, fairly small, but it ballooned, the combination of the poster and the paper. Out of all those papers I've published, it's probably the most heavily cited, and you can get on the internet and check. You know, just type in the title.
Eric May: Of your paper?
Jeffrey Gleason: Of the paper in Google Scholar, and it'll pop up with a list of papers that are close in title. And then, I think clear on the left-hand side, it'll give the number of times it's been cited. Like I've done that just out of curiosity, and the citations on that paper far outnumber any of the others. And it's just an observation really. You know, there wasn't a lot of stats, no modeling really. We observed some dead polar bears and some swimming polar bears, and did some basic measurements for the swimming polar bears and compared that to the other years in the database and, you know, put some figures together. But, I mean, that one figure down in the lower right-hand corner is kind of one of the figures I think we actually used in the paper. But I can certainly print that out if you want it.
Eric May: Oh, I have this. I have this one.
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, the actual paper.
Eric May: Oh, the actual paper, yeah, I'd like that. What are your conclusions as to, I know we kind of briefly went over this, the scientific conclusion as to why this occurred, the dead polar bears?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, like I said, the most parsimonious explanation, which is sort of principle of parsimony or Occam's razor, is a paper published back in the '70s or '60s, the best explanation for a given observation is often the most simplest. And the timing of the weather event with the polar bears swimming offshore suggested that these deaths were the result of drowning or exposure or fatigue or a combination of those things.
Eric May: Is that what you believe?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: But that's not what the scientific community is believing, is it?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't think we've had any backlash or any criticisms of that hypothesis. I mean, I haven't seen anything. I haven't heard anything like that.
Eric May: Has any of your work been published?
Jeffrey Gleason: That was published. All these are published.
Eric May: By who, though?
Jeffrey Gleason: That paper was published in Polar Biology, which is a pretty good journal actually.
Eric May: Didn't the Polar Biology paper, the manuscript, didn't it conclude that global warming was to blame for that?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, un-uh [no].
Eric May: So if I were to read that manuscript, it would basically conclude that the weather contributed to the drowning of the four dead polar bears?
Jeffrey Gleason: Absolutely, yeah. No, in that paper and the subsequent papers on polar bears, there's talk about change in the environment, but there's no reference per se to global warming in any of these papers.
Eric May: Okay. And then have you seen Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth?
Jeffrey Gleason: I have, yeah.
Eric May: And what's your thoughts on his reference to the dead polar bears?
Jeffrey Gleason: Of course, the problem with this sort of research and observations – and it doesn't matter what the research is – it can be spun. And I don't think that's a fault of the original scientists. I think that's the fault of the media and/or others' interpretation of the science and the results.
Now if we had concluded in any of these papers that "X plus Y equals Z," then that's something totally different, but in almost all these cases, The Wall Street Journal article is a prime example, there was a spin to it. I mean, sort of the facts [inaudible], whether it's the posters or the publications, provide the data, you're forced to interpret the data in the discussion section. But in none of the polar bear papers that I'm an author or coauthor do we say anything really about global warming. It's something along the lines of the changing environment in the Arctic. And beyond that, I don't think we make any references.
John Meskel: So people took "change in environment" and –
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: And in your words, put a spin on it?
Jeffrey Gleason: Put a spin on it. I mean, environment change is day to day, year to year, and teasing apart natural variation in the environment versus anthropogenic sources and contributions becomes somebody else's issue.
Eric May: Well, the reason I'm asking about the global warming aspect of it, let me quote what you, in the abstract summary of your manuscript paper.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: It says, quote, "We speculate that mortalities due to offshore swimming during late ice or mild ice years may be an important and unaccounted source of natural mortality, given energetic demands placed on individual bears engaged in long-distance swimming." So can you elaborate on what you're –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, by "unaccounted for," what we're talking about is that there's an allowable take for polar bears, and this natural source of mortality had previously been either not described or poorly described. And if there's some sort of change in sea ice conditions over time, one can anticipate that drowning may become a bigger mortality factor, so having a large impact on the populations. Obviously, we set up that sentence with "we speculate." When you set up a sentence with –
Eric May: But there's no reference to the storm is what I'm getting at.
Jeffrey Gleason: Not in the abstract.
Eric May: Right. Well, it's kind of touched upon, but the whole basis of this manuscript was that the ice caps are farther apart; therefore, more bears – because, "We further suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."
Jeffrey Gleason: "If."
Eric May: But, again, before, you did mention your belief that the four dead polar bears died was because of the windstorm.
Jeffrey Gleason: The one that we observed, right. Now we're talking towards the end of an abstract, you tend to elaborate or discuss potential ramifications of your findings for a given project, and you'll see that in any of these abstracts. What we're trying to lay out here is what is the potential impact of this single observation or these four dead polar bears on a population level, given what we know about the system, the ecosystem. And that's how we lay that out.
The "unaccounted for" is pretty true. I mean, I think if you looked at a lot of the population models that were done prior to this observation of this paper, this source of sort of natural mortality was not really thought of as a major issue. You know, polar bears die, of course, of natural causes but, you know, infanticide, cannibalism, poor nutrition, these sorts of things are pretty well documented, but this was not documented. So that's kind of why we went down this.
John Meskel: When you say "this," what source are attributing? What does that "this" mean?
Jeffrey Gleason: This was a unique observation, and that's basically why we decided to present it both as a poster and as a paper. We did a quick letter to review and couldn't find any reference to drowning polar bears, so that's why we decided to go ahead with the publication.
John Meskel: Okay, "this source of mortality" means drowned polar bears?
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, right. And I can recall at least one, maybe one or two other papers that have referenced, they either documented it and published it, or it was referenced in a publication since this time.
Eric May: Well, I want to quote again one of the emphases here, "Polar bears in open water during 1987 and 2003, a total of 315 live polar bears were observed during September and, of those, 12 were in open water. No dead and floating polar bears were observed. In 2004, a total of 55 polar bears were observed during September; 51 were alive and, of those, 10 were in open water. In addition, four polar bear carcasses were seen floating in open water, the first such observations over the span of the survey." But, again, I go back to the storm attributed to those.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: Yet there's no mention of that in this.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: Right?
Jeffrey Gleason: Is that in the discussion?
John Meskel: That's the results.
Jeffrey Gleason: That's in the results section.
Eric May: Yes.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: But, again, you're inferring a lot of the –
Jeffrey Gleason: Basically, what we're stating there is over the life of the survey.
Eric May: And you mentioned how other people were taking too much out of –
Jeffrey Gleason: Oh, I'm just, over the life of the survey, which was roughly 30 years, there were "X" number of polar bears seen. What proportion of those were seen swimming in open water versus this single year where you had a larger number of polar bears not only seen but seen swimming. And then it kind of jumps out at you, like, well, what's so different, and that's where those numbers come from.
Eric May: In regards to this manuscript, you were an employee with MMS at the time up in Anchorage with Monnett, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Was this peer-reviewed?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes.
Eric May: By who?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think we note the reviewers at the end in the Acknowledgments.
Eric May: Okay, was this supported by MMS?
Jeffrey Gleason: I have the sign-off sheet.
Eric May: By who?
Jeffrey Gleason: I could get it if you need a copy.
Eric May: No, by who? Was this your supervisor or somebody else within MMS?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think at the time, I'd have to look at that sign-off sheet, but that form was initially signed off by Cleve Cowles and I think the Regional Director at the time.
Eric May: Okay, on the peer review process at MMS back in 2004, or you actually wrote this in 2005?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, you can see on the initial, there'll be some dates on there.
John Meskel: "Received 2005. Accepted 2005."
Eric May: And that's pertaining to Polar Biology, though, right, received?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes, right.
Eric May: Okay. So explain the peer review process at the time.
Jeffrey Gleason: Within the agency or outside?
Eric May: Explain the peer review process with this particular manuscript that you guys went through.
Jeffrey Gleason: Within the agency?
Eric May: Yes.
Jeffrey Gleason: Basically, it would go to the supervisor, immediate supervisor, and he would review it. And we would incorporate any comments or suggestions, and then it would go to the Regional Director – a Regional supervisor and Regional Director.
Eric May: So the Regional Director signed off on this?
Jeffrey Gleason: I'm pretty certain.
Eric May: And who was the Regional Director at the time? Do you recall?
Jeffrey Gleason: John Goll.
Eric May: Did they have any questions about the numbers, statistics or anything during the peer review process?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think we extrapolate from the survey methodology; given the line transect methodology, we extrapolated out some numbers, and he was questioning some of those numbers. And it's a fairly standardized practice in the literature, but I think there was more sort of internal heartburn over the poster than that paper.
Eric May: I did read about that.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Now why was that?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think because it ended up on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, and it quoted [inaudible/mixed voices].
Eric May: Well, and that's why I'm referring to global warming, because they extrapolated all that information as this was the first tangible evidence of global warming. I mean, they reference your study. I mean, this is all over the world.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, it's a leap of faith, again, to go from Point A to Point Z.
Eric May: Well, and that's why I bring up this manuscript about the numbers, and let me tell you why. I had not just me, but several people who have a lot more knowledge, and I was asking, "If there was a mathematical error in your extrapolation of the data used to predict the number of dead polar bears in 2004, would you expect that error to be disclosed or found during the peer review process?" and from who you sent it to.
Jeffrey Gleason: The numbers of polar bears that we observed are solid numbers. Those aren't mathematically sort of tweaked or modeled or anything. Those are simple observations. The equations or formula we used to calculate potential number of polar bears that would be observed, given this correction for the line transect methodology, the numbers potentially swimming, that's basically founded on peer reviewed publication, and there's a book on line transect methodology. I think we cite that in the paper as our source for that.
And I think the Regional Director was most concerned about those numbers, not the fact that we observed some dead polar bears. It was this sort of extrapolation. But it's not uncommon when doing surveys, given the number of individuals who actually see – attempt to correct for detection probability issues, which is this line transect methodology. Is there some noise in those calculations? Probably. I mean, you know, there's no confidence intervals on our estimates at all. It's a simple "X times Y." You know, it's a fairly straightforward calculation.
Eric May: Well, and the reason I bring it up, this "straightforward calculation," that's a great segue, because I had my folks who are experts in numbers/statistics, and they found that there was error in the extrapolation methodology that suggests that the survival rate of the polar bears in 2004 was 57 percent as opposed to the 25 percent reported in the manuscript. That's quite a difference in terms of 25 percent is very, "Wow, that's huge."
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: Polar bears are going to be dying a lot more, versus 57 percent. So how would you explain the difference with the calculations there?
Jeffrey Gleason: Is there a potential we made a mistake, and the peer reviewers didn't catch it? Possibly.
Eric May: But that's a pretty substantial mistake.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Because if you reported 57 percent in your manuscript, what we talked about earlier, how people were taking this and exaggerating the results, probably may have not have happened in terms of the world taking your study as attributing global warming.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right. Well, I see the path you're tracking. As I've stated, when you publish a paper, there's no way to know what the potential ramifications within the media, culture, world, etc., you don't know. You may have some idea if it's something that's, you know, I just found the cure for cancer, published it in The Journal of Medicine or something. Okay, something that's huge, you map the genome for humans, something like that, of course, it's huge. You're going to be in Science, on all the talk shows, the radio, all this. This was simple observation. Could we have somehow miscalculated the math? Certainly. Did your guys use some other method of calculating than we did? Possibly.
Eric May: They used the same calculation as you laid out in your manuscript.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: So I don't think that occurred.
Jeffrey Gleason: If they did something a little more elaborate, like Program MARK or some survival modeling exercise, where you can actually get a little finer detail, then that could happen. Could we have made a mistake in our calculations? It's possible. Did the peer reviewers miss it? That's possible. All those things are possible.
Now if this error was intentional, as a scientist, that's a different issue. If you're coming at me from that aspect, I would say no, there's no –
Eric May: Well, do you blame me for at least considering that, based on what I'm presenting to you?
Jeffrey Gleason: I guess that's your job, but it seems odd that this four-page paper is having the impact on society, the impression I'm getting from you, that it is. It's a four-page paper [inaudible/mixed voices].
Eric May: Well, as government scientists, our job is to make sure that the true facts, the real facts are out in public.
Jeffrey Gleason: I agree.
Eric May: And as a result of this manuscript, a tidal wave of speculation of global warming theorists, using your manuscript, has pretty much occurred from the Al Gore –
Jeffrey Gleason: Is that the fault of the scientist?
Eric May: No, but, I mean, this is a huge mistake, if you will, even if it was an unintentional mistake, as you indicated. But what I do want to elaborate on these numbers, up until 2004, the observations of dead polar bears: 1, 0, 0, 1. And all of a sudden, in 2004, you find four with an explanation of the windstorm. And then, all of a sudden, you right this, and then did you, Mr. Gleason, follow up with your study after 2004?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes.
Eric May: Okay, what was your results on that?
Jeffrey Gleason: By follow-up, did we see anymore swimming polar bears?
Eric May: Correct.
Jeffrey Gleason: In 2005, I don't recall in 2005 or 2006 if we'd seen anymore swimming polar bears. I think not, or if they were swimming, they were associated with the ice pack or, you know, within close proximity to a beach or a beach ridge or a sandbar offshore, that sort of thing. So those aren't notable.
Eric May: Well, the reason I ask is because I did do some research on the sightings. And we found that through 2007, it appears there were no subsequent sightings of dead polar bears during the surveys conducted after your survey of 2004.
Jeffrey Gleason: No dead polar bears?
Eric May: No dead polar bears sighted.
Jeffrey Gleason: That's not unusual.
Eric May: Okay, well, and the reason I bring that up, up to 2004, you presented that manuscript in 2006.
Jeffrey Gleason: That's 2005.
Eric May: This in 2005, but the poster presentation talking about the four dead polar bears occurred in –
Jeffrey Gleason: December of 2005.
Eric May: Okay, but this was published in 2006.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, that was basically a follow-up to this work.
Eric May: Okay, but these observations occurred in 2004.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: So you didn't do any follow-up on your theory of why they're finding dead polar bears, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: Follow-up, well, we didn't see any more dead polar bears.
Eric May: So doesn't that support the argument that you spotted –
Jeffrey Gleason: The wind [inaudible/mixed voices].
Eric May: Right.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes. Primarily attributed –
Eric May: But that's not indicated in here.
Jeffrey Gleason: Primarily we attributed the dead polar bears primarily to the swimming and the wind event, right?
Eric May: I'll reiterate. You lightly go over the windstorm in your manuscript.
Jeffrey Gleason: I think in Discussion, it's a pretty major section, in Discussion.
Eric May: But you don't talk about a windstorm. You talk about –
Jeffrey Gleason: Wind event.
Eric May: Wind event.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: But you lightly touch upon it, is what I'm getting at, and that's why the world is referencing your study as an indication of global warming. I was just wondering why did you go over the wind event so little when that was probably the biggest reason why the dead polar bears died.
Jeffrey Gleason: Is it proportionally in the Discussion the smallest proportion of the text?
Eric May: Yes. The majority of this text of your manuscript is talking about the distance between the ice caps getting larger. As a result, the polar bears have to swim farther distance.
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, now you're talking about proximate versus ultimate factors influencing the deaths of the polar bears. Those are two different things.
Eric May: Okay, all right.
Jeffrey Gleason: Proximate is the wind.
John Meskel: Okay, can you explain that a little bit?
Jeffrey Gleason: Ultimate is the distance from the shore to the ice. That's the ultimate. Proximate is the actual thing that happened, and that's the wind event. So those are two different things that potentially caused this to happen.
Eric May: So all these other articles, they just have a political agenda? Is that what you're suggesting?
Jeffrey Gleason: All the other –?
Eric May: Scientists in the world referencing your study?
Jeffrey Gleason: No.
Eric May: Because none of the articles and periodical reports that I read about your study with the other scientists mentioned the windstorm.
Jeffrey Gleason: [Inaudible/mixed voices] mentioned this as a source of mortality.
Eric May: Right.
Jeffrey Gleason: I think it's the source mortality that's the pull-in. Now this is not uncommon when you do the references. They're documenting swimming events as a source of mortality, and I think, like I mentioned, it's pretty well cited by researchers that the swimming seems to be unusual.
Now another thing that's happened recently is infanticide, cannibalism and, you know, these sorts of things seem to be occurring more recently. And whether that's a function of more survey effort or more time out in – it can be a challenge to tease those things apart. But like Stirling, et al., Ian Stirling is a polar bear guy. He's been doing polar bear research for his whole career. There's a couple of folks out of Alaska that have been doing polar bear. Steve Amstrup has been doing polar bear research in Alaska for his whole career, and I think he's one of the authors on a couple of these papers.
Eric May: Okay, let me read an email from Monnett to you, and it says, "Just got off the phone with my co-supervisor from my PhD, who's an Arctic ecologist, and I mentioned the dead polar bear sightings. He thought we might be onto something with the global warming angle. In any case, he recommended we get in touch with Ian Stirling" – who you just mentioned – "to discuss our observations. It might be worthwhile to get his views on the topic." I mean, you're talking about global warming, and this was back in –
Jeffrey Gleason: Chuck mentioned that.
Eric May: Yes, but it was a discussion with you.
Jeffrey Gleason: It was an email. I recognized I guess at the time that there was a potential that the paper itself had a high probability of getting published because of the uniqueness of the observation. Now as I've mentioned, the spin from this and the outfall or tidal wave, so to speak, is beyond my control as a scientist. I wasn't coming at it from any angle other than I wanted to publish an observation that I thought was interesting, and I thought we did a fairly decent job of writing it. Peer reviewers, if there were any mistakes, peer reviewers missed them relative to those calculations. I don't know what else to tell you [inaudible/mixed voices].
Eric May: Well, no, but again, I'm bringing this global warming, because you discussed it soon after your observations, and then Ian Stirling, Monnett –
Jeffrey Gleason: We never mentioned global warming in the paper.
Eric May: But it's inferred. That's why the world took it up as a global warming tangent.
John Meskel: Were there follow-on discussions from this email about the global warming aspect?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't think I contacted Ian. I think Chuck probably contacted Ian. If I recall, Ian thought that the observations were very interesting and something along the lines of, "In my years of "X" number of years of survey work, I've never observed dead polar bears floating out in the ocean."
So the poster was interesting, and from the poster, we thought, after talking to Ian, some other polar bear ecologists, biologists, they thought it was worth attempting to publish it. Therefore, we went forward with the publication.
John Meskel: From the email, it sounds like, you know, from all the data that was gathered, all the information that did go into your manuscript, in the publications, some the key issues that were identified there were your observations and global warming. Were they interrelated? Was one an indication of the other? So what came of the follow-on discussions about those?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't know if I was ever involved in the sort of talk about, okay, what's the potential of this paper relative to the global warming sort of mantra or scare or whatever. My perspective was purely scientific in that I wanted to publish a paper on a unique observation that had previously not been documented for polar bears.
Like I said, we do talk about changing ice conditions and the potential that, given the distance, this might be potentially more important if, in the future, it continues down the path. I don't think there's any direct reference or use of the term "global warming." I can see how the media would glob onto this. Again, I don't think that's the fault of the scientist per se.
I think it's one of those issues. It's easy to jump on a bandwagon from a four-page paper with the polar bear as the icon. I wasn't a polar bear biologist. I'm not. My background is avian ecology. I have a pretty strong analytical background, and that's where I've contributed most of what these papers from analysis. The calculation, I think the original calculation in that paper was not mine. Chuck kind of took the lead on that paper. I did quite a bit of –
John Meskel: Was it his calculation?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, I did quite a bit of the writing, the actual writing, but the calculations and figure preparation and that sort of thing, he was the primary.
Eric May: And that's what I wanted to ask you. How much did he have involvement with drafting the manuscript?
Jeffrey Gleason: I did a lot of the discussion and a fair amount of the intro, a little bit of the methodology, but I got all the weather data from various stations and [inaudible/mixed voices].
Eric May: I did see that in your emails. You did –
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, and gathered all that information. As far as the calculations, and I guess that's partly my fault, I never really sort of reevaluated or looked at the calculations. It seemed pretty straightforward to me, so I guess I never sort of went over it. And, you know, the fact that if there's a mistake, and the reviewers miss the calculation, that surprises me, because that doesn't happen.
Eric May: And the reviewers you're talking about, the manuscript did reference or they're in the manuscript, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: It's supposed to be a blind review, but in some instances, the reviewer will actually sign the review for the journal.
John Meskel: What was done in this case?
Jeffrey Gleason: If it says "anonymous reviewers," then I don't know who it was.
Eric May: It wasn't anonymous. They actually list some names, Lisa Rotterman for one. That's Chuck's wife, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: She was one of our colleagues, yeah. I think she did an internal review.
Eric May: Ian Stirling, did he –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Ian.
Eric May: He did a review?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think may have.
Eric May: What's his title?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, he works for the Canadian Wildlife Service as a polar bear biologist, yeah.
Eric May: And then he had some of his friends look at it, but I don't think –
Jeffrey Gleason: I think Andy Derocher. He's a prof at University of Alberta.
Eric May: Mostly up in Canada did this?
Jeffrey Gleason: Canadian, yeah.
Eric May: Is that protocol for peer reviews, at least from your knowledge?
Jeffrey Gleason: It is pretty typical. You might have an internal review process, and then you'll send it out to others in the field, in this case, polar bear biology. Basically, you might get a {friendly} review. Now the next step is you submit to the journal, and they send it out. Typically, it's a blind review. They have a list of potential reviewers, given the subject matter. And like I said, the actual reviewer for the journal may sign it or they may not. But, typically, it's blind review.
I'm fairly certain that Andy was an actual reviewer from the paper or for the journal and not a friendly reviewer. So I'm trying to think, friendly reviews, we had Lisa. I think Dick Shideler from Alaska Game and Fish may have been a friendly reviewer.
Eric May: Yeah, he was one of the [inaudible].
Jeffrey Gleason: And he I think provided us with some observations. You know, he'd seen what behavior on the coast. And I think he may have reviewed it, a friendly review. I can't remember if Ian was a formal reviewer, but I know Andy Derocher was.
Eric May: And then once that's done, then that's when your supervisor, Cleve Cowles, signs off on it?
Jeffrey Gleason: Typically, it's before that, and I can't remember, I'm pretty sure I have a copy of that form.
Eric May: Yeah, when we're done here.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: Actually, maybe a break would be good sometime soon; we could get those papers.
Eric May: Yeah, yeah.
Jeffrey Gleason: You've got a copy of the paper itself?
Eric May: Yeah, and then you mentioned it went up to Goll, the Director?
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: And then he signs off on it?
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: And then it's released to Polar Biology, because they're based out of the UK? They're not a local –?
Jeffrey Gleason: No.
Eric May: Were you guys paid in any way?
Jeffrey Gleason: No.
Eric May: Compensated in any way?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, none of the scientific journals pay you for – I mean, as a scientist, it's basically a privilege to publish.
Eric May: Well, it's good for scientists.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: All right, and then we'll take a –
Jeffrey Gleason: Okay.
Eric May: Just one question: This email was from you to Monnett, and he says, "Four dead polar bears." And then he comes back in an email saying, "Three dead polar bears." Why the discrepancy there?
Jeffrey Gleason: I probably just missed it.
Eric May: So there was only three dead polar bear observations?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, the event numbers are there, the event numbers for the four dead polar bears, as I described.
Eric May: So you don't know why Mr. Monnett came back and said "three dead polar were sighted"?
Jeffrey Gleason: Un-uh [no], because there's four points, so that would have been four.
Eric May: So it's a typo potentially?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: Four points?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, the other thing is when you enter a point in the database, it's one point, but you might have multiple animals associated with a point. I don't think that's the case here. I think there were four single, you know, individual animals observed.
John Meskel: So does "point" refer to a geographic location then, or what does a point mean?
Jeffrey Gleason: It refers to a couple of things, a geospatial point, a reference, but it's also an event number. So event number, and that's what I'm talking about here, event numbers for the four dead polar bears for that year. And I think you can go into the database, in that Access database, and retrieve those event numbers.
John Meskel: For the four?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, for these four.
Eric May: Well, and that's the discrepancy, because then Mr. Monnett does come back with the four points, and I just want to know why – I mean, it's not like there is a lot of narrative here.
Jeffrey Gleason: No, no, I don't know.
Eric May: So he can typo. He said three, but there were four sightings.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Okay. Let's take a break. If you could get the documents –
Jeffrey Gleason: I'll see if I can find that form.
Eric May: All right, stopping interview.
[End of Audio Track 1]
Eric May: Okay, this is a continuation of the Jeffrey Gleason interview. It is still January 20th, 11:38, and we will continue. All right, Jeff, you brought back some papers.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, I'm trying to find the –
Eric May: I got a question while you're looking through there. When your manuscript was published in the Polar Biology, what reaction did you see from MMS Public Relations, because this was pretty big news when it was released?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, you know, to be honest, remembering back, I think there was more sort of outcry or – I'm trying to think of the term I want to use. There was probably more internal agency response from that poster and The Wall Street Journal article than that paper itself. I didn't present the poster; I wasn't there. It lays out changing sea ice conditions, and we provide some information on the swimming and dead polar bears in that poster. But Chuck presented that in San Diego, and there seemed to be quite a bit of interest in it.
Eric May: Well, the media was at that presentation, because I believe the Director was there. No, the Secretary was there.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: So that may be what occurred then, because the media was there during the presentation.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right. Like I said, I was back in my office at the time and, typically, there aren't a lot of messages on my phone at the office.
Eric May: That was going to be my next question.
Jeffrey Gleason: That particular morning, there were several. John Goll came into my office as soon as he got in, the Regional Director, and he and my supervisor, Cleve Cowles, basically spent about an hour in his office kind of going over the paper and the numbers and, you know, what's going on and that sort of thing. And, I mean, at the time, I guess I hadn't really [inaudible] the numbers, but I know enough about the methodology that it's pretty straightforward. It's like I don't understand why you're being bent out of shape over the numbers. The numbers are the numbers.
I guess I can understand because of the snowball coming down the mountain but, again, that was like I'm just providing some information in a paper. I wasn't thinking about, worried about. Retrospect, you know, maybe {the note} wasn't that good an idea, but at the time, it was a unique observation, and we had a lot of interest from polar bear researchers in that observation, and they wanted it in the literature. They thought it was very interesting. And, you know, for me, like I said, my background is primarily in avian ecology, and most of the work that I've done is more from the analytical aspect and my interest in research, the bowhead whale papers.
And, you know, Cleve basically said, "Can you fix this? Can you get it in? Can we get it published?" You know, it took me some time, and in that form, there was no way it was going to get published. So I spent, you know, a couple of months putting it together, and we ended up getting it published, but that was more from the analytical. You know, my understanding of bowhead whale ecology and polar bear ecology, it's not trivial, but I'm not a polar bear biologist or a bowhead whale biologist.
Eric May: And The Wall Street Journal was published soon thereafter, and is that the first time global warming theory was connected to your manuscript?
Jeffrey Gleason: I believe so, yeah, and I don't know if I still have a copy of that article or not. Yeah, it was like, "Wow, this is drawing a lot of attention." And like I said, I didn't think it was that big a deal. I thought it was interesting, from a research and from a potential population perspective, that the agency in charge, Fish and Wildlife Service is in charge of polar bear management. I thought, well, if they include this in their sort of models as an additional natural source of mortality that hadn't been thought of before, maybe it's going to actually help the species in the long term. You know, so –
John Meskel: How so?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, if you miss a source of mortality in your population in the harvest projection, you overharvest basically, that sort of thing, your allocation. Then, potentially, you have a potential problem long-term, and that's sort of the perspective I came from. It was not "Here's the snowball coming down the hill."
To be honest, I'm a numbers guy. Put me in the back corner, let me crunch the numbers. I like to publish, because I like the process, but being in a spotlight, that's not what I want.
Eric May: So how much did you work with Mr. Monnett during this whole process? Did you call him on a daily basis? I mean, how much did you discuss this?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, he was at the meeting. He got back from the meeting, and we probably ended up –
John Meskel: What meeting?
Jeffrey Gleason: The Marine Mammal Conference meeting in San Diego. He was actually presenting the poster, and we talked about it some after. And then he would task me to, okay, you know, draft the introduction or whatever. And I think where I came into play on this particular paper was the introduction, gathering the weather data and working on the discussion. For the most part, he did the numbers, put it all together, did the figures and that sort of thing, but I was helping, but I wasn't sort of the lead on it.
Eric May: Are you good friends with him?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, we're good colleagues, yeah.
Eric May: Would he have any reason to present false numbers like this?
Jeffrey Gleason: I can't imagine why, no.
Eric May: Do you stay in contact with him now?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yep, yeah. I mean, we work for the same agency, so we're in touch.
Eric May: Because you miss Anchorage so much, {want} to go back?
Jeffrey Gleason: Believe it or not, it's not the weather so much. It's fishing and the beautiful country. It's just a unique, very unique place in the United States. I mean, it's basically, to me, it's a wilderness that's just amazing.
Eric May: We got to go to Fairbanks, –22 degrees right now.
Jeffrey Gleason: That's a little different, yeah.
Eric May: Get your document. You're looking for the –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: Sign-off.
Jeffrey Gleason: This is a draft of the abstract for the poster. I'm trying to actually find that form number, MMS –
Eric May: For the peer review?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, and I might not have it. They should have copies of that. I might not have copies.
Eric May: "They" meaning MMS in Anchorage?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, yeah.
Eric May: Who would I talk to?
Jeffrey Gleason: You could try Chuck, or he could give you the names of the records person. And I can look it up when we get out of here.
Eric May: Okay, that would be good.
Jeffrey Gleason: The form number, it's 1282, or there's a document number in that.
John Meskel: For the peer review?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: So is there a manual for peer review, like a step-by-step protocol to conduct a peer review?
Jeffrey Gleason: Manual? I don't think there's a manual per se. I think after this poster hit the market, DOI-wide changed their policy.
John Meskel: As a result of that?
Jeffrey Gleason: As a result of that. And depending on which agency you work for, there's a little different flexibility or different guidelines or guidance. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, your immediate supervisor basically has to review it and I think his or her immediate supervisor. But it doesn't have to go to Headquarters or Regional Director or anything. And there's been some changes, again, after the last Administration, sort of going back to sort of what it was. The onus is on the scientist. In almost all the government publications, peer-reviewed publications, there's a disclaimer, and I think that's provided in that paper as well, "The views of this paper are those of the scientist and not of the agency," trademarks, that sort of thing. Those are sort of standard for any government paper.
Eric May: I did see that. But that would be different if this was released through MMS, correct, because this manuscript was the result of an unofficial – you're doing the bowhead whale migration survey.
Jeffrey Gleason: Which was an official –
Eric May: And this was a byproduct of the official objective of that survey, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, right. Like I said, at the time, it's kind of weird, the agencies each had sort of individual policies, and there was quite a bit of variation before the poster.
John Meskel: This policy on peer review specifically?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, and submitting for publication. After the poster, under the previous Administration, things changed dramatically, and the peer review process in Alaska changed. Basically, after this, you had to have sign-off clear to Headquarters, and before that, it just went to the Regional Director. Since the previous Administration, it went more back towards what it originally was, where the onus is on the scientist and the immediate supervisor. So there is some of that going on.
The papers, I don't know if I can find those. After we're done, if you can give me a few minutes in my office, I'll look some more for the review paper for the poster and the review paper for the paper.
John Meskel: That would be great.
Jeffrey Gleason: And those are the two forms I think you're really looking for. And I seem to recall, in one case, where John had initialed, but he didn't sign. And we unknowingly interpreted initials as the same as a signature. We didn't know that there was a difference. On the form, initials basically say, "Okay, but, hey, you know, you need to spend more time with it," or something, whereas actual sign-off is, "It's good to go." And I can't remember whether it's for the poster or for the paper, but we misinterpreted the initials as a signature.
John Meskel: Where is that difference spelled out?
Jeffrey Gleason: On the back of the form in very fine print. There's like a little subscript or asterisk on the form.
John Meskel: And was that intentional then, if he initialed it, that he was giving a more limited –?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't know that.
John Meskel: Was there ever discussion of that after the fact?
Jeffrey Gleason: There was after the fact. It was like "I didn't know that," and he didn't say anything at that point in time. I figured if there was a problem at that point in time, you know, and I can't remember which one it was. But those forms, hard copies of those forms should be available through the Alaska Region, if I can't find them. I might have a copy. I've since –
Eric May: Well, if you have it, that would be great to have.
Jeffrey Gleason: I've since moved Portland, North Dakota and here, so I think I'll have them, but I can't guarantee it.
Eric May: All right, let's get this, back on December 2, 2004, from Monnett to you, is this what the observations from the database that you're talking about on the laptop would look like?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Okay, so this is what you're talking about?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Does this look familiar, the four?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, the events would be – yeah, whatever that previous email you had. But there's an event number associated with each observation and then a date, the ice conditions, presence of ice conditions, type of ice, status. It's basically live, dead, swim. I mean, the status might be behavior. I can't remember. And then distance to shore, distance to ice, number and that sort of thing.
Eric May: This is from the software you mentioned?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think it is, yeah. I have copies of some of the earlier drafts of the paper. Yeah, these are just all early drafts.
John Meskel: Eric, are they of interest, earlier drafts of the paper?
Eric May: Yeah. I have some of them for your peer review. See if these look familiar, Jeff. Was this part of the peer review when you –? This is August 31, 2004.
Jeffrey Gleason: No, this is for a camera purchase, I think.
Eric May: Oh, that's the camera.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, this is for the purchase of a camera.
Eric May: And the type of camera, do you remember the –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, it was Canon EOS Rebel something.
Eric May: What about this one, swimming polar bears and floating carcasses?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, this is basically an early draft that Chuck was going to send to Ian and Andy for –
Eric May: But this was part of the peer review process?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think so. It might have been him sending them a copy of that poster. I'm not sure. I don't know what two figure means [inaudible].
Eric May: I saw the track changes and –
Jeffrey Gleason: Oh, okay. Yeah, that's an early draft of the paper.
Eric May: They have several of these and one to Ian and the individuals you mentioned up in Canada.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. Yeah, see, this one is dated 9 November '05; 7 April '05 with Cleve's reviews and edits; a very early draft that's not dated. This one is dated 1-29-05.
Eric May: And you had used the email system to forward the drafts mostly?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Okay, I have a lot of that with the drafts.
Jeffrey Gleason: Okay.
Eric May: All right, let's move this forward. The camera, you took the photo of the only one attempt to take a photo of the dead polar bears, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. I think so, yeah.
Eric May: This is some photos that you took that you sent to Cleve Cowles, Mr. Cowles.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Do you recall?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, those are just bowhead whale pictures.
Eric May: Was this around the time you observed the dead polar bears, because this is pretty clear.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: And I obviously have the dead polar bear photo. Why is this so much more clear than the polar bear shot that you took?
Jeffrey Gleason: Angle, where the sun is versus where we are. The size of the animal, of course, is dramatically different.
John Meskel: What altitude do you think you were at there?
Jeffrey Gleason: This might be 1,000, yeah. We're typically working in a 1,500 to 1,000 feet.
Eric May: And then these are the photos.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: And you're saying that these photos of the dead polar bears in my possession are the same polar bear?
Jeffrey Gleason: These two for sure are. I can't tell on this one, if that's a different one or not. Like I said, I can't remember –
Eric May: Were these taken from the Rebel, the Canon Rebel camera?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. And, I mean, basically, you can see the form that you'd expect, a head, a rump, the legs, hind legs, four legs. And in this case, you see this sort of white thing hanging down.
Eric May: Is that what you referenced as being intestines possibly?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, possibly. Yeah, and I mean, I think these are probably blown up and not the originals. The originals are much smaller, but we attempted to blow them up in the hopes that, you know, better identification, in the hopes that we could actually put one of these figures or both in the paper, but the quality was so poor.
Eric May: What did you use to try to –
Jeffrey Gleason: Just whatever was available on the work machine, Paint or one of the package. We didn't do any sort of enhancing or anything. We didn't use any special software really, just whatever is Microsoft Paint or, you know, something like that.
Eric May: The design place that you forwarded, they couldn't do anything to it?
Jeffrey Gleason: Un-uh [no].
Eric May: What did they say, just too –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, that the original quality, just said between the vibration and the fact that it's a bit out of focus, they said there's nothing we can do to enhance the quality of the figure.
Eric May: But do you have the original? I think I asked you before.
Jeffrey Gleason: I might have copies of the original.
Eric May: That would be great if I could it, yeah. But would it be on your computer here?
Jeffrey Gleason: I might have a copy on one of my thumb drives, yeah.
Eric May: So you have it at your desk?
Jeffrey Gleason: I might. Yeah, I can't remember if I kept those or not.
Eric May: Okay, I would love to have that.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: All right. Do you have any questions about the photos, John?
Jeffrey Gleason: I mean, it looks like a white blob probably to the untrained eye.
Eric May: Well, it does, and how far were these taken from the plane?
Jeffrey Gleason: We might have dropped down under 1,000 to get these.
John Meskel: And were you the one that actually took the photos?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: Okay, I assume or this discussion would never [inaudible].
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, I basically formatted the camera and spent a lot of time reading about, you know, and basically I was the cameraman. But like I said, some of the pictures, you know, obviously this was off of land, on the ground, and the camera will do it. And this is pretty close to – I mean, the quality of these pictures, which is pretty good but, again, [inaudible] on a solid – basically on a tripod situation.
John Meskel: Where were you taking these from, like through a window in the plane?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. I think in these cases, I was the secondary observer, so there was two seats in the back. Chuck would be in the right rear, and I was in the left rear, had a camera in my bag ready to go, right between my legs all the time. So in that case, we would have probably been circling, banking left so I could take pictures out the window. The problem is, again, between my vibration of holding it and shooting through glass, the quality tended to be not very good. And, occasionally, I think that first year, you know, these are pretty decent, but these are pretty poor.
Eric May: Do you recall taking these photos from that camera?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Now when were these taken? And I'm showing the pictures with the ship in the background with the bowhead whales as well.
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't know if I took those. No, because this looks like a seismic array. Is it whales or seismic?
Eric May: Well, I assumed, since they were taken from that camera, and you don't recall taking these photos?
Jeffrey Gleason: Un-uh [no]. You could look at the date stamp on the file. It would tell you. I remember taking some of a just ship, but I don't remember seeing or taking any of the ship with bowhead whales anywhere near it. So I think this was probably after I had left, yeah.
John Meskel: Do you know what kind of lens you were using there?
Jeffrey Gleason: It was like a 8200; it was a pretty decent lens. I mean, you could probably track that information down through the email records, because there's probably some record of –
Eric May: That you purchased a high –
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Yes, I do have a record of that.
John Meskel: It's hard to –
Jeffrey Gleason: And like I said, these are probably post – you know, I might have tried to kind of blow up the image, crop it and thinking that I would get better resolution, but no. These actually might have been one of the few instances where we dropped down to like 500 feet.
John Meskel: So even from 500 feet and with a good telephoto lens, this is all you can get?
Jeffrey Gleason: You're shooting through glass. Shooting through glass is bad.
Eric May: And the reason John is asking that is because these photos seem so much clearer, and these are probably also shot from glass.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: So that what we're getting at, why the difference between these photos and these photos?
Jeffrey Gleason: Right. Potentially, the settings were different. The operator of the camera may have changed the settings in the camera, and because it's basically automatic, once you have the settings sort of set, you know, to me, this is a decent picture in that you can clearly identify what these are. But it's really blue, and there's this sort of resolution issue, which is shooting through the glass. Like I said, I'm not sure these are originals. I think these might have been for cropped, and you get this even blurrier.
John Meskel: What else was in the picture then that was cropped out from these?
Jeffrey Gleason: Basically, that's it, open ocean with the polar bear.
John Meskel: How do you even tell that that's a polar bear?
Jeffrey Gleason: You can see the head, the front leg, rear leg, front leg, hind end, and you see that here, too, the back legs.
John Meskel: How do you tell that it's dead and what the cause of death was?
Jeffrey Gleason: And, again, we talked about cause of death earlier, and I think we mentioned that in the paper. "Cause of death could not be determined." I mean, there's no way. If you have a helicopter with a basket, maybe you've got a chance to scoop it up, go in and do a necropsy and blood work and, you know, a full suite of that sort of thing. But we didn't have that opportunity flying in a Twin Otter on tires.
John Meskel: Well, I've seen the description "drowned polar bears" several times. How do you determine that's a drowned polar bear if you can't do the things you just described?
Jeffrey Gleason: There were no Native subsistence whalers in those areas at that time. We thought, well, maybe somebody shot it. Having talked to subsistence whalers, the Game and Fish biologists, there were no whaling activity during that time in those areas, so we eliminated that. Again, we sort of fell onto this principle of parsimony, which is often the easiest explanation or sort of the clearest interpretation is often the easiest, the most simple. And given the events that happened over a course of three to four days with the surveys, the swimmers, the wind and then, the next day, we get out, and we see these dead ones, it strongly suggests that these bears sort of transpired or died in route from Point A to Point B. And whether it was exposure, they just ran out of energy, and there was something to do with the physical process, it's hard to say. But this seemed like a pretty reasonable explanation for what we observed.
John Meskel: Well, again, from a layperson's viewpoint, you know, looking at it years later and in the light of all the controversy or the media attention that the study got, it seems odd that given the significance of it at the time, that there were no photographs taken of the other polar bears or what you thought were dead polar bears on subsequent visits, subsequent missions.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
John Meskel: And you said before you weren't sure why, but perhaps it was because of the poor image quality. If you knew that you had poor image quality, and you subsequently saw something that was this significant and so unusual, I would think that you would spend more time and effort trying to get images to document that. So what am I missing?
Jeffrey Gleason: The problem with getting good images is the permit that we're working under only allows us 1,000 feet minimum. And in this case, I think we probably broke permit and were down around 500. But the permit says what, 1,000 to 1,500 is the operating range because of disturbance and potential effects on the animals. I think in this case, we may have went to 500 to try and get better pictures, and the picture quality is the fault of the camera operator, being me. Interpretation of what I saw and what Chuck saw and what the pilot saw and the data recorder, if it was one person seeing something like this, I could see where you'd be, "That's just a white blob." But we're all like, "Jesus, those look like dead polar bears. Look at the head, look at" – you know, we were close enough that you could distinguish the characteristics.
Now the reason for it not showing up on the camera, that's my fault. And like I said, it's a combination of operator error, the settings on the camera, shooting through glass, vibration, moving, so you get that sort of splash effect, whereas this, the distance was quite a bit further I think, and it turned out a little bit better. I don't know. But like I said, other than sort of seascape, landscape, having taken these really bad photos after that, I don't know if we ever took very many sort of photos after this, because you just couldn't get the level of precision, resolution that warranted taking a bunch of pictures. And like I said, those pictures, I don't recall that event, so that's probably after I had left.
Eric May: The color of the ocean, why the difference if it's the same photograph?
Jeffrey Gleason: I'm not sure that it's the same. This might actually be one of the other ones. But what we're doing is circling. And the sunlight, and the color of the water actually will change sort of, depending on which angle you are and where the sun is relative to the image. And it almost looks like there's this {trace string} here coming down this way, so we're banking, we're coming around this way. This is almost straight overhead, because that line is pretty much straight down. This is we're either banking this way or this way, but we're on this side. And this one would suggest we're coming back around, and now it's on my left side. And I'm shooting down, because it looks like this white thing is trailing that way. I can't be sure, but it looks to be sort of a trail.
Like I said, the difference in the contrast of the water I think is a function of the light and the angle. I don't think it's a different bear. Now, like I said, I can check on my thumb drive to see if it is. I don't think it is. And I've got a notebook with some notes on this stuff, too.
Eric May: When you were trying to make this more clear, for what purpose?
Jeffrey Gleason: To put the image actually in the paper.
Eric May: For the manuscript?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: Again, so you recognized if you could get a picture of a dead polar bear, that's significant enough that you would want to use it in –
Jeffrey Gleason: In a publication.
John Meskel: In your publication.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
John Meskel: But when you saw them on subsequent missions, you didn't think it was worth it to try to get pictures? It just doesn't make sense to me.
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, I know. I would look at the dates of those from the database printout.
Eric May: Oh, the sightings?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. I'm not exactly sure if they were subsequent missions or if they all happened on the same date.
Eric May: No, one happened on the 16th of September, the other on the 18th, then the 22nd, then the 24th of September, all the same month of '04.
Jeffrey Gleason: Okay. Yeah, I can't remember exactly how they fell out.
Eric May: But you didn't observe more than one dead polar bear on the same day?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, like I said, it's been so long since I've looked at that stuff. I can go to my notebook, because I recorded a lot of information, so I should have the pictures taken of polar bear, event number, because in my notebook, I kept event numbers down. I'd get that from the recorder, so I'd write, "Event number, polar bear sighted," and any information. And if I took pictures, in my field notebook, I should have that.
Eric May: Do you know what address belongs to {sonnytaylor@bellsouth} by chance? Sonny Taylor, do you know who that is?
Jeffrey Gleason: Un-uh [no]. Is that an email address?
Eric May: An email that had it on, yeah.
Jeffrey Gleason: Un-uh [no].
Eric May: You don't recognize that at all?
Jeffrey Gleason: Un-uh [no]. No.
Eric May: Did Mr. Monnett try to manipulate these photos to make it more clear?
Jeffrey Gleason: Not that I'm aware of.
John Meskel: So was that you that was using that program, whatever it was you referred to, to try –
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, like I said, it was just something on the computer, Paint or one of the – in the hopes of trying to make it clear. And it allows you to do some things, but I could never get it to where I thought it was worth including in the manuscript. And like I said, we took probably that file to an image processing place to see if they could enhance it.
John Meskel: What place was that?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't recall. They didn't keep it.
John Meskel: Did you take it to somewhere physically around your Alaska office?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes.
John Meskel: Some kind of company that does photo processing?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: I have that information.
John Meskel: And did you take them the original file to work with?
Jeffrey Gleason: I believe so, yeah.
Eric May: You forwarded the original file to the –
Jeffrey Gleason: No, we didn't send it electronically, I don't think. I think we actually had it on the thumb drive and asked them to look at it. And I think we might have provided a hand printout, something like this, and said, "Is there anything you can do?", that sort of thing. But I don't remember which camera shop it was. I simply can't recall.
John Meskel: Who took it?
Jeffrey Gleason: The picture? I took the picture.
John Meskel: No, I mean, to the camera shop.
Jeffrey Gleason: I think I did.
John Meskel: Was there anybody else with you?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think Chuck might have been.
Eric May: Well, according to this email, you sent it electronically, this photo.
Jeffrey Gleason: Oh, I did? It's probably this one here.
Eric May: "Maybe later today or even tomorrow before I'm given the okay to proceed, before we" – who are you talking about there, "okay" from whom?
Jeffrey Gleason: Probably Cleve to pay, to cover the cost if there is something that's –
Eric May: So management knew about these photos?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Okay, "Before we agree to have the work done, it would be good to know if the image can be manipulated enough to be of publication quality, that is, if you look at it." The "manipulation," what do you –?
Jeffrey Gleason: Basically clarifying the image, not distorting it in any way, no.
Eric May: And you only sent one.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: So is this the original then, the original photo?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, and that I think is this one.
Eric May: Okay, and you have this one?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think so.
Eric May: Okay, that would be very helpful if I could get that.
Jeffrey Gleason: Okay.
Eric May: This shop, does that look familiar?
Jeffrey Gleason: Could be, yeah.
John Meskel: One of the things that also puzzled us was the digital image that's with that email. We did forensics on it, and we can't tie it to that camera as we would expect to be able to if it were the original image. There is what's called "EXIF data" that's produced, if you're familiar with that, that it is embedded in the digital image.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
John Meskel: The version that was sent by email has that data stripped off. It's no longer present. From our interpretation is that image was probably opened in some sort of editing software, Paint being one possibility.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
John Meskel: And something was done to it, and it was resaved.
Jeffrey Gleason: That could have been.
John Meskel: And in that process, it strips off some of the data.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, that could have been. Anything related to the quality of the images or the file characteristics is on me, because I didn't know – I may not have known there was an SOP or policy procedure for sensitive images. It looked like a wildlife picture to me, so I just thought "When I get it to my work machine at the office, I'll try and enhance the quality of the image myself." Again, had I known, you know, as with the NRDA process, if you're familiar with the oil spill impact sort of research that's going on, any images that are taken with the camera, there's a sort of chain of custody, and this is how – I mean, that wouldn't have even occurred to me in my wildest dream.
I mean, looking back, I probably should have handled the images differently, and there's a good chance that those images are in the Alaska Region on one of those machines, the originals as well the manipulated. And there should be both the original images and the manipulated or altered images available.
John Meskel: Would that be on your old computer?
Jeffrey Gleason: Should be, yeah, unless they wiped the hard drive. But typically I think what happens is they back up all that information, you know, when they have a new employee come in. If somebody leaves, they basically back up the hard drive, so all this information should be on that hard drive.
The images I have, if I have the images, I'm not sure if they're going to be originals or not. You'll be able to tell by looking at – typically if they're renamed, they're not a numbered and date stamped, obviously they've been manipulated. Chances are that's what I have is polar bear, you know, with the date or something. But anything related to the files mismanagement, that's my fault, but it's because I didn't know. I mean, I wasn't aware that there was some sort of procedure and process for images.
Eric May: Anything else on the photos?
John Meskel: The email where you were sending this to, who was it?
Jeffrey Gleason: Something Pacific Rim Photography or something.
John Meskel: Was that the same place you were referring to taking it in person?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
John Meskel: So why both? Why did you email it as well as go there?
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, rather than waste my time going over there, I wanted to have them look at the image initially via email and, you know, if they said, "Well, if that's as good as it gets," then there's no reason for us to take time off work or whatever and go take the image over there. And I'm pretty sure we ended up going there sometime after this email, and I'm certain we got the okay to have the images printed in better resolution if possible.
So I'm pretty sure we went like a day or two after that, and I'm pretty sure I had an image on one of the thumb drives. I don't think it was on the camera, but I can't remember for sure whether the image I brought was on a thumb drive or whether it was still on the memory card in the camera. I can't remember.
John Meskel: Did you get a response to that?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't know if we got an email response or not. I can't remember. Like I said, the way I sort of remember it is we went there the next day or the day after or a couple of days later, and they had looked at the images and said, "We can't do anything with them."
John Meskel: So you sent them an email asking them, "Take a look at this. Tell me if it's worth our time," basically.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
John Meskel: You're not sure if you get a response, but you then go and take it in person anyway.
Jeffrey Gleason: I'm sure we did get a response, but I don't know if I have that email.
John Meskel: What was the response?
Jeffrey Gleason: If we got a response, it probably was something along the lines that the file that you provided is of insufficient quality or resolution to do anything with.
John Meskel: So why go in person to take them something else?
Jeffrey Gleason: Because I think I may have had the actual camera with the data card in the camera, the original. Like I can't remember exactly how it all went related to these images, but the reason for us trying to enhance the quality was for publication. I mean, [inaudible/mixed voices].
John Meskel: For the manuscript?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, for the manuscript, right, yeah.
Eric May: You see where John's – it doesn't make sense for you to email it, and then you still go down there.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right. I don't remember exactly. There was probably a follow-up email. Maybe we didn't go down there. I can't remember. I remember taking my personal camera to a shop right around the same time to have some work done, so I might be mixing, you know, sequence of events up. But I know we did get confirmation from a professional that we can't do anything with the images that you provided, so we basically dropped it.
Eric May: And who else in MMS in Anchorage knew about this photo? I'm talking about upper management.
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, I know Cleve did. I don't know if John was aware of the images or not.
Eric May: But you did discuss this photo with Cleve?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. I think his opinion was that it's not a very good picture, you know. I think he said, "Could be anything."
Eric May: What was Cleve's title at the time?
Jeffrey Gleason: He was the Science Coordinator, Environmental Studies Chief at the time.
Eric May: Did you email this photo to him?
Jeffrey Gleason: I don't know if we emailed it. I think we might have just printed out a hard copy. I mean, he would have copies of some of the earlier reviews with his comments and such. And we were hoping we could get the photo included in the paper, but it was such poor quality. But like I said earlier, I think there was more internal issue relative to – well, I know there was. There was more internal issue relative to the poster and the subsequent media blitz than the paper. The paper just kind of came out and very little response to that. But the big issue was how the poster, and next thing you know, there's all this – like I said, I had probably four phone calls, four or five, a couple of which were from the Headquarters, PR, etc.
Eric May: Regarding the poster presentation?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. And the poster presentation was, from my perspective, we were just presenting some information. It was peer-reviewed internally and, you know, that basically what you do when you're presenting at a conference is you submit an abstract. There's a limited number of spots available at any conference, and it was selected.
So, you know, during the process, I'm sure we had the form signed. And like I said, I don't know exactly. One of those forms was initialed, and one was, and I don't remember which. And we misinterpreted initials versus actual signature. And like I said, DOI policy, MMS policy, presenting scientific research changed almost overnight after this happened. And they basically told us, "You will not talk about sea ice change, climate change, polar bears, bowhead whales to any outside scientists, including cooperating agencies. You will not talk to media outlets, anything." And that was from the Director. It's like "Wow."
John Meskel: You didn't expect to have that effect?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, no.
Eric May: Curious, the Inconvenient Truth, did you know this study was referenced in that movie by Al Gore?
Jeffrey Gleason: You know, it's been a long time since I saw that, and like I said, it's been so long. I think these sorts of things tend to mushroom, and the interpretation gets popularized. Something very small turns into this big snowball coming down the mountain, and that's I think what happened with this paper.
Eric May: Did anybody call you from the production of that movie?
Jeffrey Gleason: No.
Eric May: Nobody called to verify information?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, not that I'm aware of. Nobody called me.
Eric May: What about Mr. Monnett?
Jeffrey Gleason: I can't speak on his behalf. I don't know.
Eric May: Just I was curious
Jeffrey Gleason: But the other thing is the alternative interpretation of something that seems pretty black and white to authors of a scientific paper, you know, it's happened with this, but it happens all the time when the media picks up on it. Some of that stuff relating to the oil spill, people doing research, next thing you know, it's splashed all over, and it's huge. And they may have found something or provided some information or a technical report or a publication, and the next thing you know, it's like, "I didn't say that." I mean, it gets spun into this weird – it goes into the –
Eric May: Well, it's all over the media as of even today, about the polar bears.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: Car commercials are using polar bears drowning to encourage the purchase of hybrid vehicles.
Jeffrey Gleason: It's become the icon for global warming.
Eric May: See what you've done, Jeff? [Laughter]
Jeffrey Gleason: It wasn't my fault. I'm just presenting a paper, you know? It's interesting when you talk about, I mean, we're here today in that when this paper came out, my Ph.D. supervisor sent me a pretty nasty email. I probably don't have a copy of it, but he's like, "Are you kidding me?" He's just like, "You just set off a time bomb." And I kind of elaborately stated, "Well, this is what I was thinking when we were doing this. It's simply a paper of an observation of polar bears in the ocean." There's no way I could have anticipated what happened, and like I was telling you before, I like to sit in the corner and play with some numbers, you know, just do the science, and all this is not my thing. I don't like the spotlight. It's not what I'm about at all.
Eric May: Where is your Ph.D. out of?
Jeffrey Gleason: University of Western Ontario.
Eric May: Oh, in Canada?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. And I knew of and had probably met Ian and Andy in '95. Summer of '95 and '96 I was working up at a goose camp up at Churchill, so I got to know some of the polar bear guys and interacted with some of them up in Alaska as well. But, yeah, my Ph.D. supervisor was pretty critical of –
Eric May: The manuscript part?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: What was he critical about?
Jeffrey Gleason: Some of the highlighted things you sort of touched on. He's like, "You got to expect this." I'm like "I didn't expect anything. I just wanted to publish the paper in a journal, and that's that." I can't anticipate. Now, hindsight, you know, things look a little different. Now my eyes have been opened. I had no – that's not [inaudible].
Eric May: What's the name of the supervisor?
Jeffrey Gleason: Dave Ankney.
Eric May: Did you get your Ph.D.?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: Okay, what was your dissertation on?
Jeffrey Gleason: Canada goose reproductive behavior and interactions with sympatric snow geese. So there's the influence of this increasing snow goose population on this island nesting population of Canada geese. Like I said, my background is primarily avian ecology. When I went to Alaska, there was opportunity to sort of broaden my background with the first bowhead whale paper and on some of the polar bear papers and then a beaver manuscript and mallards eating salmon and that sort of just observational type stuff. But for the most part, most of that stuff, I come at it more from the science aspect. Policy and big decisions, that's not my thing, and I try to avoid this sort of situation.
John Meskel: Well, I guess again, from a curiosity perspective, looking back on it, are you still convinced that those were dead polar bears that you all observed?
Jeffrey Gleason: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, and you could look back, if you had that report, 2004 or 2005, if you had that final report, it'll tell you who was on what flights on what dates. So it was me and Chuck. He was the primary; I was the secondary. I can't remember who the data recorder was. I'm trying to think who it might have been. I can't think of her name right off the top of my head, but she still works at MMS in Alaska. And that's hard to say who the two pilots were, because they rotated every five days or something. But there's your five sort of observers and everybody is –
Eric May: But you don't agree with what's being thrown out in the media about your report, do you?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think it's went a long ways away from where the paper initially went. You know, I think it's mushroomed into this huge thing that we saw some dead polar bears, which was interesting. And there's potential with this additional source of sort of previously poorly documented or undocumented source of natural mortality that might have an impact on the population. But to go to selling cars, you know, or a few years back, there were Coke commercials or Pepsi commercials and all this stuff.
John Meskel: The polar bear drinking a Coke?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah. All this stuff is odd.
Eric May: Well, let me ask you, as a scientist, and you see all this false information being blown into a mushroom, as you state, as a scientist, do you think you're obligated to follow up with your findings in here for further research on this issue?
Jeffrey Gleason: If I was a polar bear scientist, and I was still working up in the Arctic and doing research on polar bears, absolutely I would follow up with it. But like I said, at that point in my career, in my job, I had went from doing my Ph.D., taking a Federal position, still having that sort of research mentality where, you know, as a faculty member, you're pretty much almost protected from about anything. You can publish, and nothing happens. Well, wow, this was a sledgehammer. I hadn't even ever in my wildest dreams imagined, both from the change in the regulations and publishing, the sort of hush policy on agency scientists, "You will not talk to X, Y, Z." Basically, we can't talk to anybody about this issue, this issue and this issue. I don't think it's changed. And all this stuff is like mindboggling, from a scientific perspective.
Eric May: Was Mr. Monnett your mentor then, coming in, learning how to do research within the government?
Jeffrey Gleason: I had developed that from my master's supervisor and my Ph.D. supervisor and some of like the colleagues that I had worked with during my Ph.D. He was probably a mentor while I was in Alaska. He pushed me – I wouldn't say "pushed." He was pretty positive about publishing because, you know, other than one of the early papers that Treacy, the bowhead paper, which basically happened when I got there, there was very little of that sort of research and science and peer review and hadn't been done up to that point. And I think we worked well together but, like I said, I'm more of a science guy for science. That's sort of my background. All the stuff that's mushroomed into this –
Eric May: Understood. The last question, the manuscript, Mr. Monnett, am I pronouncing that correctly?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, Monnett.
Eric May: He was, like you said, the lead of the numbers.
Jeffrey Gleason: He's the lead author, yeah.
Eric May: And he was the lead signoff person of the final product.
Jeffrey Gleason: I think on that form, both authors, I think we both have to sign, and then it would have went to Cleve, where he would have signed. Then the Regional supervisor at that time was Paul Stang, and then it would have went to the Regional Director at that time.
Now, after this event, then there was a Headquarters addition on top of that, but up to that point, it was just within the Region. And like I said, it got very stringent. I think the DOI policy changed at that point, entire Department of Interior changed, as far as scientific peer-reviewed publications or presenting at scientific meetings. But then, when the Administration changed, I think it's since reverted back to a little more within Region, immediate supervisor or the Regional supervisor's signature.
Like I said, I think publications here and when I worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service in North Dakota, as long as you had the disclaimer, that was a big part of it, too, and, of course, we included that in that paper.
John Meskel: Yes, you did.
Jeffrey Gleason: But, you know, each agency has their own policy within DOI framework, and they've kind of went back and forth a little bit. And I think since Administration has changed, it's been more relaxed and more like it was prior to this big event [inaudible/mixed voices].
Eric May: The Administration you keep referencing, you're talking about BOEMRE?
Jeffrey Gleason: No, no, I'm talking about the President.
Eric May: Oh, the President? Okay, and then Mr. Salazar came in, correct?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah, as Secretary, yeah. I think Obama, Secretary Salazar have changed it back more to what it was before the Bush Administration, so there's more weight on the individual scientist within the framework of the policy, which, you know, as a scientist, I guess if I wanted just to do science, I should probably get a different job, maybe a faculty position. But at that point in time, there was this opportunity to publish on bowhead whales and polar bears and that sort of thing and, you know, it was just a unique opportunity of timing. And with the survey and everything, there is just so much data available, and the potential is virtually unlimited. You had to know a lot about the database and the inherent sort of problems with the database, multiple observers and years and that sort of thing.
But that being said, there was this opportunity, and I just enjoyed it, enjoyed that opportunity to publish. But I'm a little more cautious about working for an agency and understanding policy and trying not to repeat mistakes that I didn't know maybe about. So it's been a big learning experience and, yeah, I never would have guessed that that little paper would have had such a big impact on things.
Eric May: I don't have any more questions.
Jeffrey Gleason: As a side note, talking about my former supervisor, he actually sent me an email at one point saying, "You're the reason polar bears got listed."
Eric May: Oh, endangered?
Jeffrey Gleason: Yes.
Eric May: Yeah, that's recently, too.
Jeffrey Gleason: That's a bit of a stretch.
Eric May: Your boss just indicated that?
Jeffrey Gleason: My former Ph.D. supervisor, yeah. "It's your fault." I'm like "Come on."
Eric May: Well, because they do reference this. Like I said, this paper is referenced everywhere pertaining to global [inaudible].
Jeffrey Gleason: Well, in this case, polar bear, we call it [inaudible/mixed voices].
Eric May: Polar bear extinction up there, because they're all drowning.
Jeffrey Gleason: Yeah.
Eric May: And they're referencing your paper.
Jeffrey Gleason: They are, but I think if you follow up, there's a cannibalism paper by Amstrup, et al., and there's a couple of other event-type papers where they're seeing more, what is the other one, dead cubs that are being eaten by males, the frequency of these sorts of events. So they're kind of laying out this picture now.
Eric May: And that's my point, because laws are changing based on your report and being referenced at least, or being used as support of something.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right.
Eric May: There's currently legislation in Alaska referencing your report, about how they conduct business up there, environmentally speaking, and so that's why I really pushed the numbers, because if the numbers are incorrect, then decisions are being made based on erroneous information.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right, and I can't imagine that this single report is leading to all of this.
Eric May: Well, it does have the emotional –
Jeffrey Gleason: There's probably some stepping –
Eric May: Well, you know legislatures; emotion carries a lot of weight in passing legislation.
Jeffrey Gleason: Right. Well, like I said before, it was never my intent and never my expectation that it would have the impact that it's had.
Eric May: Do you have any working papers of the numbers that you came up with?
Jeffrey Gleason: I think I looked through that.
Eric May: That would be helpful, too.
Jeffrey Gleason: Like I said, I think Chuck derived the – when we're done, I can go into my cubical and see if I can find –
Eric May: Okay, John, do you have any additional?
John Meskel: No.
Eric May: One last thing, because this is an ongoing investigation, I need to ask you not to discuss what we discussed in here with anybody, particularly Mr. Monnett, you know, talking with us, because it is an ongoing investigation, okay?
Jeffrey Gleason: Okay. And if I might ask, "investigating"?
Eric May: The validity of the paper and the photos. Nothing? All right, that concludes our interview. It is now 12:42.