Rex Dalton,San DiegoIncidents such as the untimelydeath of Mark Jeffrey Reynolds,a 35-year-old cyclist who wasdisembowelled by a puma inthe Whiting Ranch WildernessPark near Los Angeles on 8 Jan-uary, don’t make it any easierfor biologists who are trying to study and conserve predatorspecies in the American West.

Yet efforts to conservepumas, wolves, grizzly bears and other predator species havecontinued to gain momentum.Researchers hope that morethorough studies of animalbehaviour will reduce the num-ber of accidents and maintainthe fragile public support for theconservation of even the fiercest predators.

Only days after Reynolds and anothercyclist, Anne Hjelle, who survived, wereattacked, researchers at the University ofCalifornia, Davis, released what they say is the most comprehensive study yet of inter-actions between pumas and people.

“Ultimately, it is up to people to decide ifthey want to share the environment with ananimal that can kill them,”says Walter Boyce,director of the university’s Wildlife HealthCenter and leader of the study. “Attacks arerare,but there is no guarantee of safety.”

Boyce and colleagues charted the lives of20 pumas for 3 years in the Cuyamaca Ran-cho State Park near San Diego,close to wherea birdwatcher was killed by a puma in 1994.

The observations, made using radio-collars that beamed the pumas’ locations to a satellite, showed that the animals hunteddeer and bighorn sheep, and cached theirkills within a few hundred metres of people’shomes and a girls’ camp. But they found thatthe pumas were careful to avoid humans,andwere most active between dusk and dawn.

Boyce says that his group’s findings willhelp visitors to the pumas’ territory makeinformed decisions about their own safety.Safety recommendations from the study arebeing widely circulated in California, wherepuma populations have been growing in protected wilderness.

Pumas are abundant in California, butrarer predators are the subject of contentious

protection battles. For example,the grey wolf, which was wipedout in the United States 75 years ago, has been successfullyreintroduced since 1995 in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

Conservationists see thisreintroduction as one of thegreat successes of the 1973Endangered Species Act (ESA).But ranchers, hunters and asso-ciated businesses are objectingto the growing population ofgrey wolves outside the Yellow-stone National Park, where theconservation effort started.

The US Fish and WildlifeService (FWS), which controlsthe effort, was prepared to relaxESA protection of the wolf in

the three states if they came up with satisfac-tory plans to conserve the species on theirown. Earlier this month, FWS officialsapproved the plans offered by Montana andIdaho, but rejected that of Wyoming. Theplan drawn up by this staunchly conservativestate would have allowed widespread killingof the wolves in some areas.

Wyoming officials say that a conservationeffort would cost $700,000 a year, and thatthe federal government should pay.A similardispute is expected to arise later this year,when the FWS will try to transfer responsi-bility for conservation of the grizzly bear toWyoming and other western states. ■

➧ www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/whc/scp/mnt_lion.htm

NATURE | VOL 427 | 29 JANUARY 2004 | www.nature.com/nature 385

Wildlife attacks hinder conservation efforts

NIH acts to quench ‘conflict of interest’ allegations

news

Lethal potential: in the face of recent puma attacks, a wildlife study gives safetyrecommendations on living with California’s growing puma population.

Erika Check,WashingtonThe National Institutes of Health (NIH)looks set to ensure fuller disclosure ofdealings that its senior staff have withprivate companies.

Elias Zerhouni, director of thebiomedical research agency, told acongressional hearing on 22 January thatthe agency would take steps to guard againstconflict of interest, or the perception of it,among its senior staff. “I have reached theconclusion that the NIH must make changesthat will appropriately restrict currentpractices,” he said.

The hearing was held in response to aninvestigation by the Los Angeles Times,which reported on 7 December last year thatsome senior NIH scientists were receivingconsulting payments from, or held shares in, biotechnology companies that werebenefiting from grants or other decisions

that the scientists could have influenced (see Nature 426, 739; 2003). The newspapernoted that, under rules established in 1995,the scientists were not required to publiclydisclose these interests.

Zerhouni also announced that a panelco-chaired by Bruce Alberts, president of theNational Academy of Sciences, and NormanAugustine, chairman of the LockheedMartin Corporation, would look into theallegations and report within 90 days onsteps the agency could take to guard againstfuture conflicts of interest.

Senator Arlen Specter (Republican,Pennsylvania), chair of the Senateappropriations subcommittee that held the hearing, said the allegations raisedserious issues for the agency. “I believe there have to be substantial remedial stepstaken to ensure that a wall of separationbetween public duties and private

compensation is maintained,” Specter said.Observers say it is now likely that the

US Department of Health and HumanServices, of which the NIH is part, willchange the rules that currently shield someagency scientists from public scrutiny. On 12 January, health-department lawyer Edgar Swindell sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics, which oversees ethics regulations for the US federalgovernment. He requested that seniorofficials at the NIH’s 27 centres andinstitutes be required to disclose theirsources of income to the public. At theSenate hearing, an official from the ethicsoffice signalled that she would approve this request.

According to documents released by thehealth department, Swindell made a similarrequest six years ago which the ethics officerejected on technical grounds. ■

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