Dan Ashe Sworn in as the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Daniel M. Ashe, a second-generation employee who revitalized his agency's tradition of scientific research and investigation, was named new director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife on June 30 by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office the following day.

Ashe, the Service's deputy director for policy since 2009, served for six years as his agency's national science advisor, a position that provided the authority to revitalize and expand its grounding in scientific research and information sharing, a responsibility that dates back to its earliest beginnings in the 1870s. Ashe, who follows his father's storied 37-year career in the agency as a regional director in New England and the mid-Atlantic region, assumes his directorship at a time when science-based decisionmaking in the agency has taken on add importance for issues like global climate change.

"Over the past 6 years, we have begun a renaissance of scientific professionalism in the Service," says Ashe. "We must put our resources where they will do the most good -- tied to biological outcomes at the landscape level."

In his inaugural message to his agency's 9,000 employees, Ashe singled out the work of Anne Post, conservation librarian at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown. With Ashe's support, Post pioneered a resumption of the Service's scientific literature search capabilities, by which many of its far-flung biologists in remote corners of the Nation bolster their biological recommendations and decisions with the most up-to-date applied scientific research possible. Post also helped to resume the agency's scientific publishing program, through which agency scientists have two new outlets for the publication of their research.

"Anne Post has pioneered our critical online portal for access to scientific and technical information, as chief librarian at NCTC ... (one of) the modern-day Service heroes who give their best, day-in and day-out, for our country and for the resource," says Ashe.

 -- published --  July 8, 2011
 -- photo credit --  LaVonda Walton/USFWS

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