Dave's post on environmentalist fraud made me recall this incident from a number of years ago.

Congressmen from western states called on the federal government to mount an investigation after government researchers were caught planting false evidence of endangered species in national forests.

The fraud was discovered when a U.S. Forest Service employee informed supervisors that five federal and two Washington State researchers had planted endangered lynx hairs in areas where the animals did not exist.

The researchers were conducting a four-year study of 57 forests in 16 states to determine the extent of endangered lynx habitat and what additional steps might be taken to protect the animal.

After learning of the allegations, the Forest Service conducted tests of the allegedly planted hairs and determined the hairs matched those of a lynx living in an animal preserve and of a pet lynx belonging to a federal employee.

Their justification? They simple knew there were Lynx in those areas and didn't think a lack of evidence should prevent these areas from being "protected". Let be clear about this--there is absolutely no difference between this kind of wacko environmentalist loon and the people who burned young women as witches--both were acting on completely subjective world views with a similar lack of concern for the consequences. On the one hand, people lost their lives under terrible torture, on the other, entire communities were deemed collateral damage to the environmentalist gaia-epiphany.

I still recommend "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomberg which gives chapter and verse on environmentalist shenanigans and shines the reality light on the actual state of the natural world. The Greenies did everything from trying to ban the book, to working to discredit Lomberg personally.