Scientist who identified global warming threat to polar bears wins settlement
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2013:
WASHINGTON D.C.––Charles M. Monnett, 65, whose observation
of four polar bear carcasses floating in the Beaufort Sea in September
2004 drew global attention to the effects of global warming, on
November 15, 2013 accepted a six-point retirement agreement negotiated
by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in settlement of a whistleblower
complaint against the U.S. Department of Interior.
Monnett, then a senior scientist for the Bureau of Ocean &
Energy Management, discovered the polar bear remains while doing an
aerial search for endangered bowhead whales with colleague Jeffrey
Gleason, who later left the BOEM. The bears were 125 to 185 miles from
the nearest sea ice. Only 12 polar bears had been observed swimming in
the preceding 25 years of aerial marine mammal surveys, and none had
ever been found dead at sea.