A Rare Breed--the Outspoken Wildlife Biologist--Vanishes : Environment: Esther Burkett never shied away from her job as a caretaker of and crusader for Orange County’s fragile habitat. Her departure for a position in Sacramento leaves a huge void, her colleagues say.

When Esther Burkett was 7 years old, she would escape every summer day to the wide-open coastal canyon near her home. The golden grass was her slide, and the old oaks were her jungle gym.

One day, when she ran to her hideaway in San Diego, the little girl was greeted not by soaring hawks and chirping birds, but by roaring bulldozers. With the help of her older sister, she wrote a letter to the landowner--Art Linkletter, famous at the time for his endearing talks with children nestled in his lap--and pleaded with him to spare their special place. She never heard back, and soon, she remembers, tract houses spread through the canyon like poison oak.

That letter was just the first of many efforts Burkett would make to save Southern California’s treasured places from development.

As the state’s wildlife biologist in Orange County, Burkett has implored builders, planners and politicians to stop swallowing up the county’s irreplaceable resources, holding state law over their heads like a hammer. Now, after four years, Burkett, 33, has quit her California Department of Fish and Game position in Orange County and accepted a promotion in Sacramento.

Her departure has left the state agency temporarily with no one in Orange County to guard wildlife, keep an eye on development, oversee several endangered-species reserves and enforce state conservation laws. The position won’t be filled for several months, and when a new biologist is hired, her supervisors say it probably will be someone fresh out of college, lacking Burkett’s expertise, energy and outspoken resolve.

“It’s going to leave a very big hole in our ability to protect wildlife. A very big void,” said Jon Fischer, Fish and Game’s wildlife biologist in neighboring Los Angeles County.

With Burkett gone, Orange County roads, housing and other development projects--from 100 to 150 per month--will be approved with no state official assigned to review them and ensure the damage to resources and wildlife is minimized.

Fish and Game officials and local environmentalists also fear that the fragile Bolsa Chica wetlands and least tern preserve in Huntington Beach will fall into disarray from lack of care and enforcement. Populations of many rare marsh birds in the county are so precarious, especially the endangered clapper rail and least tern, that even a few months with no biologist is dangerous, especially because spring breeding season has almost arrived, Fish and Game officials said.

“Esther spent a lot of time working with endangered species at Bolsa Chica, a lot of time with least terns, and they need a lot of attention. A single predator can wipe out 40 nests,” Fischer said. “That work is essential, and who is going to do it when she leaves? Personally, I’m mad at her for leaving.”

From research to hands-on labor, Burkett was the caretaker and crusader for the critters that live in Orange County--its deer, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, golden eagles and hundreds of native species of birds, reptiles and rodents.

She would tie her long hair in a ponytail, pull on her brown uniform and waterproof boots, and stride into Bolsa Chica, wielding a rake to clear brush so the least terns could nest every spring. She even cleaned the bathroom, chased away kids on mountain bikes and picked up trash at the popular marsh simply because there was no one else to do it.

Burkett would stride just as confidently into rooms full of local developers and politicians, sometimes stunning them with her frank talk.

At one hearing three years ago, a dumbfounded Board of Supervisors questioned the propriety of her opposition to the county’s three tollway proposals and wondered whether she was simply representing her own views. She had to bring a stern letter from her supervisor saying she was in fact representing the state agency when she warned that wildlife in Orange County was facing a crisis.

Her official letters and comments about development projects pulled no punches, each filled with pages documenting her concerns. She often described the tollways as the equivalent of “nuking” Orange County’s remaining wilderness areas, and she urged elected officials to stop growth and stop building freeways--shocking words for a state official stationed in a conservative county.

“We certainly have written enough letters to the Board of Supervisors saying ‘Wake up! Slow down! We have a problem here,’ ” Burkett said. “If you’re going to develop almost every square inch in Orange County, at least let’s save the most critical areas.”

Orange County developers and planners say wildlife officials like Burkett serve a single constituency, forgetting that the needs of wildlife must be balanced with the need for new, affordable housing for a swelling population, a thriving economy and modern, efficient roads. They say that Orange County has built in many protections for wildlife, including major wilderness parks, and that the demands of the Fish and Game Department and local conservationists are often uncompromising.

But her colleagues say Burkett was right not to let other pressures affect her decisions.

“A good biologist represents the environment,” said Larry Sitton, Fish and Game’s wildlife management supervisor for Southern California and head of Burkett’s department. “She found it particularly unappetizing to express the political point of view in her biology. If that makes her naive, maybe so, but it also makes her a good biologist.”

Burkett’s most tedious, yet critical and controversial work was to pore over the hundreds of environmental impact reports outlining each new private or public development planned in Orange County. She noted the dangers each posed to wildlife and challenged developers and public officials to resolve them. Her job wasn’t to stop development, but to ensure that builders minimized and compensated for environmental damage, as required by state law.

Now, hundreds of Orange County development projects, including the tollways, will get “a very cursory review” until a new biologist is hired and trained, Sitton said.

Burkett leaves Orange County somewhat frustrated by the politics of development and discouraged by recent grading of prime animal habitat. On her walks through the county’s canyons, she is often reminded of her childhood play spot, and she is happy to see hawks circling above and deer nibbling on bushes. But, all too often, she sees the omen of development--wooden stakes left by surveyors that mean bulldozers are on their way.

It’s in her nature to be optimistic, though.

“You can say the whole place is ruined and give up. But it’s not at all true,” Burkett said. “You just can’t stop pushing. As much as they (developers) are pushing, you have to push back.”

Burkett says the regional director of Fish and Game would often sigh at her stubbornness.

But many of her colleagues admit that Burkett vocalized their thoughts.

“Most of the time when she was outspoken, she was in fact right. There have been many times when people in our department had to admit that after the fact,” said Fischer, who has fought some of the same battles in Los Angeles County.

“She is outspoken when it comes to development,” he said, “but that’s because of the intensity of these issues. When you lose habitat, it’s gone forever.”

Burkett is taking her passion to a Fish and Game job studying animals in Northern California’s ancient forests, where she will take on the timber industry--a foe environmentalists consider as formidable as Southern California developers.

She leaves with strong criticism of her agency’s handling of Orange County.

“I just don’t feel the bigwigs (in Fish and Game) ever listened to the problems in Orange County,” she said. “That’s one of the key reasons I want to leave.”

Top Fish and Game officials sometimes ordered her to back down when it came to seeking concessions from developers because of pressure from legislators or the governor, and many decisions were made about Orange County wildlife based on politics, not biology, she said.

“I was reminded that ‘Thou shalt not unnecessarily impede development’ was the rule,” Burkett said. “That was my naivete. There are political connections and that was a hard lesson to learn.”

She also said the state agency is so extremely understaffed that it endangers the health of Bolsa Chica wetlands, Upper Newport Bay and other local resources.

Orange County used to have two state biologists, but the second position was left out of the budget last year--supervisors say accidentally, Burkett suspects intentionally--and is not expected to be reinstated.

“Orange County has two large (state-owned) ecological reserves with five endangered species, all in a heavily urbanized area. It needs to be run well. Either that, or turn the land over to someone who can manage it. But do not let it fall by the wayside,” Burkett said.

“We are the guardians of wildlife for the state,” she said. “Let’s do it right.”

Lorraine Faber, president of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, a group working to preserve the wetlands, said environmental groups can make up for Burkett’s departure by keeping a closer eye on Orange County’s resources, but they don’t carry the power of enforcement or experience of an official from the state wildlife agency.

“We have volunteers that can do basic research, but they cannot assume any of her official functions,” she said. “It’s not only Bolsa Chica that will suffer, but all the wildlife areas and projects in the county. The mountain lions, the deer.”

Michael Ruane, director of the county’s Environmental Management Agency, said the job of wildlife biologist is demanding in Orange County, and there will be a temporary gap--one that the county is willing to help fill.

“We would certainly be receptive to helping out,” he said. “Many of these (state-run) areas like Bolsa Chica are ones that the county has made substantial investments in too.”

People often laughed when Burkett said she was a wildlife biologist in Orange County, cracking jokes about how the only “wild life” is found at Newport Beach nightclubs. But she believes that the county is pivotal in the fate of California’s environment because it contains so many species on the brink of extinction threatened by rapid development.

“Orange County’s not a lost cause yet. Definitely not,” she said. “We still have mountain lions and golden eagles and spotted owls. But we have to slow down right now. If we pursue this pace for the next 10 years, then it is a lost cause.”