Environment: A Sharpshooter at Interior

The custodian of U.S. wildlife makes the feathers fly

Rising from behind his large wooden desk, G. (for George) Ray Arnett proudly points to the hunting trophies that adorn his Washington office. They include a bobcat skin, the head of a white-tailed deer and a stuffed pheasant. Pausing at a side table, he picks up a two-foot-long bonelike object. "That?" says Arnett, with barely concealed delight. "That's an usuk, the private part of a male walrus. Eskimos use it in their ceremonies as a fertility symbol." Ambling back to his chair, he chuckles: "Some animals are luckier than humans."

Like former Interior Secretary James Watt, his friend and onetime boss, Arnett can seldom resist a wisecrack. Nor is the strapping (6 ft. 5 in.), gregarious Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks shy about his enthusiasm for life in the outdoors. As he showed a visitor around his office, he sported a tie decorated with kangaroos and held in place by an elephant clasp. His 260-lb. frame was partially cloaked by a casual cardigan sweater adorned with a pin that said DUCKS. Says Arnett: "I like the camaraderie of hunting. I like sleeping in tents and sleeping bags. I like the smell of horse manure and horses. If I happen to get a deer, I'm delighted. I'd much rather be sitting in a deer camp than in the President's box at Kennedy Center."

Much of the environmental community would also prefer to keep Arnett out in the woods. He is not only supervisor of the Fish and Wildlife Service but is also in charge of enforcing the Endangered Species Act. Though Arnett is a former president of the National Wildlife Federation, the country's largest conservation organization, many environmentalists feel he has allowed his zest for hunting to get in the way of protecting nongame animals. Says Wildlife Specialist Michael Bean of the Environmental Defense Fund: "Arnett figures that if it isn't worth shooting or trapping or putting a hook in, it probably isn't worth worrying about."

In part, Arnett encourages such animosity with his cantankerous, profane, macho manner. Even a hunting pal, Dale Whitesell, executive vice president of Ducks Unlimited, a national conservation organization, admits, "Where James Watt would never say a four-letter word, Ray would say every one you ever heard and some you haven't." Arnett, a Californian who headed that state's department of fish and game for seven years, likes to twit his environmentalist foes, calling them "tree huggers," "Chicken Little extremists" and "prairie fairies." Some months ago, he supported a tax on the binoculars, books and film used by bird watchers, wildlife photographers and nature lovers, arguing that they should be charged for using the outdoors just as hunters and fishermen are. He makes no secret of where his sympathies lie: when asked once what he liked to hunt, Arnett replied, "Everything."