From whence the image of the flying squirrel in D.C. Circuit opinion?

(Hint: Click the headline above for a better-looking 2-column layout. If nothing happens, then you’re already lookin’ at it.)

Updated 2:53 p.m. 8/21/2012

Robert Savannah says the drawing is definitely not his. A clerk at the appeals court says it came from the service’s 1990 recovery plan. (It did. Still don’t know who drew it, but if anyone can solve the mystery, let me know.)

Updated 11:35 am ET 8/21/2012

Just spoke with artist and designer Robert Savannah out in Frederick, Md., and sent him the links so he can see for himself. But as he pointed out (and as I surmised after a little thought), anything he did for the Fish and Wildlife Service is automatically in the public domain — so the court didn’t have to give him a credit line in the opinion.

Savannah said he thinks he did the drawing in 1988.

Updated 10:06 pm ET, 8/20/2012

OK, I think I figured it out. The drawing is simply the reverse image of the Robert Savannah drawing I featured in the August 5, 2009, issue of ESWR. Here it is (on the right) back to the original viewpoint, as reversed from the image in the D.C. Circuit opinion, at left. It has more detail, more brush strokes. (Nope, not Savannah’s. See above)

———-Earlier———-

An interesting sidelight to the opinion on the W. Va. northern flying squirrel issued by the D.C. Circuit Friday: It contains an image of the squirrel, which might mark the first time that a picture of an animal has ever appeared in an appeals court opinion — at least one from the D.C. Circuit.

I just got off the phone with the court’s opinions clerk, who said in 10 years of doing the job he had never seen an image of an animal published in one of the court’s decisions. Graphs, charts, tables, yes, but never a picture of an animal.

But oddly, the image has no credit attached to it, and a fairly comprehensive Google search didn’t turn up a copy. That’s why I called the court — to find out whom to credit.

When ESWR published a drawing of the squirrel on its Aug. 5, 2009, front page, the image came with a credit line in the pic itself, and another credit in the bottom left corner.

In these days of seemingly constant copyright concerns, the court would be well advised to issue a corrected version of its opinion with proper credit attached. (Added 8/21: Another view: Credit may not be necessary, since Savannah’s is an FWS image.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the front page of the 1990 Recovery Plan: