We reviewed the current policies of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for managing its scientific collections. Specifically, we reviewed these policies for consistency with established U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) policies and compared them with those of two other bureaus—the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
We found that USGS scientific collection management policies are not consistent with DOI policies as defined in the DOI Department Manual (DM) and are not comparable to policies of the other two bureaus. In addition, we found that USGS did not have a final policy on the management of its biologic specimens; therefore, we could not review this policy for consistency with the DM.
We made one recommendation that USGS reconcile and justify current and future scientific collection policies with the requirements of the DM.