Fish and Game Chief Resigns Under Pressure : Environment: Wilson Administration, unhappy with Boyd Gibbons, asked him to quit. But he refuses to leave immediately.

SACRAMENTO — Bowing to pressure from the Wilson Administration, the embattled director of the state Fish and Game Department resigned from his post Thursday but refused an Administration request that he depart quickly.

In a letter to Gov. Pete Wilson, Boyd Gibbons said that to ensure a “smooth transition” to a new director, his resignation would not take effect until the end of the state’s fiscal year, June 30.

Paul Kranhold, a spokesman for Wilson, confirmed that “we did request” Gibbons’ resignation but he declined to comment on either the reasons for the ouster or the Administration’s reaction to Gibbons’ delayed departure.

Other state officials said privately that the Administration’s dissatisfaction with Gibbons had developed over a long period and was centered on what they described as his inept management and penchant for creating unnecessary political firestorms. Gibbons declined to be interviewed.

The department’s oversight of the Adopt-a-Lake program, which seeks to improve fish habitat in state reservoirs, came under fire last month when The Times disclosed lax management and other abuses. The program is under investigation by the attorney general’s office, which is probing why a politically connected Fresno businessman received nearly all the program’s contracts despite his poor performance.

Reacting to Gibbons’ resignation, environmentalists who have periodically clashed with him said they feared his replacement would be worse. They and others said that another top post in the department is expected to be filled soon by a former lobbyist from the California Building Industry Assn., which has been pushing to weaken the state’s Endangered Species Act.

Gibbons, a former writer for National Geographic and deputy undersecretary of the Interior in the Richard Nixon Administration, was named by Wilson to head Fish and Game in 1991. The post is considered one of the most sensitive and difficult environmental jobs in state government. With 1,800 employees and an annual budget of $170 million, the department is responsible for enforcing and developing hunting and fishing regulations as well as protecting natural resources through its enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. The director has to juggle the competing interests of developers, environmentalists and sports enthusiasts.

Sources said Gibbons alienated anglers and hunters, who usually provide the core of political support for Fish and Game directors.

“From our standpoint,” said Zeke Grader, who heads a commercial fisherman’s association, “he’s been basically a nonentity for at least the last two years.”

Gibbons angered hunters when he unexpectedly announced at a Fish and Game Commission meeting that he believed it improper sportsmanship to use dogs in hunting black bears and suggested that the commission repeal a regulation that allows the practice. Hunters protested to the governor’s office and the commission allowed the regulation to stand.

In 1992, he angered fishermen when he stopped the department from stocking San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta with striped bass in order to protect juvenile winter-run salmon, an endangered species. Lawmakers and anglers complained that the department was forced to waste hundreds of tiny bass that had been ordered from hatcheries.

Within the Administration, officials said Gibbons was not considered a team player because he had failed to aggressively promote Wilson’s multi-species approach to the Endangered Species Act. This interpretation of the law enables developers to avoid listing a species as endangered as long as a land preserve is set aside to shelter the threatened habitat.

Gibbons’ ouster drew mixed reaction from the interests his agency serves.

“I have quarreled with Boyd Gibbons on more than one occasion, but I also regret the circumstances of his departure,” said state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. “Boyd Gibbons was a tempering voice within the Administration against those who want to weaken or destroy our state’s environmental laws.”

Linda Barr, legislative representative for Sierra Club California, said Gibbons had been a disappointment to environmentalists but they feared that his replacement “also will not be to our liking and may be worse.”

In the department, some scientists saw his ouster as a sign that the Wilson Administration is “cleaning house” to gear up for a major change of direction that would relax restrictions on developers who own land with endangered species and other natural resources.