Rat’s Territory Exempted From Spraying : Malathion: A 5-square-mile area of Riverside County that is home to the endangered kangaroo rat will not be treated at the request of federal officials.

Three months after red-faced state agriculture officials promised to grant no more exemptions from their aerial assault on the Mediterranean fruit fly, they have done it again--this time for the kangaroo rat.

At the request of U.S. wildlife agents who feared that malathion might harm the endangered species, state officials have agreed not to spray a 5-square-mile area near Woodcrest in Riverside County where the rats roam wild on sparse grasslands. A fertile Medfly was recently found nearby in a citrus orchard, prompting creation of a new spray zone.

State officials say that federal law protecting endangered species left them no choice. But disclosure of the exemption still did not sit well with anti-malathion activists.

“It just shows the state’s priorities,” said Garden Grove activist Mollie Haines. “I’m just appalled to think that rats have more rights in the state’s eyes than I do or my children do.”

Added Adelaide Nimitz of Burbank, head of a group called Families Opposed to Chemical Urban Spraying: “This says to me that kangaroo rats are more important than humans.”

Three months ago agriculture officials were hit with an outcry from residents in spray areas when it was revealed that helicopters had sprayed around the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove because of an outdoor event there for several thousand guests.

After that incident, state officials pledged--in public statements and at least one court hearing--that there would be no more exemptions from their aerial application of malathion over Southern California.

But Pat Minyard, deputy director of the Medfly Project in El Monte, said that when officials made that promise, they did not envision a situation like that of the kangaroo rat.

“This is a whole different thing,” he said. “There’s a radical difference between doing something to be nice guys (as in the case of Crystal Cathedral) and doing something because of the law. . . . We’d rather spray everything, but we have to comply with the law just like everybody else, so we’re willing to do it.”

Brooks Harper, an office supervisor with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said a species known as the Stephens’ kangaroo rat--a furry, long-tailed, brown animal that is about the size of a chicken egg and roams the fields at night in western Riverside County--may be threatened by the sprayings.

Agriculture officials agreed to exempt from the 19-square-mile Woodcrest spray zone a portion of March Air Force Base that is home to the kangaroo rats.

But first, Minyard said, he sent out a four-person team of surveyors for two days to the area to check for the presence of fruit trees that the Medfly is known to attack. None were found. Had any been present, Minyard said state officials might have sprayed Malathion from the ground rather than the air.

Minyard said he is confident that the kangaroo rat exemption will not hurt the effort to control the pest. “There are no trees in that area, so where are they going to go?” he asked.

MEDFLY SPRAYING MAP: B2