Tiny Bird Poses Big Threat to Builders : Environment: If the gnatcatcher, which nests in coastal sage scrub, is listed as endangered, there will be serious repercussions in the county, developers warn.

The California gnatcatcher, a tiny bird that mews like a kitten and feeds on pesky gnats, is sending waves of trepidation through Southern California’s building industry and public planning agencies.

The bird, which nests in the coastal sage scrub that carpets much of the undeveloped land in the Southland, is being considered for the federal endangered species list, presenting what some in the building industry say is one of the greatest threats they have ever faced.

Building industry officials say that if the bird makes it to the endangered species list, it could halt a number of private developments and public-works projects in Orange, San Diego, Riverside and Los Angeles counties. The reason: Unlike some other endangered species whose habitats are in areas largely considered unfit for development, the California gnatcatcher nests in grassy coastal areas that are ripe for new construction.

“Listing the gnatcatcher (as endangered) will have profound effects on nearly all levels of the economy in Orange and San Diego counties,” the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County warned in its latest newsletter, the Greensheet. “The gnatcatcher presents perhaps the biggest threat ever to our industry.”

Representatives of the building industry and the environmental community are gearing up to present their sides as the complex process of listing the bird as endangered wends its way through the federal bureaucracy.

Developers are banding together and hiring their own biologists and lawyers to study the issue, and environmentalists are getting the word out that the coastal sage scrub, home to a variety of rare species, is disappearing at an alarming rate as urbanization churns up acreage throughout the Southland.

There is one point on which both sides agree in the debate over the California gnatcatcher: If the bird makes the endangered species list, it could become as politically divisive as the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest.

“The problems you hear about with the spotted owl--the loss of jobs in the logging industry and such--we don’t want to have that here,” said James E. Whalen, vice president of Newland America, a major San Diego developer. “But if the bird is listed, there will be serious repercussions in Southern California.”

Building industry officials in San Diego County are so concerned about the possible consequences of the gnatcatcher’s being listed that two years ago they formed the Alliance for Habitat Conservation, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to study the bird’s habitats and determine how they could affect the industry, according to Whalen. The group, he said, is made up of San Diego County’s most powerful and influential players in the industry, who together control 90,000 acres of land in the county.

One option the group is studying is a plan to set aside a large wildlife conservation area somewhere in San Diego County in return for permission from the federal government to develop in other areas of coastal sage scrub, should the gnatcatcher be listed as endangered.

“We don’t know how successful we will be, especially because land is very expensive,” Whalen said. “But the will is there. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have the threat of imminent listing to get us moving, but the will is definitely there.”

In addition, lobbyists for the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California are joining lobbyists from many other industries who are asking Congress to make economic impact a consideration when drawing up plans to save endangered species. As the 1973 law now stands, the federal government has wide latitude in determining a plan to protect an animal, including halting development in its habit.

“That and water are the two hot issues,” said Christine Reed, executive director of the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Laguna Niguel are expected by September to report on the status of the petition that seeks to have the gnatcatcher listed as endangered. If the Fish and Wildlife Service recommends adding the bird to the endangered list, public hearings will have to be held before the listing is finally approved.

The 4 1/2-inch-long gnatcatcher lives among the fragrant mix of short, soft shrubs and grasses on hillsides and ridges that is also home to deer, coyotes, rabbits and another threatened bird, the cactus wren.

Some sections of the proposed San Joaquin Hills and Foothill/Eastern tollways in Orange County cut through coastal sage scrub.

In a letter sent to Interior Department officials last month, Orange County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez warned of the possible economic effects on the county of listing the gnatcatcher as endangered.

Along with his letter, Vasquez included a map showing that most of the coastal sage scrub in Orange County is already in protected areas such as state and county parks.

Orange County officials urged federal officials to consider information that will be provided through a new $300,000 mapping system of the county’s geography, including its wildlife areas. The map that was sent to Washington with Vasquez’s letter was intended to provide federal officials with a sample of what the new system can show.

“I’m not saying to them, ‘Don’t list it,’ ” said Orange County Planning Director Thomas B. Mathews, whose office produced the map sent to Washington. “I’m saying, ‘Take a look at this. How many acres of coastal sage scrub does it take to support a gnatcatcher? Where are they? Are they in Cleveland National Forest? In Laguna Canyon?’

“We think the regulatory agencies should be working together so we can do a better job of addressing all these concerns.”

But conservationists argue that not all of the county’s coastal sage scrub is as protected as county officials contend.

Already, new construction has sliced through huge tracts of coastal sage scrub. Urbanization has wiped out 70% to 90% of Orange County’s coastal sage scrub, and what remains is going fast, wildlife experts say. While no one is really sure how much coastal sage scrub is left in Orange County, some estimates place it at about 70,000 acres.

In addition, only 1,800 to 2,300 mating pairs of gnatcatchers remain in Southern California, according to Jonathan Atwood, a Massachusetts biologist whose study forms the backbone of the petition to protect the small, brownish-gray bird.

Atwood, who is from Southern California, said his estimate of the number of gnatcatchers is on the high end.

“But I don’t really care how many of them there are out there,” he said. “If it’s all going to go to housing developments in the next 20 years, that characteristic threatens them more than saying there are only so many of them out there.”

There are still a few patches of coastal sage scrub in parts of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in southwestern Los Angeles County, Atwood said, but the patches are so isolated and diminished by encroaching development that the gnatcatcher is more vulnerable to disruptions.

There are more sizable patches of coastal sage scrub near Laguna Hills and scattered swatches throughout South County and parts of San Diego County, including the areas near Mission Trails Park, Otay Lake and Lake Hodges, according to Whalen.

Those in the building industry say the worst thing they can do is sit back and wait for the federal government to put the gnatcatcher on the endangered species list and issue a halt to development around the bird’s habitats.

If the local industry does not provide its own research or study options for preservation, it could suffer a fate similar to that of builders in Riverside County, where the Stephens kangaroo rat was listed as endangered two years ago, officials say. That resulted in the government ordering about 30 square miles off limits to development, which has cost the building and farming industries an estimated $100 million and $200 million, respectively.

In the Pacific Northwest, classification of the spotted owl as a threatened species meant a halt to logging in some forests and a loss of tens of thousands of jobs, according to Hugh Hewitt, an attorney who works for the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County.

“Our economy is larger than that of either of these two areas, so the cost of protecting all the habitats of the gnatcatcher could be astronomical,” Hewitt said.

California Gnatcatcher Habitat

The California gnatcatcher is found on sagebrush mesas and dry coastal slopes from Southern California to northern Baja California in Mexico. It has a distinctive call, a rising and falling, kittenlike mew. Only about 4 1/2 inches in length, the gnatcher is brownish on top, with lighter-colored feathers underneath, and has a longish black tail.

Source: County of Orange