IRVINE : Taking High Ground for Gnatcatcher

As a light breeze rippled through tall mustard weeds, 15 students held a symbolic protest Friday on UC Irvine’s highest hilltop to reclaim land that is home to breeding pairs of California gnatcatchers, but is designated for construction of a chancellor’s mansion.

The environmental activists put up their own fence stakes and sign marking the land as part of an adjacent ecological preserve. Amid readings of poetry by Gary Snyder and a Sioux Indian chief’s journal, group leaders also announced that they would begin “scrub patrols” to ensure that neither the area’s native coastal sage scrub habitat nor the nests of resident California gnatcatchers are endangered.

“We’re also prepared to take legal action to force the administration and UC regents . . . to follow (environmental protection) law,” said demonstration organizer Tom Dietsch, a board member of Student Activists for the Environment.

At issue is 5 acres of land at the southern edge of the UCI campus.

Chancellor Jack W. Peltason and campus administrators have long planned to build a $3-million, 13,000-square-foot residence and entertainment center on the hilltop. The buildings are to have a 360-degree view of the campus and the Saddleback Mountains as well as the coastal hills, Newport Beach and the ocean. Peltason, the second chancellor in UCI’s 27-year history, has said he would not live in University House himself, but that it would be intended for future UCI chancellors.

Ecologists and biologists, however, have asked that administrators find another, less environmentally sensitive plot. They argued that the 5-acre parcel to be used for the chancellor’s house, plus an adjacent 62-acre strip of hillside, should be preserved as habitat for the gnatcatcher and the cactus wren.

Last winter, as part of ongoing negotiations with the Academic Senate’s Land Use Committee, university administrators agreed to reconfigure the house to better protect gnatcatcher nesting areas. They also agreed to fence the adjacent open space area that biologists call an ecological preserve.

Since then, state and federal wildlife officials have expressed concern about the dramatic decline of California gnatcatchers as most of the state’s coastal sage is plowed under for development. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now considering the gnatcatcher for listing as an endangered species.

This summer, a UC Irvine biologist and seven graduate students studied four resident pairs of gnatcatchers, which fledged a total of 23 gnatcatcher chicks, an unusually large number that the researchers attributed to cooler than normal weather. The study concluded that all four pairs living on or near the controversial site would be driven away permanently if the house and nearby road and highway construction projects are completed.

In light of the recent developments, UCI’s Academic Senate chairman on Thursday asked the land use committee to re-examine the issue. Peltason, who attended the meeting, added that his staff is also conducting a review.

UCI spokeswoman Karen Newell Young said administrators were unaware of the protest, but added that Peltason is re-examining the issue. “The chancellor is very concerned about the environmental impacts of this, and is taking a hard look at it,” Young said.

Kristen Delmage, a 20-year-old exchange student from British Columbia who joined in the protest, said it is imperative to save natural habitat for the gnatcatchers.

“They don’t have much of an alternative; the chancellor does,” Delmage said.