County Lets Gnatcatcher Deadline Slip : Environment: Only one builder enrolled land on time, but other contracts are ready to go Monday.

Orange County officials and major developers missed the deadline Friday for enrolling land in the Wilson Administration’s campaign to protect the California gnatcatcher’s habitat, but said they would join the program early next week.

Orange County’s three largest landowners--the Irvine Co., Rancho Mission Viejo and Arvida Co.--have signed state contracts, agreeing to voluntarily protect portions of their land. But county Environmental Management Agency officials, who are coordinating local efforts, said they won’t have the contracts ready to send to Sacramento until Monday because of last-minute problems in compiling the accompanying data.

County officials and developers declined comment until then.

The program is an effort launched by the Wilson Administration to persuade developers and local governments in four Southern California counties to voluntarily protect coastal sage scrub. The declining mix of shrubs is home to the gnatcatcher--a small songbird--as well as about 35 other rare species.

“We’ll have an extensive enrollment, but we’ll defer to (the county’s) timing. They’re trying to reconcile all the acreages and numbers,” said Larry Thomas, a vice president at the Irvine Co.

By enrolling the land, the companies will promise to protect it for 18 months and fund scientific surveys of the property. In the meantime, the state Resources Agency will use that biological data to identify lands that it wants set aside as permanent preserves.

Pacific Coast Homes of Huntington Beach is the only Orange County developer to enroll land so far. The company agreed to protect 110 acres in that city, which is not considered prime habitat for the birds.

In addition to sign-ups of private land, Orange County plans on Monday to sign up 12 public parks, which together contain about 4,000 acres of coastal sage scrub.

Assistant Secretary of Resources Carol Whiteside said Friday that nine San Diego County private landowners have signed up and more are expected early next week. She said each of them signed up fairly small blocks of land, although the acreage has not been tabulated.

Also, the San Diego County government has signed up the largest amount of land so far--an estimated 65,000 acres, most of it public parkland that is already protected from development.

Whiteside said the Resources Agency is being flexible about the Friday deadline, “especially in light of everything (the rioting) that’s happened in Los Angeles. People have been pulled off-track.”