Gnatcatcher Called a Distinct Subspecies by Panel of Experts

A national ornithology committee told federal wildlife officials Wednesday that Southern California’s gnatcatchers are a distinct subspecies, apparently putting to rest the scientific issue that delayed a decision on the fate of the songbird.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, however, said they probably will not announce before late November whether they will regard the gnatcatcher as an endangered species.

Last Thursday, the wildlife agency extended by up to six months its Sept. 17 deadline for the decision on the small gray bird. The agency said it needed time to get a definitive statement from the American Ornithological Union on a taxonomy issue raised by Southern California developers.

The building industry questions whether Southern California’s gnatcatchers, which have dwindled in number as their habitats are lost to development, are genetically different from the plentiful strain of gnatcatchers in Mexico.

But Burt Monroe Jr., a University of Louisville biologist who chairs the committee that decides such issues for the ornithology group, told the Fish and Wildlife Service in a Wednesday morning telephone call that the developers’ argument has no scientific validity. He said the committee stands by its 2-year-old decision that gnatcatchers in Southern California are a separate subspecies.

“The committee’s decision is made,” Monroe said. “Nothing has changed as far as we’re concerned.”

Environmentalists charge that the wildlife agency’s postponement of the gnatcatcher decision was motivated by politics rather than concern about taxonomy. But Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan’s spokesman has strongly denied that politics played any part in the delay.

Developers, mainly in Orange and San Diego counties, requested the extension and have mounted an intense effort for two years to oppose the listing because it could delay or halt development.

Laer Pearce, who represents a coalition of Orange and San Diego County developers involved in the gnatcatcher issue, said Wednesday that they haven’t given up.

“The decision (by the ornithology group) is disappointing, but I wouldn’t think they would be terribly sympathetic to our reading of the issue. I hope they gave us a fair reading,” he said. “I don’t think it is over yet, anyway. I don’t see why all the other issues we raised should not be considered, too, such as the habitat size and the population.”

Monroe said Thursday that there has never been scientific debate in the ornithologists’ group about the taxonomy of the Southern California gnatcatcher. In its 1957 North American bird checklist, the population was considered a distinct subspecies from the Baja California birds, he said.