Commission to Appeal Gnatcatcher Order

The state Fish and Game Commission on Friday said it will not reconsider its refusal to declare the California gnatcatcher an endangered species and announced it will appeal a court order to explain its reasons for its 1991 decision.

Although he did not dispute that the birds’ numbers may be dwindling in Southern California, Commission President Benjamin F. Biaggini said he was not convinced that they are necessarily endangered because studies have suggested they are plentiful in Baja California.

“I don’t think we should be restricted to a boundary between Mexico and California,” Biaggini said. “It strikes me that it is an arbitrary and capricious selection of a line on the map (that) has nothing to do with the population of the gnatcatcher.”

Joel Reynolds, an attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, the group seeking the listing, called the decision “ridiculous” and “an embarrassing charade.” The commission’s own staff and the American Ornithological Society have recommended candidacy for the bird, Reynolds said.

In August, 1991, the commission voted 3 to 1 to deny endangered species status for the gnatcatcher. That decision, however, was ruled inadequate recently by a Sacramento Superior Court judge, thereby prompting Friday’s reassessment by the commission.