Scientists Declare Local Gnatcatchers a Distinct Species

A special team of two federal scientists has confirmed that Southern California’s gnatcatchers are a distinct species, dealing a setback to the building industry in its battle to prevent the bird from being declared endangered.

The just-completed report will be released next week, and public comments will be sought for a period of no longer than 30 days. The new findings will not delay the long-awaited decision: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still must decide by March 17 whether the tiny, gray songbird belongs on the nation’s endangered species list.

John Fay, chief of endangered species listings at the wildlife service’s headquarters, said he appointed two taxonomists to review one narrow, lingering question raised by California builders: Are gnatcatchers in Southern California the same subspecies as gnatcatchers in Mexico, which are much more plentiful? If so, there would be much less risk of extinction.

Fay declined to reveal the findings until the report is publicly released.

But a member of the review team, Alfred Gardener, curator of North American mammals at the Smithsonian Institution, told The Times that he and avian taxonomist Richard Banks concluded that the birds are genetically distinct.

Gardener said they accepted the findings of ornithologist Jonathan Atwood, who along with environmentalists is seeking federal protection for the gnatcatcher. Both Banks and Gardener are employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service but work at the Smithsonian.

“It’s not our responsibility to decide whether it should be listed or not listed. Our only charge was to determine whether this taxon, according to current standards, is valid,” Gardener said. “And we concluded that yes, the California population was distinct from the other Baja California populations.”

Southern California builders said they were not surprised by the results and called the review inadequate and biased because it was handled by biologists who work for an agency that favors the bird’s protection.

“All we’ve ever asked is for a thorough review,” said Laer Pearce, a spokesman for a coalition of developers in Orange and San Diego counties. “But it has to be done by an objective third party, and that’s not the Fish and Wildlife Service. This is a far cry from an objective, thorough review of the field work and statistical analysis.”

But the latest findings could seal the fate of the gnatcatcher, the subject of one of the most contentious listings in the 20-year history of the Endangered Species Act.

The team rejected what top officials at the wildlife agency have called the builders’ most convincing and interesting argument, and some Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Portland and Washington have already told The Times that the bird is expected to be listed in mid-March.

If the gnatcatcher is declared endangered, dozens of development projects and roads that affect its sagebrush nesting grounds could be stopped or delayed in Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Developers say their costs could run as high as $16 billion, with a loss of 200,000 jobs, although local economists dispute that figure as being too high.

Fewer than 2,000 gnatcatchers inhabit California, but biological consultants hired by developers and other landowners argue that the 2 million to 3 million that live in Baja are similar enough that they may be the same species.

The argument had already been rejected by a committee of the American Ornithologists Union, a national association of bird scientists.

Pearce said the builders will keep fighting the proposed listing, using the taxonomy issue as well as about half a dozen other arguments they have raised about the quality of scientific research into the bird. They say that the amount of the bird’s nesting grounds lost to development has been exaggerated and that enough has already been set aside in public preserves to ensure the species’ survival.

Federal wildlife officials said that they ordered the review because the gnatcatcher issue had become so contentious and that they wanted to ensure that their decision is legally sound.