Crisis Over Rare Bird Avoidable--Babbitt : Wildlife: Interior secretary says gnatcatcher dilemma could have been headed off by protection of ecosystems.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Tuesday called the plight of the California gnatcatcher a “crisis” that could have been averted if government and developers had taken proactive measures to protect ecosystems in trouble.

Speaking to the House Committee on Natural Resources, Babbitt repeatedly said the Endangered Species Act needs a broad new approach to avoid “the crisis posed by repeated eleventh-hour listings.”

Babbitt said instead of today’s piecemeal process that seeks to protect individual species only after they are on the verge of extinction, he will emphasize protecting entire ecosystems before specific animals and plants are endangered.

Both environmentalists and developers welcome that new approach--which was pioneered in California--because the piecemeal method is slow, cumbersome and spurs too much economic uncertainty and messy litigation.

Babbitt’s brief comments on the gnatcatcher came in response to Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), who asked Babbitt for help in changing the way the federal government protects endangered wildlife.

As an example of how the process fails, Calvert mentioned Riverside County’s 5-year-old, $25-million effort to protect the Stephens’ kangaroo rat. Even after all that time and money, a plan to protect the rodent is not in place. The species, found only in Riverside County, was listed as endangered because of development of its grassland habitat.

“The Endangered Species Act is a great concern to us and a great expense,” Calvert said.

Babbitt agreed to a need for change, saying the “multispecies habitat conservation approach is absolutely conceptually correct.”

“There is yet, as you know, another new crisis with the California gnatcatcher--I guess that’s in Orange County--again illustrating the problems created by letting these listing decisions just drift without becoming proactive,” Babbitt said.

Babbitt did not indicate whether the gnatcatcher will be added to the nation’s endangered species list. His department’s decision is due March 17, and top-ranking officials there say the bird in all likelihood will be listed as endangered.

The gnatcatcher, a small gray songbird, nests in coastal sage scrub, a mix of sagebrush and other shrubs that grows mostly in the coastal hills of Orange, San Diego and Riverside counties.

Babbitt said his department will be forced by court order to list “a number of species with tremendous consequences, for a variety of areas,” especially in the West.

“The first one is the delta smelt in the California Bay Delta,” he said. “Now, I met with Gov. Wilson several weeks ago. I don’t think he was thrilled with the prospect of that listing. But the point I made to him was that we should have been at work over the last five years under the existing provisions of the Endangered Species Act to try to devise a habitat conservation plan to avert the listing.”

The delta smelt, a three-inch-long fish, is considered at risk because of pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to supply water to Southern California.

“Rather than focusing on single species as they spiral toward extinction, we need to step back and look at the entire ecosystem and ask, is it possible to intervene before the crisis? . . . There have been successes in some parts of California and elsewhere with that approach,” Babbitt said.

If the entire ecosystems can be protected in advance without declaring species endangered, he added, “we still have flexibility to manage the problem without impacting private land rights.”

He cautioned the committee that such an approach probably means that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs to spend more money on scientific research.