Panel Takes Desert Squirrel Off State’s Endangered List

The state Fish and Game Commission took the unprecedented step Friday of voting to remove an animal from the California endangered species list, an action environmentalists and state wildlife experts fear could open a flood of requests to strip protection from other threatened and endangered wildlife.

After acrimonious debate dominated by questions of economics, the commission voted 4 to 0 with one abstention to remove the threatened Mohave ground squirrel from the list. They acted at the request of Kern County officials, who argued that the squirrel’s status had blocked development.

The animal’s removal was the first since the state Endangered Species Act took effect in 1970; a fish once was removed because it had died out and a plant was removed because it was found not to be a distinct and separate species.

Critics said the vote showed what they have long feared: It is now difficult to get a species onto the endangered list but could become easy to take one off--without adequate regard to science.

“The worst-case scenario is that (the vote) opens the floodgates to delisting species based on quasi-science, thinly veiled economics and politics,” said Patricia Brown, a biologist who has studied the squirrel since 1978.

But Roy Ashburn, chairman of the Kern County Board of Supervisors, called the decision a victory. “This is one for the human species,” he said. “People in Kern County have suffered under the most outrageous form of heavy-handed treatment over these last years.”

Kern County officials said 226 development projects have died or languished because of state protection of the squirrel, a cinnamon-gray rodent whose only habitat is 7,000 square miles of the Mojave Desert, an area that includes portions of Kern, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Inyo counties.

Under the law, to gain permission to build in an area that is home to an endangered plant or animal, developers either must set aside land elsewhere as habitat or pay the state to help preserve the species and mitigate the effects of construction.

Harry Mertz, a general contractor in Inyokern, northeast of Los Angeles, has several projects on hold because of the squirrel. To build a 20-acre light industrial park near the Inyokern Airport, he was told by the state to either donate 60 acres elsewhere for squirrel habitat or pay $49,000 to help protect the animal.

On Friday, he said he plans to move ahead with construction. Although the rodent will not be off the list until fall because of the administrative process of delisting, Mertz said he plans to start the county permit process for his project immediately.

“It’s great,” Mertz said. “We’ll proceed. I’m really happy.”

The major threat to the squirrel is the destruction or degradation of its habitat because of urban and agricultural development, livestock overgrazing, highway construction and off-road vehicles, said John Gustafson, an endangered species biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game.

He said the problems have accelerated in recent years. In addition to habitat destruction, so-called fragmentation of the squirrel’s range also has hurt the species. Instead of large stretches of land available to the animal, the desert has become bisected by homes and highways, preventing the squirrel from moving freely in the search for food, biologists said.

Although a population count of the squirrel is impossible, the animal is becoming increasingly difficult to find, Tony Recht, a biologist at Cal State Dominguez Hills who has studied the animal since 1973, told the commission.

But Kern County officials and developers argued Thursday and Friday that much of the animal’s habitat is on public or military land that is not likely to be developed. Business and progress have been hurt by unnecessary state mitigation demands, they added.

Besides, they said, there is no hard scientific data supporting protection of the squirrel. Those were the arguments that apparently swayed commissioners.

“The commission finds that the petition (to take the squirrel off the list) should be accepted because the Mohave ground squirrel is no longer threatened with extinction, nor is it to be endangered in the foreseeable future,” said Albert C. Taucher, commission vice president.

Commissioner Frank D. Boren abstained from the vote because he said he did not trust the scientific evidence presented by either the state Department of Fish and Game, which recommended that the squirrel remain under protection, or Kern County. Boren argued unsuccessfully Friday for an independent review. “We need to figure out how to validate the science, particularly since we on the commission are not scientists,” Boren said.

Because of Friday’s decision, environmentalists said they are concerned that the spirit of the state Endangered Species Act is being subverted by economics and politics.

“The delisting decision reflects a double standard whereby it is nearly impossible to list a biologically deserving but controversial species while easy to delist,” said Richard Spotts, California representative for Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation group. “Economics supersedes biology. That’s not supposed to be legal.”

Opponents of delisting the squirrel can ask the commission at meetings in June and August to reverse the decision. If that does not work, they said, they may file a lawsuit to block the delisting process.

In addition, they are considering pushing the U.S. government to place the squirrel on the federal endangered species list. The squirrel is federally listed as a Category 2 species, meaning its population is considered to be declining but that conclusive data is not available.