Pocket Mouse Puts Proposed Resort on Hold

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday it has placed a small mouse on the emergency endangered species list, a move likely to delay a proposed $500-million resort on one of the few undeveloped coastal properties left in Orange County.

Fred Roberts, a botanist with the service, said the Pacific pocket mouse, rediscovered last year after not having been seen since 1971, “is part of California’s natural heritage. They are an important part of the ecology.”

Described as two-inch rodents that resemble hamsters, the pocket mice were found again during an environmental survey for the proposed resort to be built on the Headlands, 121 acres overlooking Dana Point Harbor.

The development plan, which is opposed by local environmentalists, calls for a 400-room hotel complex and 394 homes.

The survey revealed that 39 of the rare mice were concentrated in four acres of coastal sagebrush at the site. The mice were once common up to two miles inland along the Southern California coast from Marina del Rey and El Segundo south to the Mexican border. The mouse is believed to be the smallest member of the rodent family.

“The urbanization of the coast all but wiped them out,” Roberts said. “They’ve probably been at the Dana Point Headlands the whole time, but nobody’s looked for them.”

As far as scientists know, he said, the Headland’s small population of Pacific pocket mice constitutes the last remaining community of the species in the world.

The emergency listing is “really an attempt to restore the natural balance of things,” said Connie Babb, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Under the listing, which took effect Monday, developers will not be allowed to build without first convincing the service that development will not further endanger the mouse.

“They would have to come up with a habitat conservation plan built into this project that would show it would allow enough room to satisfy the scientists that the species could survive there,” Babb said.

Although the emergency listing was not welcomed by the Headlands property owner, a spokesman said he was confident the mouse would not change the project.

“We are certainly not happy about it,” said Dan Daniels, president of the Newport Beach-based M.H. Sherman Co., which owns the parcel along with the Chandis Securities Co. “It certainly slows down our ability to develop those (four) acres. The rest of the property, I would hope, would not be affected by this.”

Chandis Securities, a firm that oversees the financial holdings of the Chandler family, is a principal stockholder of Times Mirror Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times.

According to Babb, the emergency listing will be in effect for 240 days, during which scientists will determine whether to recommend that the endangered listing be made permanent.

Ken Fortune, a spokesman for the local chapter of the Audubon Society, said he welcomed the listing as something that, while not likely to stop the project altogether, will probably delay it.