39 Rare Mice May Delay O.C. Resort Project

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

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

Described as four-inch rodents that resemble hamsters, the pocket mice were found 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--believed to be the smallest member of the rodent family and perhaps the only ones of their kind that still exist--were concentrated in about four acres of coastal sagebrush at the site.

Once common as far as two miles inland along the Southern California coast from Los Angeles County’s Marina del Rey and El Segundo south to the Mexican border, the tiny mouse has fallen victim to development and hungry cats.

“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 Headlands’ 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 construction 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.

While news of the emergency listing was not welcomed by the Headlands property owner, a spokesman 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.

The survey that rediscovered the mice was conducted by a biologist last July at the request of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Originally, according to Daniels, the biologist had suggested that the landowner move the mice to a different location to save the colony because house cats from nearby homes were already a danger to the rodents.

“Common sense tells you that Dana Point is an urban environment and when development occurs the mouse is not going to survive,” Daniels said. “If a long-term objective of the Fish and Wildlife Service is to have the mouse survive, it seems the only way to do it is to relocate them to where people and cats are not around.”

According to the proposed Headlands development, which has been approved by the Dana Point Planning Commission and will go before the City Council, the area where the mice were found is slated for single-family homes, 3.5 to 7 units per acre.

Joanna Craft, a spokeswoman for the city of Dana Point, said it is “too early to tell” what effect the listing would have on the project’s progress. A Feb. 15 public hearing on the plan still will be held.

“This doesn’t change the process, but certainly we can’t say it’s not going to change the plan. It could drastically change it, who knows? We really don’t know what the City Council will decide or what other jurisdictions will decide.”

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.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, were expressing cautious optimism about this latest in a long series of obstacles to the development of what many consider a natural site that should be left alone.

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. “I don’t think (the project) is consistent with trying to preserve habitat,” Fortune said.

And Toni and Ed Gallagher, volunteers for Save the Headlands, a local grass-roots organization that is fighting the development, expressed hope that the federal government’s action would further complicate the property owners’ efforts to realize their plans.

“We hate to see (the landowners) just steamroller in, right over the citizens,” said Ed Gallagher, who has lived in an ocean-view home on the Headlands for 15 years. “They have a larger opponent to face now.”

On a stretch of untouched, ocean-bluff land behind a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and marked “No Trespassing,” meanwhile, sits the spot identified by biologists as the pocket mouse’s habitat.

“They tend to like ocean views and sunsets and very expensive pieces of land,” said John Ballew, whose Costa Mesa planning and architecture firm, Ballew & Associates, is project manager for the site, worth roughly $1 million per acre.

Dale Savage, 32, who has lived near the site for seven years, said she’s never heard of or knowingly seen one of the rodents. But her cat, Jinx, drags home many creatures, including small mice.

“The only way I could see one is if my cat brought it home,” she said. “And then it would be dead.”

Times staff writer Anna Cekola contributed to this story.

Pocket Mouse Profile

The federal government Tuesday declared the Pacific pocket mouse an endangered species. A look at the latest addition to the endangered list:

* Name: Pacific pocket mouse (Perognathus longimembris pacificus)

* Neighborhood: Once, it lived within two miles of the coastline from Marina del Rey and El Segundo in Los Angeles County to near the Mexican border. Now, it’s believed to exist only in Dana Point.

* Appearance: Bristle-free coat; soles of hind feet are hairy; deep, external fur-lined cheek pouches.

* Color: Predominantly brown, pinkish or buff above; light brown, pale tawny buff or white below.

* Size: Four to six inches from nose to tail tip; smallest of 19 recognized pocket mouse subspecies.

* Habits: Nocturnal diner; eats grains and seeds.

Source: U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife