Don’t Fire Up the Bulldozers Yet : Gnatcatcher ruling need not signal a rush to destroy the bird’s habitat

A judge’s ruling that the federal government erred in listing the California gnatcatcher as a threatened species is cause for concern, but not panic. Rather than retreat from habitat preservation, which is a sensible approach to saving species, federal and state officials and local planners and developers should reaffirm their support for the idea.

U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin in Washington had reasonable grounds for ruling this week that the Interior Department should have provided opponents of the listing with the raw data the department used in reaching its decision. An ornithologist who studied the tiny birds concluded in 1988 that the California gnatcatcher was essentially the same as the one found in Mexico; but two years later he said he was wrong, that the two were different. Interior officials said they relied solely on the 1990 report in finding the bird “threatened.” Both sides should have had access to all the facts.

Developers filed suit because the listing sharply limited their ability to build on coastal scrubland favored by the gnatcatcher. Although the judge’s ruling removes a barrier to development, builders should not rush for the bulldozers. Indeed, two large developers, the Irvine Co. and the Santa Margarita Co., sensibly say they are planning to follow the habitat preservation program proposed by Gov. Pete Wilson and instituted last December by the federal government. The state Resources Agency oversees that program, which allows property owners to set aside habitat for rare animals, birds and plants in exchange for speedier approval to develop the rest of their land. That’s a smart balance between competing concerns for jobs and the environment.

There wasn’t much balancing of anything in the tentative decision of the University of California at Santa Cruz to sell hundreds of acres of redwoods to a logging company because the trees serve no academic purpose. The money involved is small, and old-growth stands shouldn’t have to be justified on the basis of research value alone. University regents should rethink or at least review that decision.