Countywide : Consultants to Monitor Gnatcatchers
An environmental consulting firm will continue to monitor a gnatcatcher habitat set up last fall for some of the threatened birds displaced by the widening of Coast Highway south of Corona del Mar.
The County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to pay Irvine-based LSA Associates $33,000 to oversee the creation of the three-acre habitat at Crystal Cove State Park, where a few nests have appeared in the past few months.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service required the county to build the habitat after the birds were placed on the endangered species list in April, 1994.
Some of the birds lost their homes when the highway was widened in connection with Newport Coast development.
Art Homrighausen, a biologist with the environmental company, said periodic reports will update the county on the habitat’s status.
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