Agency Wants Gnatcatcher Left Off State List : Nature: Fish and Game Department maintains the federal Endangered Species Act protects the rare songbird. Environmentalists argue a state listing, to be weighed Friday, would only complement that.

The California gnatcatcher should not be included in a listing of endangered species, state Department of Fish and Game officials recommended Wednesday.

They made the recommendation to the Fish and Game Commission, which meets Friday to decide if the rare songbird should be considered a candidate for state listing. The gnatcatcher has been protected under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1993.

At issue is a legal battle, which began in 1991, that has pitted environmentalists against developers and the state commission. The National Resources Defense Council sued in 1991 after the commission rejected the group’s petition to consider the bird a candidate for protection under the California Endangered Species Act.

The environmentalists won the lawsuit, and in 1994 the state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal ordered the commission to reconsider its decision.

Michael Fitts, attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, charged Wednesday that the Fish and Game Department’s recommendation was politically motivated.

“Neither the law nor science have been the determining factors in the department’s recommendation. It’s been politics,” Fitts said.

Because the gnatcatcher already is protected by federal law, Fish and Game Department spokesman Jeff Weir said, listing it under state law is unnecessary.

“We think it’s already adequately protected under federal law and the Natural Community Conservation Planning Program, which are showing good progress,” Weir said.

But Fitts said the bird needs to be included in the state listing “in order to complement the federal statutes.”

The planning program, designed to protect large areas of ecologically sensitive habitat, is administered by the state Fish and Game Department and is a cooperative effort with the U.S. Department of the Interior, developers and local governments.

About 6,000 square miles of the gnatcatcher’s coastal sage scrub habitat, most of it in Orange and San Diego counties, is included in the conservation planning program. Weir said that under federal law, no more than 5% of a habitat protected under the program can be developed.

If the Fish and Game Commission rejects the department’s recommendation Friday, the gnatcatcher will be listed as a candidate for the endangered species list. Experts would study the bird for one year and submit a final recommendation to the commission.

During that year, the bird would have full protection under the state act.