Preserve Designation Sought at Air Station

Today, the land sits charred and sunburned in a corner of a soon-to-be-shut military base.

But naturalists see a haven for wildlife, thick with coastal sage scrub and teeming with rare California songbirds along with hawks, frogs, lizards and jack rabbits.

With that vision in mind, federal officials this week formally unveiled plans to turn part of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into Orange County’s second national wildlife refuge.

The announcement comes just weeks after the fierce Santiago Canyon fire raced through an estimated 226 acres of the 975-acre proposed site, burning a wide expanse of coastal sage scrub, considered one of the most endangered vegetation types in the United States.

Wildlife experts are undeterred. While the fire will create unexpected problems in creating the new refuge, it could also spark new growth of native plants, they said, providing an unplanned but fascinating lesson in the Southern California cycle of fire and rebirth.

In fact, the El Toro refuge could set the stage for two different kinds of renewal: restoring a military base to natural habitat, and watching burnt vegetation rejuvenate.

“There will be some short-term effects on some wildlife populations, but it’s not a catastrophe,” said Dean Rundle, refuge manager for the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge complex that includes Orange County’s only refuge, in Seal Beach.

“We’re still very interested in that proposal, and we’re going to go forward with that,” added Michael Mitchell, manager of the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge would be organized under the auspices of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and aimed at conserving wildlife and protecting the natural biological diversity of Southern California.

Residents will be able to offer comments at a public meeting Wednesday. But months of planning lie ahead, including a draft plan, environmental review and the no-cost transfer of the land from the military to the refuge system. If all goes well, the land could be designated a federal refuge by next summer.

The philosophy behind federal wildlife refuges is to protect wildlife, such as the California gnatcatcher, orange-throated whiptail lizard, San Diego horned lizard and Riverside fairy shrimp found within the proposed El Toro refuge.

A key tenet to such protections is shielding the vegetation where these creatures live. The coastal sage scrub, for example, once carpeted much of Southern California’s coastal hills, but an estimated 90% has already been lost to development.

Because of their strong historic mission of protecting the ecosystem, wildlife refuges differ from state parks and open spaces, which tend to be used more heavily by the public. The first such refuge was established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt on Pelican Island in Florida.

“The major thrust is wildlife, and everything else is secondary to us,” said Cathy Osugi, wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional planning division in Portland, Ore. “If you look at anything like a state park, they’d provide, maybe, picnic tables and swimming and things that aren’t directly related to wildlife.

“At a refuge, the emphasis will be on wildlife and wildlife protection.”

Ironically, refuge plans are being starting in earnest just as experts try to assess the damage the fire caused to wildlife at El Toro and nearby areas.

By burning brush away, the fire uncovered clues to past military use, revealing rusted C-ration cans and spent M-16 rifle cartridges littered around foxholes. Coastal sage scrub had long since grown over the 1960s relics.

The burnt area is carpeted with many tones of gray ash punctuated by the skeletons of native plants and shriveled prickly-pear cat.

But already, signs of life are stirring. Rodents have returned, burrowing amid the ash. Here and there, light-green shoots are poking skyward.

Just 100 yards away is untouched habitat--oaks, sage, buckwheat, cattails--thriving as if the fire never occurred.

The Santiago Canyon fire is believed to have killed or displaced 94 California gnatcatchers, the small gray songbird protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. At El Toro--long considered one of the county’s most populous and important gnatcatcher centers--roughly 54 of those 94 birds were destroyed or displaced, county figures show.

“Right now, there’s a big coin up in the air, flipping around, about where we’re going to land,” said Fred Roberts of the area Fish and Wildlife office. He noted that this fire apparently displaced the most gnatcatchers since the Laguna Beach fires of 1993. In the five years since, about 50% of the population has rebounded. But much depends on weather conditions and other factors, he said.

But the fire portends good things for wildlife as well, noted experts such as Richard Minnich, professor of earth sciences at UC Riverside and a fire ecology expert.

Coastal sage scrub is frequently invaded by nonnative, flammable grasses. Now that the scrub land has burned, native plants will return, some sprouting from old roots, others from seed banks.

“The system will obviously come back,” Minnich said. “It’s done it thousands of times.”

The public is invited to a meeting about the proposed refuge Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. at Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, 4861 Michelson Drive, Irvine. Information: (760) 930-0168.

Times staff photographer Don Bartletti contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Proposed Refuge

Part of El Toro base could become a 975-acre haven for plants and animals.