A Butterfly Effect Seen After Fires

The wildfires in Southern California last fall caused extensive damage to habitat for a rare butterfly, bird and frog, according to report by an environmental group released Tuesday.

As a result, the Center for Biological Diversity said federal regulators should now review housing and road construction that would further affect the species. But federal wildlife officials and a building industry representative said that conclusion was premature.

The report concluded that the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog, Quino checkerspot butterfly and California gnatcatcher lost large swaths of habitat in the more than 740,000 acres burned in more than a dozen fires in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Orange and Ventura counties.

The environmental group analyzed federal post-burn surveys and maps, and compared them with previous studies of the three species.

More than one-fourth of all locations where the Quino checkerspot butterfly had been found in the past had burned, the study found.

A sixth of all potential habitat for the mountain yellow-legged frog burned, as did 28% of potential habitat for the California gnatcatcher, the study showed.

“The fires are an event that has changed everything for these species, and a lot of [construction] projects are going to have to go back and get permission again,” said Kassie Siegel, attorney with the Idyllwild branch of the nonprofit, which prepared the study.

Jane Hendron, a spokeswoman for the Carlsbad office of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency was already reviewing the impact the fire damage will have on species, although she did not know when the data would be completed.

The agency oversees endangered species and issues permits allowing their destruction in limited numbers for roads, housing and other construction across much of the Southland.

Hendron said agency staff had not been consulted by the group, nor given a copy of the report before it was released to news organizations.

“We only just received this. Obviously we haven’t had any opportunity to look at this, therefore we have no opinion on the conclusions,” said Hendron. “We can’t make any determinations on whether or not something in the past would need to be looked at again until we can understand what the effects of the fires are, and we have not had enough time to fully determine the effects.”

A building industry spokesman said it was “grossly premature” to comment on damage to species from the fires, and that there was no legal basis requiring review of the permits.

“This isn’t new information. When they write these permits, they anticipate natural occurrences like fires,” said David Smith, lead counsel for the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California. “The effects of these fires can actually be a net benefit ... It isn’t ‘Oh my gosh, we never thought of this.’ ”

Biologists at the service and other federal agencies are extremely concerned about the mountain yellow-legged frog in particular. There were only seven known locations where the species still existed before last fall.

One of its best breeding grounds, a creek in the San Bernardino Mountains, burned twice. Federal officials removed some frogs during the Old Fire and placed them in the Los Angeles Zoo, and left others in the creek, hoping they would survive and repopulate. But the Christmas day mudslides obliterated the creek bed, destroying the frogs and their habitat.