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Critics roar about mouse

Musgrave, fellow Republican hold hearing on Preble's

Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 19, 2006 at midnight

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GREELEY - The title of the Monday afternoon congressional hearing said it all. "Abuses of the Endangered Species Act: the so-called Preble's meadow jumping mouse."

Two harsh Republican critics of the 1973 federal act - Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, of Colorado, and Rep. Richard Pombo, of California - called the House Committee on Resources session to hear from locals about hardships created by the tiny, federally protected mouse.

And the invited farmers, water managers, home builders, biologists and public officials did not disappoint.

Preble's-related restrictions are strangling local economic development and punishing farmers already reeling from years of drought, Pombo and Musgrave were told.

In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with protecting threatened and endangered species, has bungled the whole affair, several witnesses testified.The Preble's mouse should have been booted from the federal list of protected wildlife years ago, they said, because it is nearly indistinguishable from other mice and is more abundant and widespread than researchers once believed.

"They exist only in the minds of the Fish and Wildlife Service and some environmentalists," Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank said of the Preble's mouse.

The state of Wyoming and Coloradans for Water Conservation and Development petitioned Fish and Wildlife to remove Preble's from the list in December 2003.

A decision on the genetic basis for the rodent's listing is expected soon.

Despite Crank's assertion about Preble's non-existence, U.S. Geological Survey geneticist Tim King determined this year that the mouse is a distinct subspecies that deserves protection. In July, an independent science panel convened by Fish and Wildlife agreed with King that the mouse is unique.

"This wasn't something that was pulled out of the air," King said in a telephone interview Monday. "Our conclusion was based on a very large amount of data, and it clearly showed that Preble's is distinct from other accepted subspecies."

Biologist Erin Robertson, of Center for Native Ecosystems, said Monday's hearing was nothing more than "political theater in an election year."

"Musgrave is in a tougher re-election fight than she expected, so that's why this is happening," Robertson said of the hearing. Democrat Angie Paccione is seeking Musgrave's eastern Colorado congressional seat.

In an interview, Musgrave said Monday's hearing was not an effort to score political points or to sway the Fish and Wildlife Service. Pombo and Musgrave had been trying to schedule the meeting for months, and Monday was the only time both could make it, she said.

"Private property owners who encounter endangered species like the Preble's mouse on their land have to endure the enormous burden the federal government imposes in protecting them," Musgrave said.

Last fall, Pombo sponsored a bill that would radically alter the 33-year-old Endangered Species Act. It passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

The bill would strengthen the hand of private property owners and make it harder for federal officials to set aside large chunks of land for rare plants and animals. Musgrave voted for it, and at Monday's meeting she pledged her continued support.

During the meeting, Jerry Sonnenberg, of Coloradans for Water Conservation and Development, said Preble's-related restrictions "continue to place expensive and outrageous demands" on developers and water managers.

He cited an example from the Parker Water and Sanitation District. The local water provider was forced to spend more than $1 million to construct "mouse tunnels" under a 2-acre pond near its new Reuter Hess Reservoir, he said.

David Tschetter, president of Windsor-based Colorado Custom Homes, told of a Colorado Springs developer that had to pay $200,000 a year for Preble's consultants. The same company, Classic Homes, spent $2 million on a Preble's bridge over a drainage area, he said.

And Fish and Wildlife's own studies show that Preble's restrictions could cost landowners and local governments $183 million over the next decade, Tschetter said.

But Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Diane Katzenberger said $183 million is an outdated figure that grossly exaggerated true costs.

As for the claim that the mouse is more common and widespread than researchers believed when the rodent was listed as "threatened" in 1998, Katzenberger said the agency is still looking into it.

"Whenever we list an animal, they get more attention and more people go out and look for them," she said. "And when more people look, we tend to find more of them.

"But trapping studies to date have not significantly changed the known boundaries of Preble's range," she said.

Little mouse, big bills

• $1 million: For construction of "mouse tunnels" under a pond near the Reuter Hess Reservoir.

• $200,000: Annual fee for Preble's consultants for a Colorado Springs developer.

• $2 million: Cost the same developer spent for a Preble's bridge over a drainage area.