'Important and Very Serious'
"We're trying to be deliberate in our work,
trying to get the best science we can and review
of the science we do have, in making this
decision. Because we know it is very important
and serious to a lot of people," said Ralph
Morgenweck, regional director of the service in
Denver. "But I would also say it is a lot more
complicated than what it appears to be."
The research by the Denver Museum of Nature and
Science has opened a new volume of questions,
including what to do about landowners who have
been affected, whether the Bear Lodge mouse also
needs protection and whether the Endangered
Species Act itself needs changes.
"If we've shown that the mouse doesn't exist,
what happens to all that has been set aside?
Because that's been a huge economic burden,"
wondered Brian Garber, assistant director of
governmental relations for the Colorado
Contractors Association.
Meadow jumping mice live near streams, and
nearly 31,000 acres along streams in Colorado
and Wyoming have been designated critical mouse
habitat. That includes large parts of the
Colorado Front Range, which over the past
several years has been rapidly developed with
strip malls and housing subdivisions.
Front Range developers and local governments
have had to set aside a lot of land to protect
the mouse, though if protections are lifted,
that does not mean all that land can be
developed. Subdivisions, for example, have
roads, sewers, water lines and other
infrastructure designed for a certain number of
homes. In many cases, adding more homes is not
feasible.
But developers would like to see restrictions,
which can be both expensive and annoying, ended
for future development. In one Colorado Springs,
Colo., subdivision, for example, the
restrictions include a requirement that cats be
kept on leashes.
In rural areas, protecting the mouse has meant
telling ranchers they cannot clear weeds out of
their irrigation canals, reducing the amount of
water that gets to their hay fields in the
middle of summer. They are also restricted in
how they can allow their animals to graze along
streams, another regulation the LeSatzes have to
work around.
On top of that, the mouse also has blocked the
construction of reservoirs amid a five-year
drought in the Rocky Mountains.
"The bottom line is, it has been a wonderful
tool for environmental groups to try to stop
things," said Kent Holsinger, attorney for
Coloradans for Water Conservation and
Development, which has asked the Fish and
Wildlife Service to remove the mouse from
federal protection.
Indeed, environmental groups are now calling for
Endangered Species Act protection for the Bear
Lodge mouse. They say that subspecies, which had
been thought to be limited to the Black Hills of
South Dakota and Wyoming but now appears to
exist as far south as Colorado Springs, suffers
from the same habitat degradation.
The Preble's mouse was established as a distinct
subspecies by a study 50 years ago that was
cited in the 1998 decision to declare it
threatened.
The man who did the 1954 study, Philip Krutzsch,
now a professor emeritus with the University of
Arizona, had examined the skulls of three mice
and the skins of 11 others. It was an acceptable
level of scrutiny at the time but "an extremely
weak inference by today's standards," said Rob
Roy Ramey II, curator at the Denver Museum of
Nature and Science and project leader on the new
DNA research that overturns Krutzsch's
conclusion.
Ramey and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial
DNA, the cell's genetic code, from several of
the 12 subspecies of meadow jumping mice, which
range from the Pacific to Atlantic and as far
south as Georgia.
They also repeated Krutzsch's skeleton
measurements, using more specimens, mainly from
university and museum collections, and more
accurate tools. They concluded that the Preble's
mouse is actually a Bear Lodge meadow jumping
mouse, not a separate subspecies.
'What Is True'
Despite being reversed, Krutzsch endorses the
new research and its conclusion: "It's at the
cutting edge of science today, and it's very
thorough and comprehensive. I think it clearly
defines what is true biologically."
But, inadequate as it might have been,
Krutzsch's old study was the best science that
had been done up until the listing of the
Preble's mouse. The Endangered Species Act
requires only that species protection be based
on the best available science, not the best
possible science.
Ramey's DNA study seems likely to usurp
Krutzsch's as the best science to date. But
environmental groups are not willing to
surrender.
They point out that Ramey's study has not been
peer-reviewed. They also highlight criticism
from Ramey's scientific peers that he did not
compare the nuclear DNA, the molecular building
blocks of entire organisms, of the mice
subspecies, something Ramey has begun examining
at the Fish and Wildlife Service's request.
Jeremy Nichols, spokesman for the Biodiversity
Conservation Alliance in Laramie, Wyo., attacked
Ramey's impartiality.
"Ramey has a clear anti-Endangered Species Act
agenda," he said. "He's been testifying in
Washington, D.C., in front of committees headed
by members of Congress who would like nothing
better than having the Endangered Species Act
thrown away."
Ramey, who has studied endangered species more
than 20 years, did testify in April before a
House subcommittee that the Preble's mouse shows
how the Endangered Species Act needs major
changes. But he said his advocacy was for better
science to bolster the legitimacy of endangered
species status.
"I care about the act. I care about habitat. And
that's why it's important to lay the issues out
on the table," he said.
Ramey thinks the question of to list or not to
list should be based on the most up-to-date
science and modern techniques. He also wants
more science used in deciding the details of
protecting species.
