SC-G 97-96
Refer:
September 25, 1997
FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE WELCOMES COMMENTS ON PACIFIC POCKET MOUSE DRAFT RECOVERY PLAN
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released for public review a draft recovery plan for the endangered Pacific pocket mouse, a tiny nocturnal mammal found only in Orange and San Diego counties along the Southern California coast. The Pacific Pocket mouse was Federally listed as endangered in 1994. The State of California considers this animal to be a highest priority "species of special concern."
The draft recovery plan addresses conservation needs of the pocket mouse and spells out measures that, if carried out, could result in its downlisting to threatened status by the year 2023 and eventual recovery and removal from the Federal endangered species list.
Historically, these animals occurred up to 2.5 miles inland from Marina del Rey and El Segundo in Los Angeles County south to the Mexican border. But starting in the 1940's, the number of Pacific pocket mice declined rapidly as a result of coastal development and resultant habitat destruction and fragmentation. For more than 20 years, the species was considered to have vanished until biologists rediscovered a single population on the Dana Point Headlands in Orange County in 1993.
Today, the Pacific pocket mouse is known to occur only on privately-owned land near Dana Point and at two locations on Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. Its current occupied habitat comprises less than 1,000 acres at the three locations. Habitat destruction and fragmentation and predation by domestic and feral cats and other animals continue to threaten this tiny animal's existence.
The Pacific pocket mouse is among the smallest subspecies of little pocket mice, measuring no more than 5.2 inches from its nose to the tip of its tail and weighing about a third of an ounce. Pocket mice appear to be more closely related to kangaroo rats than other mice. Kangaroo rats and pocket mice both have fur-lined cheeks and pouches for transporting seed back to their burrows. Pacific pocket mice thus are not closely related to house mice, which are a much larger non-native species of European origin.
Pacific pocket mice require sandy soils for burrowing and have adapted to several similar coastal habitats with shrubby vegetation, including coastal strand, coastal dunes, coastal sage scrub, and weedy vegetation on river-bed sand. Seeds are the staple of their diet, which they supplement with leafy material and occasionally insects. Because of their small size and high metabolism, Pacific pocket mice need a constant food supply while active.
Recovery activities for the pocket mouse were initiated as a result of its protection under the Endangered Species Act. For example, Camp Pendleton is conducting studies of the mice on the base and the Marine Corps has indicated it would authorize the relocation of the animals from the base to off-base sites to establish new populations. Several plans being developed under the state's Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) Program are also addressing the animal's conservation needs. Furthermore, the City of Dana Point has expressed interest in conserving the pocket mouse and other sensitive animals and plants within the city limits by suggesting the potential need for conservation measures beyond those described in the Orange County Central/Coastal NCCP Plan.
The recovery strategy for the Pacific pocket mouse will focus on stabilizing existing populations by protecting currently occupied habitat, searching for additional populations, providing protection to any that are found, and then establishing additional populations by translocation or the release of captive-bred individuals.
The goal of the Endangered Species Act is to recover species to levels where protection under the act is no longer necessary. Recovery plans, which are blueprints for action by Federal and state agencies and private organizations, do not obligate the expenditure of funds or require that actions be implemented. Future conservation efforts for the Pacific pocket mouse will require the voluntary cooperation of Federal, state, and local agencies, species experts, landowners, and other interested citizens.
Comments on the draft recovery plan are invited until November 24, 1997, and should be mailed to the Field Supervisor, Carlsbad Field Office, 2730 Loker Avenue West, Carlsbad, California 92008. Requests for copies of this plan should also be directed to this office.
The Service published a notice of availability of the draft recovery plan for the Pacific pocket mouse in the Federal Register on September 25, 1997.
x x x