![]() ![]() Scientists don’t know whether the Pacific pocket mouse’s reintroduction could similarly shift the coastal sage scrub ecosystem. By distributing certain kinds of seeds, the kangaroo rat engineered an ecosystem that other species had depended on. In Arizona, a researcher studied the effect of removing kangaroo rats, and within five to seven years the patch of desert plain had transitioned to a desert grassland. “When they’re able to disperse seeds from different plants around, you’re going to get more variety of species, a more healthy ecosystem,” said Nancy Frost, a senior environmental scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.ĭifferent types of mice forage for different seeds at different times of day, or from different locations. Its burrows hydrate the soil and help plants grow, but more important, the mice eat seeds and disperse them. ![]() The little mouse plays an outsize role in the ecosystem, according to scientists. They live as long as eight years in captivity, but a much shorter time in the wild. That means a generation of mice can be born and subsequently produce a new generation in a single, May-to-September breeding season. They mature enough to mate in 41 days and typically give birth 23 days after mating. The re-established coastal populations should grow quickly because the mice breed like, well, mice. The latter method is far cheaper and more effective but couldn’t be pursued initially because the mice population was so precarious. The first three groups, including the one released this week, will begin with captive-bred mice, and the other four will be created by relocating wild mice. The scientists are aiming to add seven groups of mice at other Southern California locations, which would bring the total to 10. “It’s urban development over the past many decades that has brought the mouse to near extinction.” Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Southwest region. “Another species, humans, are also very fond of the habitat within a few miles of the Southern California coast,” said Michael Long, the endangered species chief for the U.S. That range, within 4 miles of the coast, also happens to be one of the most heavily developed regions of the country. No other colonies remain across the mouse’s historic range from the El Segundo dunes near LAX to the Mexican border. The Dana Point mouse population was preserved, and subsequent surveys found two other groups at Camp Pendleton. It was added to the federal endangered species list the following year as part of an emergency ruling. Thought to be extinct in the 1980s, the Pacific pocket mouse was rediscovered in 1993 by the developer of the Strand at the Dana Point Headlands. ![]() “Instead of everybody fighting, you agree on where you’re going to develop and where you’re going to preserve, and then concentrate on those really rich areas to keep viable and sustainable,” said Barbara Norton, OC Parks’ supervising park ranger for Laguna Coast. The effort faced criticism from die-hard environmentalists but became a model for large conservation projects statewide. The release of the mouse delivers on the promise of a 20-year-old Orange County habitat conservation plan that eased development restrictions in certain sections of rare coastal sage scrub in exchange for habitat protections in other areas. But in recent years, human intervention in the form of a 4-year-old captive breeding program at the San Diego Zoo has pulled it back from the brink. Generations of development – subdivisions, shopping malls and even century-old cattle ranches and farms – pushed the mouse to the edge of extinction. It is among 50 released this week into the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park as part of a yearslong effort to bring the smallest mouse in North America back to a coastal highlands where it once thrived but hasn’t been seen in decades. This Pacific pocket mouse is a small and stealthy pioneer. Its head seems to make up half its 2-inch body, which weighs the same as three pennies. There’s a flash of brown as the tiny, endangered mouse scurries across the sandy, brushy hillside above Laguna Beach and crouches frozen under a shrub.Īs the sun dips behind the ocean far below, the mouse slowly blinks a wet, beady, black eye, twitches its nose and gingerly crawls under the cover of the foliage. ![]()
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