Little mouse makes much ado

By Linda Bell
Livermore Correspondent

First it was "mighty mouse" then it became "friendly mouse" and now it is "Mickey Mouse" in the opinion of Al Johnson, a Livermore rancher who spearheaded the six-year effort to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan for the threatened Preble's meadow jumping mouse in the Livermore area.

Late in January, the Interior Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to remove the Preble's meadow jumping mouse from the endangered species list because new data asserts that the Preble's should be considered the same subspecies as the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse. That species is found in the Bear Lodge Mountains of northeastern Wyoming, the Black Hills of South Dakota and southeastern Montana.

The USFWS estimates the delisting process could take a year to complete. Recent press releases from U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and Congresswoman Musgrave (R-Colo.) applauded the decision to delist. A recent peer review of a genetic study that led to the proposed delisting was based on research conducted by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and funded by the USFWS, state of Wyoming, Department of Energy and the museum.

Although Department of Interior officials acknowledge that the 14 peer reviewers split 8 to 6 to accept the study's conclusions, petitions to consider delisting the mouse based on the study's new information were filed by the Wyoming Office of the Governor and Coloradans for Water Conservation and Development. (The peer reviews can be accessed at http://mountain-prairie.fws.gov/preble.)

Johnson explained that Livermore was "mouse central" in terms of viable habitat. "Because the ecosystem was still relatively intact, it had the second largest concentration of Preble's reported," he said. "After the Preble's was listed as 'threatened' in 1998 a group of us in Livermore, including George Siedel, Rick Knight and Heather Knight representing The Nature Conservancy, decided to be proactive when the county told us it was not going to fund an HCP, more commonly a government initiative rather than a grassroots one."

As a result, the proposed Livermore area HCP was a cooperative effort funded by private donations, The Nature Conservancy and a grant from the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

During the years it has taken to create the Livermore HCP and move it through government, the community learned a lot about the mouse, Johnson said. For instance, it moves around at night when it's not heavily impacted and seems to be surviving. "It wasn't as constrictive as we thought," he said.

Johnson said the Livermore HCP was approved by the USFWS in May 2003, but didn't end there. It is still going through the process of public and governmental review, and only two weeks ago the group got clearance regarding any cultural sites that might have been impacted, he said.

"I don't want to be a mouse rancher," Johnson said, "but I didn't mind being part of the recovery program if that's what it took."

He said the process placed a burden on all area landowners and took up a lot of time and money, but this may be an example of where the endangered species act has worked because the earlier science has been refuted with better information.

Livermore landowner Heather Knight, who is The Nature Conservancy's project director for the Laramie Foothills, said TNC is working to maintain riparian areas in partnership with other landowners, not only in anticipation of the needed HCP habitat restoration for Preble's, but also because it is good land stewardship.

Members of the community took a long look at their watering and riparian areas, and while they might not have seen any mice, they did see a lot of noxious weeds, Knight said. As a result, landowners gained momentum to work through the North Fork Weed Co-op for needed weed eradication, which results in better habitat conservation for all plant and animal communities, she said.

Knight said while the Preble's may be delisted as a separate subspecies of the jumping mouse, the USFWS has to determine if it still warrants some formal level of protection. "They may come back and say it still needs habitat protection in Colorado, or not, or that only certain populations in Colorado need protection," she said.

Meegan Flenniken, a resource specialist for Larimer County Parks and Open Lands who has been working with the Eagle's Nest Open Space in Livermore, said the county drew up its own HCP for Preble's on the 755-acre landholding.

"Our goal was to improve the riparian corridor along the North Fork of the Poudre River on this property anyway," she said, "so committing to some habitat mitigation fit in with the overall goals."

Flenniken said to preserve the river ecosystem they plan to do some fencing to protect certain areas from cattle grazing, carry out willow restoration and keep the public trails out of the river corridor.

Steve Znamenacek, district wildlife manager for Poudre Canyon and the DOW representative on the Northern Larimer County Habitat Partnership Program formed in 2002, said that one of the six issues identified for funding by the NLCHHP is restoration of threatened and endangered species habitat. At present, he said, there are no pending applications for HPP project funds directly related to that issue.