Gnatcatcher Policy Sound, Study Finds

The survival of the California gnatcatcher in Southern California is not likely to be threatened by the current federal policy that allows developers to destroy a portion of the birds’ habitat while wide-scale preservation policies are being adopted, according to a federal study released Friday.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials began the study last summer because they wanted to make sure that the amount of lost gnatcatcher habitat did not exceed the legal limit, which could stall development plans on some land containing gnatcatchers.

They found that an estimated 2,899 pairs of gnatcatchers remain in six counties of Southern California, compared to the 2,562 pairs estimated when the bird was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act almost four years ago.

The report estimates 643 current pairs of gnatcatchers live in Orange County, down from 757 pairs in 1993. The number has dropped because of birds lost to toll road construction and other projects as well as those birds authorized for removal under a new compromise conservation program.

The overall number in Southern California, however, may bode well both for the bird and landowners, some experts said.

“There’s still time and still hope to fashion solutions,” said Pete Sorensen, assistant field supervisor with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said enough gnatcatchers exist to provide a “cushion” of sorts, meaning that some development can continue without threatening the gnatcatcher with extinction.

“We haven’t reached that point where there isn’t that cushion and that every last bird and every acre is critical,” Sorensen said.

The study was also prompted by charges from some environmentalists that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was deliberately inflating the number of gnatcatchers remaining in Southern California, and that developers may have bulldozed more birds than the federal government was admitting.

The government’s chief critic, environmentalist Leeona Klippstein, had said that the federal government’s gnatcatcher counts could not be trusted. Klippstein could not be reached for comment Friday.

Business and environmental interests had different reactions to the study.

Laer Pearce, representing developers, said he suspects that even the new gnatcatcher count is low.

“It would have been startling to see any numbers smaller than that,” said Pearce, executive director of the Coalition for Habitat Conservation, made up of comprising major Orange County landowners and developers.

Just two years ago, a count compiled for the coalition showed more than 1,000 gnatcatcher pairs in Orange County, far more than the new federal estimate of 643 pairs, Pearce said.

“There may be well over 1,000 right now,” he said.

Several environmentalists said Friday that they had not yet seen the federal study and could not comment on its merits, but they warned that even if the numbers are accurate, the gnatcatcher population remains too low.

“It could be double that, and it still could be at a very critical level,” said Dan Silver, of the Endangered Habitats League. “A thousand, 2,000, 3,000 and 4,000 [birds] is all critically low. If it was 20,000 pairs, that’s different.”

Environmentalists also said that mere bird counts are deceptive and that the gnatcatcher’s welfare hinges on the protection of large blocks of the coastal sage scrub habitat where the songbird thrives.

That habitat has also been much sought after by housing developers in Orange County and surrounding counties, sparking a showdown between landowner interests and environmentalists in the early 1990s.

Government officials tried to defuse the confrontation with a new program called the Natural Communities Conservation Plan. It tries to balance business and environmental interests by setting aside large pieces of habitat for the gnatcatcher and other rare animals and plants.

Guidelines created in 1993 stated how much habitat and how many gnatcatchers could be removed while the conservation plan was prepared.

The report released Friday indicates that several hundred more gnatcatchers exist than were thought to in 1993, when the bird received status as a threatened species.

“As more surveys were conducted, additional gnatcatchers were identified,” the report states.

The report also notes that the amount of sage scrub habitat has decreased since 1993, and that “the overall average gnatcatcher population through time will probably be less with a decreased amount of habitat within which annual fluctuations of populations can occur.”

Gnatcatcher expert Jonathan Atwood, told Friday of the federal study’s conclusions, said he would not be surprised if the gnatcatcher population had been initially underestimated.

He cautioned, however, that numbers of gnatcatchers can fluctuate dramatically from year to year--in fact, as much as 50% in one study on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

“From my standpoint, the issue continues to be adequate habitat being protected rather than this rather fruitless argument whether we’ve protected 30 pairs or 50 pairs,” Atwood said.

Pearce added that the current habitat conservation through the Natural Communities Conservation Plan appears to be working.

“We know that we’re taking big, big pieces of the best habitat and preserving it,” he said.