Airport animals losing ground to growth

Endangered listing may await Western pocket gopher, streaked horned lark

JOHN DODGE, THE OLYMPIAN

TUMWATER -- Two creatures that call South Sound airports home are inching their way toward being considered endangered.

The Western pocket gopher and streaked horned lark were added to the federal Endangered Species Act candidate list late last year, a sign that their populations and habitat are in decline.

The species are found around Olympia Regional Airport, the Port of Shelton's Sanderson Field and McChord Air Force Base. The reason is the airports are constructed on prairie-grassland habitat that the rodent and bird use, habitat lost to population growth and development throughout the region.

The chance that the gopher and the lark will continue to live at the airports is uncertain, particularly at Olympia Regional Airport, which is home to an $8.5 million runway realignment and other airport business-related development.

The runway project will cover some of the gopher habitat, and future business development could encroach on lark habitat, said Andrea Fontenot, port director of planning and engineering.

But, she said, "We remain cooperative and very interested in providing for these species."

The Western pocket gopher is a chunky, toothy, rat-sized burrower that spends much of its time underground. The soil mounds it forms are telltale signs of its presence.

Roughly 1,000 pocket gophers are believed to inhabit South Sound, many of them at the Shelton and Olympia airports, said Derek Stinson, an endangered-species biologist with state Fish and Wildlife.

The streaked horned lark is a sparrow-sized bird -- streaky brown with a musical voice, tiny black horns and whiskers and a penchant for grasslands.

"It's one of the rarest native birds in Western Washington," said Patrick Dunn, South Sound project manager for The Nature Conservancy.

The candidate list maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is like a waiting room for sick creatures. Nationwide, there are 252 candidate species, including 14 in Washington state.

Placement on the candidate list doesn't offer these birds, mammals, plants and insects protection under ESA. They would need to be elevated to a threatened or endangered species status first.

"But it gets people looking for the species and paying attention to them," U.S. Fish and Wildlife ecologist Ted Thomas said.

Budget constraints and lawsuits requiring the Fish and Wildlife Service to work on a backlog of critical habitat plans for species already listed mean none of the candidate species will be moving up the ladder to protection anytime soon, said Jim Michaels, U.S. Fish and Wildlife's endangered species program manager.

State and federal biologists continue to meet with port officials, encouraging them to protect habitat for the two species.

"We'll do whatever we can," Olympia Regional Airport Manager Doug Sandau said. "But any infrastructure we put in is dictated by design -- those can't be altered."

Construction on the runway project is set to begin in 2003.

Stinson said he is working on a status review of the gopher, which includes populations near Shelton, Roy, Olympia, Tenino and Yelm. He's likely to recommend to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission that the Western pocket gopher be listed as a state threatened species.

Separate from the federal list, a state listing doesn't carry the same regulatory clout. But it can lead to local governments requiring projects to conserve habitat as a condition of permit approval.

Tumwater's habitat protection ordinance will require the port to take the needs of the gopher and lark into account in runway and airport development, Fontenot said.

At Sanderson Field near Shelton, Western pocket gophers have been on the radar screen for more than a decade, state habitat biologist Greg Schirato said.

The port has improved gopher habitat by routinely mowing and controlling Scotch broom.

"When you mow the Scotch broom, the gophers move in," he said.

The same approach to gopher habitat might work at the Olympia Airport, Fontenot said.

More research needs to be done to better understand why streaked horned larks are attracted to grasslands adjacent to runways, she said.

The demise of the pocket gopher and streaked horned lark mirrors what has happened to a suite of prairie-dependent species, including wildflowers and butterflies, Dunn said.

Major changes have occurred in the South Sound lowland landscape in the past 150 years, including a 90 percent to 95 percent reduction in prairie habitat and 99 percent loss of prairies that host native species, according to a 1997 Nature Conservancy study.

Prairie fires that once kept invasive plants and conifers at bay no longer burn. Urbanization also has taken its toll.

"Grasslands tend to be the prime land for development," noted state Fish and Wildlife biologist Kelly McAllister. "The airports are the last hope for preserving grassland species in South Sound."

John Dodge covers the environment and energy for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5444.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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