Orange Beach Beach Mouse Final Ruling
Published By Mobile Press Register
Friday, October 13, 2006
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Thursday published a final ruling that will designate nearly 6,200 acres along Alabama and Florida Panhandle beaches as critical habitat for three endangered beach mouse species.
Of the three species, only the Perdido Key beach mouse lives in Alabama.
The economic effects of the Wildlife Service's decision to expand protected acreage is expected by the federal agency to range from $93.4 million to $174.9 million over 20 years due to development restrictions placed on property that carries the critical habitat tag, according to a news release. But Florida will see most of that impact because the property being set aside for the Perdido Key beach mouse in Alabama is primarily state-owned.
In Alabama, 147 acres become critical habitat in Orange Beach and 114 acres of that are within the Gulf State Park property at Alabama Point, said Janet Mizzi, deputy field supervisor for the Service's Panama City, Fla., field office.
While the Wildlife Service doesn't believe the Perdido Key beach mouse is currently living on Gulf State Park property, government biologists aren't certain because no scientific study has been done, Mizzi said.
"We do believe they occupy the private lands to the east of the park," she said.
Most of the private 33 acres of critical habitat have already been developed with Gulf-front high-rises and beach houses, but the frontal dunes between the structures and the surf as well as scrub habitat to the north are thought to contain the endangered species' burrows, Mizzi said.
She said the critical habitat designation could preclude the owners of those designated lands from building bigger structures than they previously have, which became an issue after Hurricane Ivan wrecked many of Perdido Key's older beach homes and wood-frame condominiums in September 2004.
In total, 1,300 acres are now designated as critical habitat for the Perdido Key beach mouse, most of which is on the Florida portion of the key in Escambia County.
The Wildlife Service's ruling also affects the Choctawhatchee beach mouse, which will get 2,404 acres in Florida's Okaloosa, Walton and Bay counties, and the St. Andrew beach mouse, which gets 2,490 acres in the Panhandle counties of Bay and Gulf.
The decision came in response to two separate federal court rulings requiring the Wildlife Service to re-examine and expand the protected habitat needed for the beach mouse's continued survival. One order came from a federal judge in the Southern District of Alabama. That decision also forced the agency to redraw the critical habitat of the Alabama beach mouse, which lives in the coastal dunes of Gulf Shores and along the Fort Morgan peninsula.
The other, affecting the species that live exclusively along the Panhandle, originated with a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, according to the release
Friday, October 13, 2006
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Thursday published a final ruling that will designate nearly 6,200 acres along Alabama and Florida Panhandle beaches as critical habitat for three endangered beach mouse species.
Of the three species, only the Perdido Key beach mouse lives in Alabama.
The economic effects of the Wildlife Service's decision to expand protected acreage is expected by the federal agency to range from $93.4 million to $174.9 million over 20 years due to development restrictions placed on property that carries the critical habitat tag, according to a news release. But Florida will see most of that impact because the property being set aside for the Perdido Key beach mouse in Alabama is primarily state-owned.
In Alabama, 147 acres become critical habitat in Orange Beach and 114 acres of that are within the Gulf State Park property at Alabama Point, said Janet Mizzi, deputy field supervisor for the Service's Panama City, Fla., field office.
While the Wildlife Service doesn't believe the Perdido Key beach mouse is currently living on Gulf State Park property, government biologists aren't certain because no scientific study has been done, Mizzi said.
"We do believe they occupy the private lands to the east of the park," she said.
Most of the private 33 acres of critical habitat have already been developed with Gulf-front high-rises and beach houses, but the frontal dunes between the structures and the surf as well as scrub habitat to the north are thought to contain the endangered species' burrows, Mizzi said.
She said the critical habitat designation could preclude the owners of those designated lands from building bigger structures than they previously have, which became an issue after Hurricane Ivan wrecked many of Perdido Key's older beach homes and wood-frame condominiums in September 2004.
In total, 1,300 acres are now designated as critical habitat for the Perdido Key beach mouse, most of which is on the Florida portion of the key in Escambia County.
The Wildlife Service's ruling also affects the Choctawhatchee beach mouse, which will get 2,404 acres in Florida's Okaloosa, Walton and Bay counties, and the St. Andrew beach mouse, which gets 2,490 acres in the Panhandle counties of Bay and Gulf.
The decision came in response to two separate federal court rulings requiring the Wildlife Service to re-examine and expand the protected habitat needed for the beach mouse's continued survival. One order came from a federal judge in the Southern District of Alabama. That decision also forced the agency to redraw the critical habitat of the Alabama beach mouse, which lives in the coastal dunes of Gulf Shores and along the Fort Morgan peninsula.
The other, affecting the species that live exclusively along the Panhandle, originated with a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, according to the release
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