Next time you take a hike in the San Juan National Forest, be careful where you put your feet. The New Mexico meadow jumping mouse is being added to the Endangered Species Act list.
And apparently, the mouse is known to jump state borders and hang out up here.
Technically known as the “Zapus hudsonius luteus,” the tiny, furry mammal tends to make its home in riparian areas and along streams from near Raton and Mora in northeastern New Mexico through the Jemez Mountains and the Rio Grande Valley in central New Mexico and on down to the Sacramento Mountains in southern New Mexico.
In addition to the isolated population near Durango, there’s another outlier in a part of the White Mountains in eastern Arizona.
“Nearly all of the current populations are isolated and widely separated,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release, “and all of the 29 populations located since 2005 have patches of suitable habitat that are too small to support resilient populations of the jumping mouse.”
A variety of factors have diminished the jumping mouse’s habitat, including pressures from grazing, drought, wildfires, water management, floods, loss of beaver dams, highway construction, residential and commercial development, coal-bed methane development and unregulated recreation, the wildlife service said.
The New Mexican meadow jumping mouse hibernates for eight or nine months out of the year – longer than most mammals.
During the three or four months when it is active, it has to breed, give birth and raise its young as well as store up enough fat reserves to survive the next hibernation.
Because its litters are small – with seven or fewer young – it has a limited capability for high growth rates to restore its population.
“As a result, if resources are not available in a single season, jumping mice populations would be greatly stressed,” the wildlife service said.
The mouse was added to the species protected under the Endangered Species Act after a year of research, public comments and input from peer reviewers.
These reviewers included Native American tribes in the habitat areas, state agencies and federal agencies.
The designation of endangered will go into effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
According to the Federal Register, the rule is scheduled to be published today.
abutler@durangoherald.com
