COURT TO HEAR DEBATE ON MOHAVE SQUIRREL.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

In a battle with implications for Antelope Valley land use and the future of the state's Endangered Species Act, an appeals court will hear arguments Tuesday debating the "threatened" status of the Mohave ground squirrel.

The First Appellate District of the state Court of Appeal in San Francisco will hear arguments in Kern County officials' appeal of a June 1994 Superior Court ruling forbidding the state Fish and Game Commission from removing the animal from the list of threatened species.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Thomas Mellon Jr. ruled the squirrel could not be removed from the list because the state Fish and Game Commission failed to prepare an environmental impact report.

That decision angered opponents of the squirrel's "threatened" status, who said it makes it harder to delist a species than it is to get it listed.

"There can't be a double standard and a higher burden for delisting than listing," said Kern County Supervisor Roy Ashburn, one of the driving forces behind the bid to remove the special protection from the animal.

Arguments also will be heard from a coalition of environmental and conservation groups appealing a finding by Mellon that - although an environmental impact report is necessary - the decision to delist was "supported by substantial evidence."

"We still have to protect the critter," said Elden Hughes, chairman of the Sierra Club's California Desert Committee. "We chose to protect it with the truth."

Described by biologists as a shy, cinnamon-colored creature, the Mohave ground squirrel is only active above ground from about mid-March to June.

Ranging eastward from Palmdale and Lancaster through the Antelope Valley and the desert areas of Kern, Inyo and San Bernardino counties, the squirrel's numbers have dropped because of development and drought, state biologists said.

Originally listed as a "rare" species in 1971, the commission put the squirrel on the threatened species list in 1985. Threatened species are those not facing imminent extinction, but could become extinct without government protection.

In May 1993, the state Fish and Game Commission, acting on a petition from Kern County, voted to delist the squirrel - the first time in the history of the state's Endangered Species Act that a protected species was dropped.

The Kern County petition said the creature originally was listed as a threatened species without proper evidence and that regulations protecting it are overzealous.

"The Endangered Species Act is undermined when you have a species listed at taxpayers expense that does not belong on the list," Ashburn said. "I'm prepared to fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court."

There are over 200 property owners in eastern Kern County alone that are not able to use their land because of restrictions - such as providing three acres of habitat for every acre developed - protecting the animal.

"The Mohave ground squirrel as a listed species virtually has shut down property use in eastern Kern County," Ashburn said.

Fighting the delisting effort is a coalition of environmental groups that includes the Sierra Club, the Natural Resource Defense Council, the Desert Protection Council, Defenders of Wildlife and the Mountain Lion Foundation.

The groups' lawsuit said the commission decision was not supported by evidence and ignored testimony from its own department supporting the "threatened" listing.