THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 30, 1995 TAG: 9505300055
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
The Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew is only about the size of a human pinky. But the federally protected rodent has caused a mountain of headaches for local officials and developers who have tread on its habitat.
The city of Portsmouth, for example, spent more than $300,000 in 1992 to create a replacement wetland for shrews displaced by a new water line. Local builders have spent thousands more to determine whether shrews were on their land.
Ironically, wildlife experts have to kill a subject animal to confirm that it is a Dismal Swamp shrew.
Such anecdotes have made this furry, mouselike creature a poster child in Hampton Roads for reform of the federal Endangered Species Act. Conservatives in Congress want to revamp the law, arguing that it overly restricts property rights and business interests.
But hassles with the shrew may soon evaporate without the help of Congress.
A scientific study is underway to determine whether the Dismal Swamp shrew should be removed from a list of creatures protected by federal wildlife law.
``Our initial studies have led us to believe that the animal is much more widespread than was first thought,'' said David Webster, a biology professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, who is leading the study.
How much more widespread?
Some study supporters contend that the shrew should never have been declared a threatened species in the first place. They argue that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in listing the shrew in 1986, used incomplete data and failed to look in all areas where shrews live.
The service, meanwhile, supports its original decision, but is contributing $16,000 for genetic research in Webster's study, said Debbie Mignogno, assistant regional chief of endangered species.
``Maybe it is more widespread, we don't know at this point,'' Mignogno said. ``But we don't want to be in the business of protecting a species that good science shows is not in need. That's why we're helping in this case.''
A Chesapeake land developer also is helping. Thorpe Group of Companies Inc. is soliciting donations for the study from local governments - but not developers and builders, for fear of giving the perception that the research is biased, said vice president Bill Thorpe.
``We're for the environment, too,'' Thorpe said. ``We just don't think the government made a good decision on this one.''
So far, Thorpe said, the cities of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach have pledged $2,200. Other cities in the shrew's range, stretching from southeastern Virginia to northeastern North Carolina, also are interested, he said.
And on Wednesday, the Southeastern Public Service Authority board voted to contribute $500 to the cause.
SPSA, the agency which handles most household trash in South Hampton Roads, has a direct interest in seeing the shrew removed from the list. SPSA wants to expand its regional landfill in Suffolk but would have to tread on prime shrew habitat near the Great Dismal Swamp.
Existence of the shrew is one reason federal regulators have frowned on the Suffolk expansion, instead pushing another site, in Isle of Wight County, where no shrews or other endangered species exist.
Building a landfill in Isle of Wight, however, would cost the agency $180 million more than the Suffolk site.
``We've been shrewed before and we're getting shrewed again,'' Durwood Curling, executive director of SPSA, said in a play on words to describe his experience with the animal.
Webster said he first became interested in the shrew debate after a trip this winter to the Smithsonian Institute. There, he compared samples of Dismal Swamp shrews to other, more abundant shrews, and came away with the idea that perhaps they were biologically the same.
``I had been led to believe that this animal was restricted'' to southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina,'' Webster said. ``But I'm not so sure if that's true.''
Removing a protected species from the federal list is not easy. Private research must prove that a de-listing is warranted. The results must be reviewed and, if accurate, the Fish and Wildlife Service then begins the long process of rewriting its rules. That process takes more than a year, officials said.
Webster hopes to complete his research by Christmas. If no unforeseen hurdles arise, that means it would be at least 1997 before a formal removal proposal surfaces, officials estimate. ILLUSTRATION: ADRIANA LIBREROS/Staff
Graphic
ABOUT THE DISMAL SWAMP SHREW
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB