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One of 12 recognized subspecies of the species Z. hudsonius, or meadow jumping mouse, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse is named after Edward A. Preble, who first encountered the species in Colorado in 1899. This small mouse has large feet, adapted for powerful, long leaps — but even its big feet can’t take it away from sprawling subdivisions and spreading rangelands fast enough to ensure its survival.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Threatened
YEAR PLACED ON LIST: 1998
CRITICAL HABITAT: 31,222 acres along 359 miles of river in Colorado and Wyoming designated in 2003
RECOVERY PLAN: Preliminary draft only revised in 2003
RANGE: Along portions of the North Platte, South Platte, and Arkansas River basins in Colorado and Wyoming
THREATS: Habitat loss and degradation due to agricultural, residential, commercial, and industrial development, with urban development as the primary cause in Colorado and conversion of native riparian ecosystems to commercial croplands and grazed rangelands as the primary cause in Wyoming
POPULATION TREND: A scarcity of historical demographic data makes population trends difficult to determine, though it is known that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse no longer inhabits a number of sites where it was found in the past. The species is clearly in decline in significant portions of its range.
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SAVING THE preble's meadow jumping mouse
A candidate species between 1985 and 1996, the Preble’s was finally listed as threatened in 1998 in response to a 1994 petition from the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, which would later become part of the Center. In keeping with an agreement with the BLF, the Center, and others, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to designate 57,000 acres of critical habitat in 2002 — an area that was reduced to about 31,000 acres when the agency finalized its designation the next year under the influence of former corrupt Interior Department official Julie MacDonald. In August 2007, the Center submitted a notice of intent to sue the Bush administration for this illegal critical habitat designation and decisions affecting the protections of 54 other imperiled species.
In November 2007, under the terms of a settlement reached between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the state of Wyoming, the Service proposed removing protection from the species in the Wyoming portion of its range, where more populations have been discovered since the original listing. In the same month, after the Center submitted extensive comments on the proposal, the Service announced it would re-examine both the delisting proposal and the 2003 critical habitat designation. Then, against the recommendations of scientists, the agency delisted the Wyoming population in 2008.
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Contact: Kierán Suckling
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