North Forty News: “Community-Driven Team Works to Ensure Survival of Rare Mouse Species”
by Jason Kuhn, North Forty News
A multidisciplinary team has been established to ensure the survival of the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse, a threatened mammal listed under the Endangered Species Act, in the North Fork of the Cache la Poudre River watershed. The team was established following the release of a recovery plan published in 2018 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The team — including Colorado State University conservation experts — known as the Poudre River Site Conservation Team, is the first of its kind and designed to give a voice to local communities in the process of recovering the Preble’s mouse. The goal of the team is to work toward meeting recovery goals, striving to recommend simple, straightforward conservation tools for restoration on public and private lands for habitat improvement.
“The Preble’s mouse is important as an indicator of healthy riparian ecosystems,” said George Seidel, a past and key member of the team, a landowner in the watershed, and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at CSU.
The species is only found below 7,600 feet in dense, streamside vegetation consisting of shrubs, grasses, and flowering plants along the Front Range of Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. Heather Knight, SCT member, and landowner added “meeting recovery goals for the Preble’s mouse will be a team effort among stakeholders and will reflect good land management that benefits private landowners and public lands.”
“Working collaboratively with community members for its recovery is the main goal of the team,” Knight added.
