Rats! Endangered Rodents Get the Jump on Developers in Norco : Environment: Stephens’ kangaroo rat expands its habitat, placing a rural town’s barren grasslands off limits.

To many residents, it’s just a 3-inch-high rodent that runs on its hind legs.

But this tiny creature, Stephens’ kangaroo rat, has been declared an endangered species, making development on its barren grassland habitat subject to fines and even prison terms. Its recent discovery in this rural town has been to the frustration of developers--and to the amusement of many residents.

“To me, a rat is a rat,” Norco City Councilman Bill Vaughan said. “It’s more of a joke than anything else. . . . It seems strange the rats are taking a precedent over people and projects.”

The discovery of Stephens’ K-rats, as they are called, came as somewhat of a surprise. Three years ago, at the time of its listing as a federal endangered species, its habitat was believed to be confined to areas just east of Corona and Norco. Property owners elsewhere thought that they could go ahead with ambitious projects without interference.

But in September, K-rats were found to inhabit a large part of the Norco Hills, a 235-acre residential and commercial project proposed by the Windward Development Co. of Newport Beach. For the company, the discovery could mean months of headaches.

“For us, it’s just another one of those things,” said Bill Tackabery, an engineering consultant with the company. “It’s just frustrating how slow this goes. It just goes on and on and on.”

Biologists working on an environmental impact report at the site discovered that the rat inhabited about 80% of the project. In fact, the habitat was found to be so extensive that some residents began to doubt whether the K-rat actually is more abundant and not endangered at all.

“If they can catch 80 in one night, I don’t think there’s much of a rarity,” said Vaughan, who lives near the project.

For now, Tackabery said Windward Development will have time to spare, because the decline in the housing market would have delayed the project anyway.

The discovery did have an immediate impact on the Corona Hills, a project to the south of the Norco Hills project in Corona. The Norco Hills discovery led biologists to believe that the K-rat also inhabits the Corona Hills site. Its developer, Buie Corp., temporarily halted grading on part of a 700-acre project in November until the extent of the habitat could be identified.

“We had just a couple of acres that were ungraded,” said Jack Schwellenbach, vice president of Buie Corp. “We felt we were clear. It was never indicated that it was in our area.”

Scientists say the K-rat’s discovery west of its original boundaries came as little surprise, because it migrates to other suitable habitats. In addition, biologists had difficulty determining K-rat boundaries because they did not have access to a lot of private property that could be part of the rodent’s habitat.

“You have a lot of property that hasn’t been checked,” said Michael J. O’Farrell, a Las Vegas-based biologist who has been studying the K-rat for nearly eight years. “Some people don’t even want to know what is on their land.”

O’Farrell doubted that the animal would be found as far west as Orange County, because the Santa Ana Mountains are a barrier.

For now, grading has resumed on much of the Corona Hills after consultants determined in further studies last month that the K-rat inhabited just 1 to 5 acres of their development, Schwellenbach said.

“We’re just going to work around it,” he said.

The K-rat has also been found in Eagle Valley, the site of a new development east of Corona, county officials said. Corona is trying to annex the land.

City officials plan to await a decision from the Local Agency Formation Commission before deciding what to do about the discovery.

Still, the problems of working around the K-rat habitat will be well worth protecting the species, scientists and environmentalists say. O’Farrell estimated that 65% to 70% of its original habitat has been lost to agriculture, urban and industrial development in the Inland Empire.

The nocturnal, burrow-dwelling rodent with powerful hind legs is primarily found in about 22,000 acres in Riverside County, although pockets have been found in a small part of San Bernardino and northern San Diego counties, he said.

The development threat to the species was enough to get the state to list the creature as a threatened species in 1972 and for the federal government to list it as an endangered species in 1988.

Last year, in response to the federal designation and pressures to develop land, Riverside County and several cities created the Riverside County Habitat Conservation Agency, in which reserve land is bought in exchange for land on which habitat can be destroyed for development.

In August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a three-year temporary conservation plan that allows for developing up to 4,400 acres of rat habitat. Developers are asked to pay at least $1,950 per acre of construction to help buy reserve land.

So far, six cities and the county are part of the conservation plan, and it remains to be seen whether Corona and Norco will join. Officials from both cities plan to meet this week to discuss their options.

Brian Loew, the executive director of the Habitat Conservation Agency, said: “There is some question as to how they will enter the picture for that piece of the pie. . . . Forty-four hundred acres is not a whole lot, and it’s highly coveted.”

Although the controversy remains as to whether the K-rat should be listed at all, Loew said the point is moot. He is preparing a plan to create reserves for a wide array of protected species in the county, not just K-rats.

“Worrying about the philosophical merits of listing (the rat as protected) doesn’t concern me,” he said. “This is the future of Riverside County. We need to stay ahead of this.”

Newly Discovered Habitat

Stephens’ kangaroo rat, a tiny, long-tailed rodent that hops on its hind legs and roams the open fields of western Riverside County, has been listed as a federal endagered species since October, 1988. It was recently doscovered at the site of a proposed housing development in Norco, and on a small portion of a project east of Corona.