Mikki
Okamoto
New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse
Zapus hudsonius luteus
Endangered as of June 10, 2014
Mice? EEK! There are two sides to the mice story in our
modern media driven world. People either fear them, heaping them in with thieving
rats, or think of them as the innocent cheese loving fairytale helpers shown in
Cinderella and other works of literature. But how much do we really know about
our small furry housemates?
The New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse is an
example of a wild mouse that doesn’t hide in your home and steal your crumbs.
It is endemic to Arizona, New Mexico, and a section of southern Colorado. The
jumping mouse has a colorful appearance consisting of a grayish-brown back,
yellowish-brown sides, and a white underside. They vary in size of around 7.4
to 10 inches in total length, including a long, bicolored tail usually 5.1
inches long. The jumping mouse is usually nocturnal, but can also be diurnal.
The New Mexico Jumping Mouse is solely active
during the growing season of the grasses on which it is dependent.
During the growing season, the jumping mouse collects fat reserves through the
consumption of seeds. The rest of the year, generally around 9 months, the
jumping mouse spends in hibernation.
The jumping mouse is endangered mainly because
it is a specialist species. Its nests are located in areas consisting of dry
soils, but it also requires zones of thick vegetation adjacent to streams, of
an elevation of roughly 8,000 feet. The frequently overlapping home ranges of
the jumping mouse vary between 0.37 and 2.7 acres. That is quite a particular
set of requirements for our furry-legged friend.
Having come to this conclusion, the
New Mexico jumping mouse was placed on the endangered species list in June
2014. Along with addressing all the habitat problems stated above, support of
the New Mexico Jumping mouse is made even more difficult by the fact that it is
difficult to capture any for research due to their wariness of traps commonly
used for small mammals.
Unfortunately
the distribution and abundance of New Mexico jumping mice has declined
significantly. This recent decline began in the late 1980s. As of 2005 there
were only 29 documented populations, located in Arizona, Colorado, and New
Mexico. These populations are scattered throughout 8 conservation areas. To add
to the problems of the jumping mouse, the majority of the remaining populations
live in habitats that are too small to support their populations. The
populations themselves are isolated and separated by great distances, making
conservation efforts to combine habitats to save the dwindling populations
impossible. As of 2011, 11 of the 29 populations’ habitats have been
compromised due to grazing, wildfire, water shortages, and post-fire flooding.
This all boils down to the same sad truth. At this moment the jumping mouse
simply does not have the numbers or distribution to reach the necessary levels
of genetic and ecological diversity to viably regain their non-endangered
status.
The main sources of habitat loss have been
accounted to grazing and lack of water, however very few recovery actions have been
put into place since 2005, with even fewer of them being effective. Bosque del
Apache National Wildlife Refuge has made attempts to clear areas and repair
their water resources in order to expand and restore jumping mouse habitats
along the Riverside Canal. Recently, the Santa Fe National Forest has proposed
two projects to cap excess livestock, which has lead to expanding jumping mouse
habitats. Connecting current populations is impossible, so another focus of the
plan is to create multiple populations surrounding each of the individual
populations. Historically a number of local populations were most likely
located along the same stream bed, providing for easier mobility and therefore
genetic diversity, which is vitally important for the longevity of a species.
Protecting habitats while the
species begins to recover is key to the success of this plan, which will
require communication and cooperation between the federal, state, and local
governments as well as private entities so they may address the problems of
habitat loss. Emergency procedures must be devised to bring mice into captivity
if natural disasters persist to the point of mortal peril. This requires
monitoring of current populations, which can help obtain more information about
the mouse itself. Investigating genetic diversity of populations to find
long-term management strategies is another necessity. Taking the time to fully
understand whether captive breeding programs would truly benefit the jumping
mouse is another mattered that needs to be reconciled.
So what can you do? Spread awareness. Rally for
the cause to gain money and support from localities to preserve their habitats
and the land they live on, and fund, or even begin efforts to find alternative
places for them to live, or how to aid them in increasing reproduction and
survival rates. Whether you think of mice as adorable crumb stealers, or vermin
is immaterial. It boils down to the same fact that regardless of your opinion
they have as much right to be here as we do, and we are responsible to do all
we can to save them as it is almost entirely our fault their habitat is being
destroyed.
Bibliography
5.http://www.wildearthguardians.org/site/PageServer?pagename=species_mammals_NM_meadow_jumping_mouse#.VmU66GQrKfS
Whelp, they're fucked. My money says they won't make it out of this decade.
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