“San Diego Zoo Continues Successful Breeding Program For Endangered Pacific Pocket Mouse.” Pacific Pocket Mouse Breeding Program Showing Success. Prepared for AC/S Environmental Security, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton. Pacific Pocket Mouse Sampling Methodology Study, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton. “Breeding Season for Endangered Pacific Pocket Mouse.” YouTube. However, now if you happen across a Pacific pocket mouse you’ll know how special that encounter is. The best thing that you can do for the Pacific pocket mouse is respect the land use rules of Camp Pendleton and stay out of their habitat. The Pacific pocket mouse has some pretty persnickety needs when it comes to habitat one of which is loose sandy soil, and 100-200+ pounds of human footstep tends to make soil pretty compact. If you’re anything like me hearing there is an endangered species on the base immediately makes you want to go look for it. To see a video of the San Diego Pacific pocket mouse program in action and learn about their goals follow this link. At this point some of the pups from the first round of breeding have even had pups of their own. Thankfully the Pacific pocket mice are more amorous than pandas and the program, begun in 2012, has seen successful pupping. Think about how much effort goes into getting pandas to do it, and now think about how weird it is that every American knows that pandas have bedroom issues. With a conception to sexual maturity time of just over five weeks you’d think that the zoo would be up to their elbows in baby mice in no time, however getting animals to mate in captivity is rarely simple. Photo credit: USGS WERCĬurrently the San Diego Zoo runs a captive breeding program for the Pacific pocket mouse in an attempt to bolster the wild population in both genetic diversity and raw numbers. I had always hoped my spirit animal would be more intimidating. I do a similar thing with Cheetos, perhaps this is my spirit animal. I put hibernate in quotes, because instead of eating all summer and living off their fat during hibernation the Pacific pocket mouse instead fills its burrow with food and lives of that during the winter. The mice are active from approximately April to September, and “hibernate” for the rest of the year. It gets its name from its large fur-lined cheek pockets. The Pacific pocket mouse is a nocturnal, grain-eater, generally light brown, and less than six inches in length. The USGS WERC uses dogs trained to pick up the scent of Pacific pocket mice to determine what regions the mice may be present and then use live-trapping to get data on individuals and from which they can estimate population size. Much of what is known about the current populations of the Pacific pocket mouse is the result of research conducted by the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Western Ecological Resource Center (WERC). Major threats to the long-term survival of the species are habitat loss, habitat fractionation, and invasive species (particularly predation from domestic cats). The current total population is estimated to be less than 1,000 individuals and most sources put the population closer to 300 than 1,000. Since then mice have been found at three locations on base. The Pacific pocket mouse is one of the most endangered animals in the United States and was thought to be extinct until 1993 when it was rediscovered in Dana Point (northwest of the base). Maybe Flora and Fauna Friday? I feel like that doesn’t have the same panache.Īnyways, when you’re talking critters of Camp Pendleton you have to start with the Pacific pocket mouse ( Perognathus longimembris pacificus) mainly because the base is one of only two places in the world the mouse has left to call home. At some point I’ll have to rename this class of posts because I want to include plants, but I like alliteration.
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