By Associated Press
Mobile, AL – Federal wildlife officials have designated more than six-thousand-200 acres in coastal Alabama and the Florida Panhandle as critical habitat for three endangered beach mouse species. Property owners or developers could be required to survey property for the protected mice before construction or to redesign a project that would harm the nocturnal creatures. The ruling was issued yesterday by the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service. The subspecies protected by the decision are the Perdido Key beach mouse, which is native to Alabama, and the Choctawhatchee and Saint Andrew beach mouse. The new critical habitat is broken into 13 units in Alabama's Baldwin County and Bay, Escambia, Okaloosa and Walton counties in Florida. Beach mice are an indicator of the health of the dunes, since they live inside the mounds near the water's edge.