By Tim Sanders

It's odd, the things that bother some people. In last week’s column I mentioned the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse. I mentioned it because I’d read a few newspaper articles about the mouse, and both the name of the creature and the controversy surrounding it struck me as funny. I received several e-mails from disgruntled readers, and this one is typical:

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Sorry. I must have deleted my typical jumping mouse correspondence and instead saved that stupid male enhancement thing. No, it was a mistake. Honest. At any rate, most of the readers who e-mailed me about that column felt that I was an insensitive boob who had no business making light of a serious environmental problem involving a really unique little mammal in danger of extinction.

So here’s the deal on the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse. According to a July 27, 2006 AP article, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to decide early this month whether or not the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse should remain on the endangered species list. This is important because the mouse inhabits grasslands which include valuable real estate along Colorado’s fast-growing Front Range.

A study by Interior Department biologist Rob Roy Ramey found that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse was identical to the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse, which is much more common, and not in danger of extinction. This prompted the Fish and Wildlife people to consider taking the Preble’s mouse off the endangered species list, thus allowing land developers to build homes in the rodent’s habitat. But recent studies by the Oregon-based Sustainable Ecosystems Institute have found that the DNA of the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse is not exactly the same as the DNA of the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse, and therefore the mouse is a unique species which should remain protected.

So what we have is one little hyperactive 3-inch rodent with a 6-inch tail that can jump a foot-and-a-half in the air, and looks exactly like another jumping rodent with similar dimensions and athletic ability, neither of which is all that different from millions of jumping mice found all over the country. (If there’s a Preble’s meadow jumping mouse and a Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse, there’s undoubtedly a Johnson’s Bed and Breakfast meadow jumping mouse, a Larry’s Truck Stop meadow jumping mouse, an Eisenhower Elementary School meadow jumping mouse, and a host of others.) The only way to differentiate among the species is, apparently, by DNA testing.

Now, I have nothing against jumping mice, as long as they remain in the meadow and off of our kitchen table. They are probably valuable to the environment because of all of the other jumping species which are not endangered that they are able to catch–you know, jumping grubs, jumping worms, jumping beans, and those pesky jumping cheese wedges. But I doubt that the entire ecosystems of Colorado and Wyoming would fall apart if the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse were to become extinct. Hey, they’d still have the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mice to take up the slack.

But some folks get really serious about the environment, to the point of sounding ... well, absolutely nuts. Not long ago my wife and I were watching an Animal Planet show about toxic ants. Since we live in a state infested by fire ants, and since fire ants are certainly of no earthly good to anyone other than your average environmentalist wacko who probably admires the fire ant for its attractive thorax, its powerful little stinger, and its ability to completely redecorate a back yard overnight, we thought that this program might offer some new ways of getting rid of the nasty little beasts. But no, all the emphasis was on just how interesting toxic ants were. There was actually a segment on the Tasmanian "jumping jack" ant, and that segment explained that a statistically significant percentage of Tasmania’s population was allergic to the painful sting of these creatures, and that those stung often die within minutes if not treated with adrenalin. These ants are a) the most poisonous ants in the world, and b) able to leap from toes to ankles in a single bound. The people these venomous insects sting are not cruel tormenters who taunt the ants, or make disparaging comments about their lifestyle. No, the victims are always ambling along, minding their own business when these ants jump on their feet or legs and sting them. Jumping jack ants are the Islamic fundamentalists of the insect world. To me, this would indicate that eradication might not be a bad idea, and it makes me nostalgic for the good old DDT days.

So a Tasmanian scientist captured a few thousand of these little devils with a big jumping jack shop-vac and extracted venom from them to use in producing an anti-toxin vaccine. This made perfectly good sense, but what followed did not. Instead of then vaporizing these vicious ants, and destroying their nest, this genius took his experimental ants back to their home and released them. He said: "The good thing about this study was that not only were we able to produce an effective vaccine, but now we can release these live ants back into their nest without adversely affecting their self-esteem. HEY, OUCH!" Okay, that may not be an exact quote, but it's close.

Tasmania's ecosystem would certainly survive if all of the jumping jack ants were completely eradicated, much as Alabama's ecosystem would survive if once again we were free from fire ants. We got along fine before they got here, and would not suffer a great deal if they were to move south again. But let our fire ant population start to dwindle, and I am confident there would be fourteen concerned environmentalist groups ready to set aside thousands of acres of "protected moundlands" right here in Cherokee County to ensure the survival of the species.

Maybe we could figure out a way to inject the remaining Preble’s meadow jumping mice with anti-venom and send them to Tasmania, where they could battle it out with the jumping jack ants. If somebody doesn’t do something, it’ll just be a matter of time before a Tasmanian freighter full of kiwis and jumping jack ants docks at the port of Mobile. And once they hop ashore–the ants, not the kiwis–and cross-breed with our fire ants, poor old arthritic Granny will have to pole vault from her front door to the mailbox every afternoon, just to be on the safe side.

We’ll have to ship in a load of those jumping giant anteaters from Central America to control the problem. And pretty soon we’ll be overrun with them, too, because you know how those jumping giant anteaters breed.

Okay, so neither do I. But I’d like to see it, just once.