Feds To Protect “Endangered” Mouse

American taxpayers will be tremendously relieved to know that the U.S. government is hard at work trying to get official endangered status for a wild mouse with an unusual eight to nine month hibernation period that contributes to the species’ vulnerability.

It’s called the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse and the feds want to designate it a critical habitat protected under the Endangered Species Act, the 1973 law signed by President Richard Nixon to protect species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.”

The federal government’s list of more than 1,300 threatened or endangered species includes more than 700 plants, hundreds of invertebrates, more than 100 fish as well as dozens of birds, mammals and reptiles. Among them are the Florida panther, American crocodile, brown bear, Mexican bobcat, Florida manatee, California condor, ivory-billed woodpecker and small tooth sawfish.

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