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DENVER - Biologist Rob Roy Ramey figures he has risked his life many times for endangered species - scaling cliffs to help with peregrine falcons and California condors, challenging sheep poachers in Mongolia, being chased by elephants in Africa.
His toughest encounter, though, could be with a mouse thought to exist only in a narrow corridor along the east face of the Rockies. His conclusion that the Preble's meadow jumping mouse isn't unique has made it the poster animal for critics of the Endangered Species Act and outraged fellow scientists and environmentalists who accuse him of faulty science.
The study by Ramey and his colleagues says the Preble's mouse is the same as the more common Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse and shouldn't be listed as a threatened subspecies.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed and has started the process to drop the mouse from the endangered species list.
The decision comes as members of Congress say the law has failed to help most threatened animals and should be rewritten. ''It's a great example of what's wrong with the Endangered Species Act,'' Denver attorney Kent Holsinger said of the 1998 decision to protect the mouse.
Holsinger represents Coloradans for Water Conservation and Development, a group of landowners, farmers and businesses, which, along with the state of Wyoming, petitioned in 2003 to delist the mouse. He said millions have been spent protecting mouse habitat from southeast Wyoming to Colorado Springs in Colorado. A Denver area water and sanitation district even added mouse tunnels and bridges to a project.
The tiny mouse that can jump more than a foot in the air, isn't going away quietly. Fish and Wildlife is considering taking more public comment because Ramey recently revised his study, scheduled for publication in late summer in the British journal Animal Conservation.
The American Society of Mammalogists wrote to federal officials in April, assailing Ramey's work as ''inconclusive at best, and methodologically flawed at worst.''
Ramey, chairman of the zoology department at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, stands by his work. He believes some of the wrath stems from his upending a 1954 study that declared the Preble's meadow mouse a subspecies. ''My research and paper came as a challenge to the traditional approach,'' Ramey said.
He has also been accused of crossing the line from science to advocacy for testifying before Congress last year about the need to revamp the Endangered Species Act.
What riled the mammalogists was Ramey's research methods, said Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum.
''Being a maverick can be admirable, but quite often those people are just wrong. There's a reason that traditional science is not a bad thing,'' Kays said.
Ramey said he and his team initiated the study, which was also funded by Fish and Wildlife and the Denver museum. Fish and Wildlife said eight of the 14 original peer reviews of the study agreed that the mouse wasn't a distinct subspecies.
Critics contend some of the more positive reviews still questioned the methodology and said the mouse should be protected because of shrinking habitat. Biologist Dave Hafner originally sided with Ramey, but said he changed his mind after realizing he made a mistake ''that Ramey has continued to make.''
Hafner, chairman of biological science at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, also criticized Ramey for testifying that the Endangered Species Act should be overhauled to shore up the science. He said that could be misinterpreted by those eager to weaken the 30-year-old law.
Ramey acknowledged feeling embattled since releasing his preliminary findings in December 2003. He joked that he felt safer when he faced those elephants in Zimbabwe. ''I think what's important here is the realization that we can always do a better job,'' Ramey said.