Know much about the Mazama pocket gopher?

How about a checkerspot butterfly or the streaked horned lark?They've certainly become better known to some of the 650,000 civilian employees being forced to take an unpaid day off because of sequester cuts at U.S. military bases. An effort to protect the animal, bird and insect under an endangered species program has many upset at one military base in the state of Washington.Joint Base Lewis-McChord and its surrounding communities in western Washington were chosen for a Department of Defense pilot project which partners community organizations with the Defense, Interior and Agriculture departments. The environmental preservation effort is aimed at keeping endangered species alive near the Army training grounds.This isn't a new thing. Under the Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative, the Department of Defense and other federal agencies have spent $397 million to protect certain species around bases since 2003.In the case of the Washington base, millions are being spent to buy and preserve 2,600 acres of land outside the base to protect the pocket gophers, the butterflies and larks.Jeffrey Foster, a civilian ecologist at the base who wrote the grant proposal for the program, said that although the primary mission is for military training and to fight wars, the base does have a "requirement to support the recovery of listed species."But those workers who will be losing a substantial chunk of their paychecks due to the one-day furloughs caused by sequestration cuts feel the money is being misallocated in the list of government spending priorities.Also upset are the landowners fighting the government takeover of private land. Glen Morgan of the Freedom Foundation based in Olympia, Wash. said some creatures, including the Mazama pocket gopher, are not even on the endangered species list. He said the gophers are able to survive quite well living on the artillery ranges at the Washington base.Matt Hines, one of 10,000 civilian employees who has been forced to take a 20 percent pay cut because of the one day furloughs at the base, is upset with the government's priorities."I'm all for saving animals, but at what cost?" he asks.Good point. He and other workers have reason to be upset, especially since some may not be sure about where the next mortgage payment will be coming from.Yet someone in a federal office has determined that gophers or butterflies are more important.By Jim Zbickeditor@tnonlie.com