Wildlife Safe in His Hands, Official Says : Fish and Game: Ex-builder is new commission appointee. He says he loves the outdoors, but environmental activists are on edge.

A prominent Orange County Republican and real estate investor named to the state’s wildlife commission pledged Tuesday to balance the needs of California’s economy and natural resources, but environmentalists expressed concern he would side with developers at the expense of endangered species.

Gus Owen, a longtime property manager and former builder of industrial parks and office buildings, was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson two weeks ago to a six-year term on the five-member Fish and Game Commission.

Owen, 58, is president of the Lincoln Club, a conservative Republican political action and fund-raising group, and the husband of Kathryn Thompson, one of Orange County’s most influential developers.

California environmental activists said they know little about Owen, but they worry about someone from the Orange County building industry serving on the Fish and Game Commission because the county’s developers vehemently opposed efforts to have the California gnatcatcher declared endangered. After months of controversy, the commission in August decided against listing the small songbird, which lives in Orange, San Diego and Riverside counties.

Pete DeSimone, an Orange County preserve manager for the National Audubon Society, said he doesn’t know much about Owen, but was surprised that Wilson would appoint someone “so closely tied to development.”

“These people with a corporate view cannot make well-informed judgments (about wildlife biology) in many cases,” he said. “But let’s give him a chance and see what happens.”

Owen said in an interview Tuesday that he asked Wilson to name his to the post, which had been vacant for a year, because as an avid catch-and-release fisherman he loves the outdoors and wants to learn more about the state’s resources.

“I think I can do a good job there,” Owen said. “I hope I can be fair and impartial in how I evaluate these things, and I intend to spend as much time with the environmental groups as I do with the building industry.”

The commission is directed by law to weigh the scientific evidence--not the economic impact--when deciding whether a species warrants listing as endangered. But Owen said that inevitably the economic issues will still be on his mind when he votes.

“Subconsciously, it has to be, in this day and age when so many people are out of work,” he said. “I think endangered species is a very awkward situation at times due to the fact that you have to weigh (protection) with the people who derive a livelihood from a resource.”

Six days after the state commission determined that the gnatcatcher did not deserve candidacy, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service announced it had reached the opposite conclusion and proposed the bird for listing. Its final decision will come in about a year after a public review period.

Owen said that he hasn’t thoroughly researched the gnatcatcher issue, but that he “probably would have supported” the state commission’s position to deny listing.

In announcing the appointment earlier this month, Wilson said, “Gus has an impressive background in land acquisition and finance, and with his enthusiasm for fish and game issues, I’m sure he’ll be an outstanding commissioner.”

The state Senate must vote on whether to confirm the appointment within a year.

Hugh Hewitt, an attorney for the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California, said Owen’s appointment won’t necessarily help or harm the development industry.

“I think it’s good to have a balance on a commission like this. I’m sure he will approach all issues with an open mind,” he said. “All the commissioners are open to the best arguments put forward, and they are all independent thinkers. It seems like a fine appointment and it certainly doesn’t presage any decisions whatsoever.”

Most environmentalists said they will give Owen the benefit of the doubt, although they say they will watch his votes carefully.

“I don’t tend to judge people by their backgrounds. We’ve worked with some developers who are great,” said Gerald Meral, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental organization. “But I express some concern because the development community in Orange County has been very much against the listing of the gnatcatcher. . . . That tends to make me nervous, but we hope he sees that his duty on the commission is obvious, that he’s supposed to vote to protect the environment.”

Meral, however, added that Owen’s vote on a bird species--the marbled murrelet--at his first Fish and Game meeting two weeks ago might be a bad sign for environmentalists.

At the meeting, Owen was the only commissioner who voted against adding the murrelet, a bird that lives in Northern California’s old-growth forests, to the endangered species list. The state’s timber industry strongly opposed the listing at the meeting, but it passed 3 to 1. Owen was unsuccessful in persuading the other commissioners to wait 90 days so he could catch up in research.

“Being new on the commission, and listening to the hundreds of people represented there that day that are going to lose their jobs, lose their livelihood, I wasn’t ready to vote yet that it was an endangered species,” Owen said.

The only builder on the wildlife board, Owen joins three conservative businessmen appointed by ex-Gov. George Deukmejian and one conservationist named by Wilson earlier this year.

Owen, who was born on an Oklahoma tenant farm and has lived in Orange County for 42 years, started Nelow Development Co. in 1972. The company built about 1,500 apartments over a six-year span. He then founded and now presides over Owen Properties Inc. in Aliso Viejo, which develops, acquires and manages office buildings and industrial parks.

“I have not been involved with any development even remotely related to the gnatcatcher or any other endangered species,” Owen said, adding that “I haven’t built anything since 1978. Basically all I do is manage my own personal properties now.”

California environmentalists said they had hoped Wilson would name someone who has a scientific background.

“It’s fair to say that this was not the environmental appointment we were hoping for,” said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has sued the commission to overturn the gnatcatcher decision.

Owen said one of his main concerns as a Fish and Game commissioner is that many species of ocean fish off California have been depleted.

“I’ve always been careful about wildlife and such when I’m fishing in the ocean, and I would enjoy seeing the abalone come back, and the scallops and yellowtail that we once had. . . . We’ve over-harvested and destroyed the abalone and the scallop industry,” he said.

Owen, who lives in Dana Point, is active in Orange County social circles as well as national and state politics. Owen and Thompson attended President Bush’s inauguration.

As president of the politically powerful and wealthy Lincoln Club, which counts among its 300 members Orange County’s foremost business leaders, Owen aims to get conservative and moderate GOP candidates elected.

Campaign disclosure records show that Owen and Thompson contributed $2,500 in 1989 to Wilson’s campaign.

Wilson took an active interest in the gnatcatcher, directing his undersecretary of resources to issue a last-minute appeal to the commission to deny the bird listing, so that he could implement a voluntary program with developers.

The commission will take up several controversial endangered-species issues next year, although none so far is a major factor in Orange County development. Included is a petition to remove the Mojave ground squirrel, found mostly in Kern County, from the state’s list.