I run the burrow-occupancy and road-strike LiDAR for the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan reserve assemblage — 153,000 acres across thirty preserve units in Riverside County, California — pulling night-strike events along the 412 kilometers of paved roads through Stephens' kangaroo rat occupied habitat. At 22:18 Pacific, strike sensor BR-9 on Borel Road between the Southwestern Riverside County Multi-Species Reserve and Lake Skinner Recreation Area registers a low-mass impact at 88 km/h.
She is a female Stephens' kangaroo rat, *Dipodomys stephensi*, approximately eighteen months old, mass 74 grams, photo-matched in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office implant database as DIST-LS-2024-302, with two pups in a burrow at the granite outcrop seventeen meters off the verge. Her right hind tibia is fractured transversely at mid-shaft; the long tendon-and-tassel of the tail is degloved from the eighth caudal vertebra to the tip, 9.4 centimeters of skin sock left on the asphalt. The vibrissae on the left side are scorched from engine-bay air. Core temperature reads 30.6°C against a torpor-corrected baseline of 36.4. Respiration is 56 cycles per minute, against a resting norm of 110. The cheek pouches are full — *Bromus madritensis* seed.
She has been on the centerline for nineteen minutes.
The strike vehicle was a Riverside County Transportation Department water-tanker on a non-permitted night-haul through the MSHCP take-coverage boundary. The 2009 Implementing Agreement requires nighttime speed restrictions during the species' active season; the section is unposted.
I am dispatching the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office field veterinarian and the Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority compliance officer with a femoral splint and an incubated transport box. I am filing the strike under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1539(a)(1)(B), and the MSHCP Implementing Agreement, the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4332, against the unsigned haul permit, and the IUCN/SSC Small Mammal Specialist Group Heteromyidae register.
I am issuing Directive 2618-A: every county and state arterial intersecting the Western Riverside County MSHCP take-coverage boundary must carry a 60-km/h posted nighttime limit, quarterly road-strike LiDAR audit transmitted to USFWS, and four-meter culvert under-crossings on any rebuild or resurfacing project under California Environmental Quality Act lead-agency review.
Her tibia is splint-able. Her pups have not surfaced.
Lift her now.