During California's war against the citrus-destroying Mediterranean fruit fly, community groups have beseeched state officials to stop spraying the insecticide Malathion in populated areas. But the bureaucrats at the California department of food and agriculture refused, insisting that the . spraying poses no threat to human beings. Now at last the state's anti-medfly force has been induced to yield a bit -- to avoid possible harm to an endangered species named the Stephens' kangaroo rat.
Warned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that Malathion-base spray could put the 3-in.-long nocturnal rodent at risk (and the state in violation of the...