SACRAMENTO, Calif.— The California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously today to declare the Pacific pocket mouse a candidate species under the California Endangered Species Act, granting protections for them as the state conducts a yearlong review.

Today’s decision comes after the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the commission to list the imperiled mouse as threatened or endangered. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will now determine whether the Pacific pocket mouse should be permanently protected under the Act.

“The commission took an important step to protect one of California’s smallest native mammals,” said Elizabeth Reid-Wainscoat, a campaigner at the Center. “Additional protections under state law will give this tiny mouse a better chance at survival. With their habitat constantly under threat, I hope officials will agree that permanent protections are necessary.”

The petition notes that the Pacific pocket mouse is found only in three locations, with the species’ total occupied habitat estimated at less than 740 acres on the coast of Orange and San Diego counties.

Despite having federal protection since 1994, the Pacific pocket mouse remains at great risk of extinction due to continued habitat loss and fragmentation from development, as well as mounting threats of disease, predation and climate change.

With the federal government increasingly weak on protecting imperiled animals and plants, state protection would help ensure the continued survival and eventual recovery of the Pacific pocket mouse. State protections would also help protect the species on non-federal lands in the Dana Point Preserve, which represents one-third of the animal’s existing populations.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services has twice denied requests to designate critical habitat for the Pacific pocket mouse, even though none of the benchmarks in the recovery plan that show species improvement have been met. This show that additional protections are needed to keep the animals from going extinct.