The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today released its updated Candidate
Notice of Review, a yearly appraisal of the candidate species list
detailing those plants or animals that may warrant protection under the
Endangered Species Act (ESA). Ten species have been removed from the
candidate list and seven species have been added to the list since the last
review in May 2005. There are now 279 species currently recognized by the
Service as candidates for ESA protection.
The Service is soliciting public comment and additional information for
candidate species, as well as information about species that should be
included in future candidate updates. This information will be considered
in preparing listing documents and future revisions or supplements to the
notice of review.
A total of 139 of the candidate species are in the Pacific Region: 103 of
them in Hawaii and 12 from other Pacific islands. The remainder are found
in either Oregon, Washington or Idaho. Four Pacific Island species were
removed from the candidate list because they are either more abundant than
previously believed or too little is known about to make a determination.
No species from the Pacific Region were added to the candidate list this
year. One Pacific Region species – the streak-horned lark– moved up
in
priority due to the increased magnitude and immediacy of threats, including
habitat loss, disturbances to the species, and other factors. The
streak-horned lark is a subspecies of North American horned lark found in
Washington’s coast and Puget lowlands, and Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
“The candidate list helps the Service, states and our partners focus
attention on species in need of conservation,” said Service Director Dale
Hall. “Because of successful conservation efforts with our partners,
significant threats to a number of candidate species have been removed.”
Hall also highlighted the important role conservation efforts play in
reducing risks to species that have not yet been listed. The
Utah-dwelling
Wonderland Alice-flower was removed as a candidate for listing as a result
of increased surveys and monitoring, which found the plant was more
abundant than previously believed. The surveys and monitoring programs
were identified as key actions in a voluntary conservation agreement
developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service,
the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service.
Nine other species were removed from the candidate list. Species were
removed due to a lack of information on threats, information indicating the
species is more abundant than once believed or the species is not subject
to the degree of threats.
In some cases, the Service is precluded from listing a species as
threatened or endangered by other, higher listing priorities. These
“warranted but precluded” species are placed on the candidate list.
This
year, the seven new candidate species included in the Candidate Notice of
Review are:
• One plant: Aboriginal pricklyapple, found in
Sarasota, Charlotte,
and Lee counties, Florida;
• One mammal: New England cottontail rabbit, found
in parts of Maine,
New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island;
• One bird: Red knot, which migrates along the
Atlantic coast;
• Two insects: Florida leafwing butterfly and
Bartram’s hairstreak
butterfly, both found in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, Florida;
• Two snails: Rough hornsnail, found in the
lower Yellowleaf Creek,
Shelby County and lower Coosa River below Wetumpka Shoals, Elmore County,
Alabama; and black mudalia, found in the Upper Locust Fork of the Black
Warrior River and Little Warrior River, Blount County, Alabama.
Identification of candidate species provides advance notice of potential
listings, allowing resource managers to alleviate threats and thereby
possibly removing the need to list species as endangered or threatened.
The complete notice and list of proposed candidate species appears in
today's Federal Register and can be found at
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/candidates/CNOR%209-12-06.pdf
For more information about the candidate conservation program, see
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/candidates/index.html
