Contact: Gordon Helm               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
                                   7/14/97

As part of the Administration's commitment to improve implementation of the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service is updating its 1991 list of species that are candidates for possible addition to the List of Endangered and Threatened Species, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.

"The revisions to the candidate species list strengthen the scientific basis of the list," said Rolland Schmitten, director of the fisheries service. "This will enable the fisheries service, other agencies and our partners in the private sector to focus attention and resources on unlisted species that are most likely to need help in the future if we do not act now."

In contrast to species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), no regulatory protections are granted to candidate species. The candidate species list assists the public by providing advance notification that these species may warrant listing in the future, identifies declining species for additional management attention, and encourages voluntary conservation that will help prevent the need to ever list the species.

An effective program for the conservation of endangered species requires a means of addressing species that have not yet been listed but that face immediate, identifiable risks. Early management options, like Candidate Conservation Agreements, minimize the cost of recovery and reduce potential impacts on land use policies in the future. In addition, as threats are reduced and populations are increased or stabilized, attention can be shifted to those species in the greatest need of the ESA's protective measures.

Candidate species are defined as "any species being considered by the Secretary for listing as an endangered or a threatened species, but not yet the subject of a proposed rule." Species included on the 1997 list were required to meet a higher standard of documentation than species on the 1991 list. Also, candidate species' selection criteria are now more specific: (1) species for which there are demographic or genetic concerns indicating that listing may be warranted; or (2) species that are rare or in poor biological condition and face a high degree of threat.

Due to changes in many species' status, the 1991 list also was out of date. Some species are now listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA (Saimaa seal, Delta smelt, tidewater goby), others have been proposed for listing (Johnson's seagrass, harbor porpoise). One vertebrate population was found not warranted for listing (U.S. Atlantic coastal population of bottlenose dolphin), and various other species or populations have been recognized as possibly warranting listing.

The old candidate species list contained 44 species, while the new list contains 22 species. The fisheries service removed 37 species from the old list for a variety of reasons. Nine foreign species were removed because the new list is restricted to domestic species only. The status of six species has changed. Twelve species were removed because the information currently available to the fisheries service does not meet the more stringent criteria. Ten coral species were removed because the information available indicates declines in certain populations, but not throughout the species' ranges (corals are invertebrates, and the ESA allows invertebrates to be listed on a species-wide basis only). The fisheries service added fifteen species that had not been identified in 1991, but meet the more specific criteria and higher documentation standard for the new list.

Included in these fifteen species are six Pacific salmon species. On September 12, 1994, the fisheries service announced that comprehensive status reviews would be conducted for all populations of Pacific salmon and anadromous trout in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. This decision effectively classified all seven salmon species under fisheries service jurisdiction - coho, chinook, pink, chum, and sockeye salmon, steelhead and sea-run cutthroat trout - as candidate species. These status reviews are at various stages of completion and have resulted in proposed or final listing determinations for several distinct population segments of Pacific salmon including a final determination that the listing of pink salmon was not warranted.

A copy of the 1991 list of candidate species and the 1997 list is available to the news media by calling the public affairs office at (301) 713-2370.