Contacts
Valerie Fellows 202-208 3008
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.
“
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.
The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible
for conserving, protecting
and enhancing
fish, wildlife
and plants and
their habitats for the continuing benefit of the
American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National
Wildlife Refuge
System,
which encompasses
545 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small
wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates
69 national fish hatcheries,
64 fishery
resources offices and 81 ecological services field
stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife
laws, administers
the Endangered
Species
Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores
nationally significant
fisheries,
conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as
wetlands, and helps foreign and Native American tribal governments
with their
conservation
efforts.
It also oversees the Federal Assistance program,
which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise
taxes on fishing
and hunting equipment
to state fish and wildlife agencies.
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