The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) released its Candidate Notice of Review, a yearly appraisal of the current status of plants and animals considered candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
“The candidate list offers the Service and our partners a unique opportunity to address the threats to these species through voluntary conservation efforts on public and private lands,” said Acting Service Director Rowan Gould. “We will continue working to reduce the number of candidate species by developing conservation agreements that reduce or eliminate the threats they face, and by listing species that warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act as soon as possible.”
Candidate species are plants and animals for which the Service has enough information on their status and the threats they face to propose them as threatened or endangered, but developing a proposed listing rule is precluded by higher priority listing actions. Candidate species do not receive protection under the ESA, although the Service works to conserve them. The annual review and identification of candidate species provides landowners and resource managers notice of species in need of conservation, allowing them to address threats and work to preclude the need to list the species. The Service is currently working with landowners and partners to implement voluntary conservation agreements covering 5 million acres of habitat for more than 130 candidate species.
The most recent notice identifies five new candidate species: the Kentucky arrow darter (KY); Rosemont talussnail (AZ); Kenk's amphipod (DC, MD); Packard's milkvetch (ID); and the Vandenberg monkeyflower (CA). All candidates are assigned a listing priority number based on the magnitude and imminence of the threats they face. When adding species to the list of threatened or endangered species, the Service addresses species with the highest listing priority first. The four changes in priority announced in today's notice are based on new information in the updated assessments of continuing candidates. These changes include one species that increased in priority and three that lowered in priority.
The one species removed from the candidate list is a mammal from California – the Palm Springs round-tailed ground squirrel. The Service removed this species after a review of new genetics and morphological information found that it is more widespread and as a result does not face threats to an extent that ESA protection is needed.
The Service is soliciting additional information on these candidate species, as well as information on other species that may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act. This information will be valuable in preparing listing documents and future revisions or supplements to the candidate notice of review.
