Ecological Services | Southeast Region

South Florida Listed Species

South Florida Multi-Species Recovery Plan

Jump to specific elements within the MSRP documents

The Multi-Species Recovery Plan is, by design, a living document. It will be flexible to accommodate the changes identified through ongoing and planned research, and it will be compatible with adaptive management strategies. Multiple stakeholder particpation is cricitcal to ensure this process will continue.

You can order your copy by e-mailing your request to the Reference Service, calling their toll free number (800) 582-3421, or mailing your request to:

Fish & Wildlife Service Reference Service

5430 Grosvenor Lane

Suite 110

Bethesda, MD 20814.

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Background Information

The MSRP, completed by the Service in 1999, contains information on the biology, ecology, status, trends, management, and recovery actions for 68 federally listed species found in south Florida, as well as the ecology and restoration needs of 23 natural communities in the region. This document was prepared to recover threatened and endangered species in south Florida and help restore and maintain biodiversity of natural communities. The MSRP was designed to assist with project planning, management actions, and environmental compliance, and it provides information for use in interagency consultations and habitat conservation plans. More than 200 representatives from agencies, academia, and private organizations worked together to assist the Service in preparing the MSRP. Public review and comment of the draft occurred over eight months before the MSRP was approved by the Service.

Because the MSRP was published approximately 10 years ago, the Service acknowledges that portions of it, including some sections related to the Florida panther, are now outdated. To update Florida panther science, the Service and State of Florida convened the independent Scientific Review Team (SRT) (Beier et al. 2003), which questioned some of the analyses and conclusions regarding Florida panther habitat in the MSRP. The description of habitat in the Florida panther section of the MSRP (p.4-120), for example, while providing a useful description of habitat needs in south Florida, does not clearly or definitively describe panther habitat in the detail available today.

In particular, the MSRP mainly discusses "preferred" and "avoided" panther habitat based upon telemetry and early work by Dave Maehr (e.g., Maehr 1990) and other researchers (e.g., Maehr et al. 1991). To address this point, the SRT suggested reanalyses of panther telemetry data. The SRT encouraged using panthers, not panther locations, as sampling units, and analyzing data on nocturnal locations of Florida panthers throughout their range to obtain a complete picture of habitat use (Beier et al. 2003). The Service recognizes the value of suggestions identified in the SRT report, and is working with researchers and other partners to describe Florida panther habitat as clearly as possible.

At this time, the Service believes the MSRP still provides a comprehensive, general overview of panther biology in south Florida. Hence, we continue to use the information within the MSRP, along with other available scientific and commercial information, in our decisions, evaluations, reviews, and analyses regarding the panther. However, we are careful not to rely on those portions of the MSRP that no longer represent the most up-to-date scientific information available, especially as they relate to the use of panther habitat descriptions.

To help address the out-dated information in the MSRP, the Service recently convened a recovery team composed of multiple government and non-government partners to revise the 1995 Florida Panther Recovery Plan. The team is now developing a revised recovery plan that incorporates the best available science and addresses appropriate recommendations from the SRT.

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MSRP Documents