Service re-opens public comment period for protecting rabbitsfoot mussel under ESA

May 8, 2013

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed to protect the rabbitsfoot freshwater mussel as threatened and has identified habitat essential to its recovery in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. The Service has re-opened the comment period for this action, as the agency has released the estimated cost and economic impacts of the proposed critical habitat designation of the rabbitsfoot and another freshwater mussel, the Neosho mucket. The rabbitsfoot has been extirpated from approximately 64 percent of its historical range, including West Virginia. It is presently extant in 51 of its 140 historical streams and the populations with few exceptions are highly fragmented and restricted to short reaches.

For more information, contact John Schmidt, acting field office supervisor, 304-636-6586 x 16.

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