Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is announcing the availability of a draft recovery plan for the Hay’s Spring amphipod, a groundwater-dwelling crustacean endemic to the Lower Rock Creek watershed in Washington, D.C. The Service invites the public to provide comments for the next 60 days, until May 9, 2022.
When the Hay’s Spring amphipod was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1982, it was known from just a single site at the south end of the National Zoological Park in D.C. where it was last seen in 1978. Options for managing the tiny, elusive crustacean were so limited that the Service determined a recovery plan would not benefit the species at the time.
Since then, biologists have found the Hay’s Spring amphipod at six additional sites in nearby Rock Creek Park and identified measures that benefit the species by addressing the greatest threat to its shallow groundwater habitat: stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces.
Building on a 5-year review published in 2020 and a recent biological report synthesizing the best-available information on the species, the Service has now drafted a recovery plan for the Hay’s Spring amphipod specifying objective, measurable criteria for removing it from the endangered species list, and site-specific actions managers can take to advance recovery. Recovery plans are non-regulatory documents that serve as the roadmap to recovering threatened and endangered species.
The Hay’s Spring amphipod occurs entirely on federal lands managed by the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution, and the Service has worked closely with these agencies and the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment to improve stormwater management within the species’ range. The partners recently collaborated on an effort to retrofit an 11‐acre area of impervious surface around the Fitzgerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park with nature-based bioretention structures that allow stormwater to infiltrate the soil, reducing runoff and associated erosion.
Like other amphipods, the Hay’s Spring amphipod plays a nutrient-cycling role by breaking down leaves and organic matter in shallow, groundwater ecosystems where few other species can survive. Because of its sensitivity to runoff, it may be a good indicator of water quality, meaning actions to benefit its habitat support others that rely on clean water – including us.
The species remains vulnerable to stressors outside the boundaries of the park. The Lower Rock Creek watershed is highly developed, with 40 percent impervious surface, and declines in water quantity and quality may have led to extirpation of Hay’s Spring amphipod from some sites and decreased its fitness at others. Climate change could lead to more frequent storm events, potentially increasing the magnitude and severity of threats to the species by impacting water quality and water quantity.
However, impervious surface is unlikely to increase in the watershed, and new sites may still be discovered at Rock Creek Park with help from environmental DNA, or eDNA. The Service is piloting the use of this technique to bolster traditional surveys for the amphipods, which rarely appear on the surface. eDNA allows scientists to detect genetic markers for a target species in a water sample, a powerful tool for finding organisms that are cryptic, rare, or difficult to capture, like the Hay’s Spring amphipod. Biologists have collected samples from numerous sites – including Hay’s Spring – which will be analyzed at the Northeast Fisheries Center in 2022.
The Service will accept public comments on the draft plan for 60 days after it is posted. The draft Recovery Plan is available at: https://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/Hays%20spring%20amphipod%20Reco….
Interested parties can submit comments electronically to Kathleen Cullen: Kathleen_Cullen@fws.gov.
Comments will also be accepted via U.S. mail or hand-delivery to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chesapeake Bay Ecological Services Field Office, 177 Admiral Cochrane Dr., Annapolis MD, 21401.
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