Tag: At Risk Species
The content below has been tagged with the term “At Risk Species.”
Articles
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Two species of milkweed, common and butterfly, grow wild in the barrens. Milkweed is a favorite plant of monarch butterflies. Photo by J. Brent Harrel, USFWS.
Partners join to conserve rare prairie barrens in Kentucky
August 31, 2017 | 3 minute read
Monarch butterflies descend on the fields in droves, drawn by the abundance of milkweed, their favorite pollinator plant. Endangered northern long-eared and Indiana bats swoop through the sky. On the ground, biodiversity abounds, with rare plants like scurf pea and false gromwell. This little Eden - 160 acres now owned by the non-profit Southern Conservation Corps (SCC) – is a combination of forest and extremely rare prairie barrens habitat in Garrard County, a mostly rural county in central Kentucky. Learn more...
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An unpaved road. Photo by Chris Gorski, CC BY-ND 2.0.
The dirt road connection
August 29, 2017 | 3 minute read
Judge Stacey Avey has been serving on the bench for 17 years in Arkansas’ Stone County, a rural county in the Ozarks a little south of the Arkansas-Missouri state line. There are 13,000 people there, and a lot of unpaved dirt and gravel roads. Thanks to a new multi-partner project called the Arkansas Unpaved Roads Program, some of those roads are now in much better shape, which benefits both the residents and the wildlife, including some endangered and at-risk species, that live there. Learn more...
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Mountain sweet pitcher plant patch in Butt CPA. Photo by Gary Peeples, USFWS.
A unique mountain refuge protects endangered wetlands and the wildlife within
August 24, 2017 | 8 minute read
East Flat Rock, North Carolina – It’s not much to look at really. Nothing about this all-too-familiar stretch of Southern blacktop indicates that a rare, beautiful and endangered flower thrives just beyond the railroad tracks. There’s a convenience store, a small engine repair shop, a few modest homes. General Electric makes lights at a factory up the road. Bat Fork Creek meanders nearby. Below the tracks, though, in an Appalachian mountain bog, bunched arrowheads rise from soggy ground. Learn more...
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Col. Matthew Higer, 96th Test Wing vice commander, bends down to release a gopher tortoise into its new home deep within the Eglin Air Force Base. Photo by Samuel King Jr., U.S. Air Force.
Boosting the gopher tortoise
August 22, 2017 | 8 minute read
Atlanta, Georgia – Typically, animals like the Florida panther lose their Southern habitat, dwindle perilously close to extinction and end up on the endangered species list. Federal, state and non-profit groups hustle to raise money and conserve land to bolster the populations with the chance, one day, of delisting it. The gopher tortoise, though, just might buck the trend. An at-risk species in Georgia, Florida and parts of Alabama and South Carolina, the tank-like tortoise is the recipient of an unprecedented, high-dollar collaboration between government agencies, NGOs and the private sector to keep gopherus polyphemus from ever gracing the threatened or endangered species list. Learn more...
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Reese Thompson is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others to conserve a natural longleaf pine stand on his south Georgia land. Photo by Bill O’Brian, USFWS.
Longleaf pine for Georgians
August 22, 2017 | 9 minute read
Longleaf pine trees once blanketed the landscape from southern Virginia to east Texas. They were majestic hallmarks of the Southeast. Learn more...
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Longleaf pines, says Salem Saloom, are "part of our heritage." Photo by Mark Davis, USFWS.
Growing trees, saving species
August 9, 2017 | 8 minute read
If one of the Southeast’s signature species is the gopher tortoise, so, too, is the towering pine that shades its burrow. The longleaf pine is one of the Southeastern United States’ great trees. When European settlers came to North America, they discovered Pinus palustris. It stretched across 90 million acres, from east Texas to Virginia, and was just what a young nation needed to grow. The wood from the conifer built homes, sailing masts and even roads. Learn more...
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A gopher tortoise hiding in its shell. Photo by Ben Williams.
Florida couple dedicates property to conservation
July 20, 2017 | 2 minute read
Ben and LouAnn Williams own approximately 3,400 acres of pinelands interspersed with bottomland hardwoods in Putnam County, Florida, between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach. Their property contributes to conservation on a regional scale because it is adjacent to publicly owned conservation areas, creating an important link in a chain of conservation lands from central Florida to the Georgia state line. Sandhill after prescribed burn. Photo by Ben Williams. In 2012, the Williams’ began establishing longleaf pine on their property and reintroduced prescribed burning. Learn more...
News
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Adult female Barbour’s map turtle on the Chipola River. Photo by Jonathan Mays, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Endangered species listing not needed for three species of wildlife in the Southeast
October 4, 2017 | 3 minute read
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded the Barbour’s map turtle, the Florida Keys mole skink, and the Big Blue Springs cave crayfish do not face the threat of extinction now or in the foreseeable future and do not require Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections. Based on a rigorous review of the science, the Service has determined that all three species have healthy and stable populations, primary stressors do not threaten their survival in the wild, and adequate conservation measures are in place for each. Read the full story...
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Bridled darter. Photo by Noel Burkhead, United States Geological Survey.
Endangered Species Act protection not needed for two Coosa darters
October 3, 2017 | 2 minute read
After a scientifically rigorous process, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has concluded instead that the holiday darter and bridled darter populations are stable, being conserved through existing regulations, and do not need protection. The holiday darter is a small freshwater fish found in small creeks to moderate-sized rivers above the fall line in the Ridge and Valley, Blue Ridge, and Piedmont provinces of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. The Service reviewed seven populations for the holiday darter, and all seven populations still exist within the current range. Read the full story...
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North Carolina biologist TR Russ holding an sicklefin redhorse. Photo by Mark Cantrell, USFWS.
Deputy Secretary Bernhardt announces more than $52 million in federal funding to bolster tribal, state wildlife conservation projects
August 15, 2017 | 4 minute read
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt today announced more than $52 million in funding to Native American tribes and state wildlife agencies through the Tribal Wildlife Grant (TWG) program and the State Wildlife Grants (SWG) program. The funds, which are provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, give critical support for a diverse array of species and habitats across the country. Under the SWG program, more than $48 million will support imperiled species and habitats listed in approved state wildlife action plans. Read the full story...
