Tag: Recovery

The content below has been tagged with the term “Recovery.”

Articles

Stalking the rare painted rocksnail

April 12, 2018 | 6 minute readCalhoun County, Alabama — Biologists Nathan Whelan and Paul Johnson weren’t sure what they’d find when they launched their boat on that balmy Alabama morning. Whelan, a biologist currently serving as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional geneticist for the Southeast Region, was updating a scientific manuscript on the painted rocksnail, and needed the most recent information on its current range. The painted rocksnail is a rather cryptic-looking small-to-medium sized freshwater snail with yellowish-brown coloring. Learn more...

Ohatchee creek, a tributary of the Coosa River in Alabama. Photo by Paul Johnson, ADCNR.

A young hunter crouches while holding a rife in the woods.

Hunting the wild hog

April 9, 2018 | 10 minute readCodey Elrod has a job most Southern hunters would kill for. Literally. My job,” Elrod said, “is to kill hogs.” And he gets paid for it. Learn more...

Codey Elrod, hog control technician with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Photo by Dan Chapman, USFWS.

A mussel with fringe around its opening partially burried in the sand on the river bottom.

Endangered mussel making a comeback in the French Broad River

March 22, 2018 | 5 minute readAsheville, North Carolina — In 1834, a freshwater mussel collected near the convergence of the Swannanoa and French Broad Rivers was recognized as a new species – the Appalachian elktoe. Eighty years later, Carnegie Museum curator and University of Pittsburg professor Arnold Ortman couldn’t find any elktoes in the French Broad River, attributing his failure to polluted water. Biologists search for Appalachian elktoes in the Mills River. Photo by Gary Peeples, USFWS. Learn more...

Appalachian elktoe in the Little River Translyvania County NC. Photo by Gary Peeples, USFWS.

Buildings with boarded up doors and windows designed to mimic the Middle East.

Marines and woodpeckers share the high ground

March 22, 2018 Learn more...

Combat town at Camp Lejeune with a pine tree that is home to a red-cockaded woodpecker cluster. Photo by Dan Chapman, USFWS.

Endangered-Species-Act

An adult bald eagle soars in front of a bright blue sky

Recovering threatened and endangered species

After a plant or animal is listed as protected under the Endangered Species Act, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists must determine what the species needs in order to achieve recovery, meaning it no longer requires federal protection. Learn more...

A bald eagle in flight at Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Tom Koerner, USFWS.

Bilogists place mussels in a stream bed while a third person records information in a notebook.

Species Status Assessments (SSA)

The Species Status Assessment framework is an analytical approach developed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to deliver foundational science for informing all Endangered Species Act (ESA) decisions. An SSA is a focused, repeatable, and rigorous scientific assessment. The result will be better assessments, improved and more transparent and defensible decision making, and clearer and more concise documents. The Service is already seeing benefits from this approach. Ideally, the SSA is conducted at or prior to the candidate assessment or 12-month finding stage, but can be initiated at any time. Learn more...

Releasing golden riffleshells mussels and recording their location. Photo by Gary Peeples, USFWS.

Faq

A group of about a dozen small triangular shellfish in shallow water.

Final rule to list the yellow lance mussel as threatened

April 2, 2018 | 5 minute readHow does the final listing rule differ from the proposed listing rule? In preparing this final rule, we reviewed and fully considered 22 public comments on the proposed rule. This final rule incorporates minor changes to our proposed listing based on the comments we received. The Species Status Assessment report report was updated based on comments and some additional information provided; many small, non-substantive changes and corrections were made throughout the document including ensuring consistency of colors on maps, providing details about data sources, updating references in threats section, and minor clarifications. Learn more...

Yellow lance in the Tar River in North Carolina. Photo by Sarah McRae, USFWS.

Lafayette

A large black bear with a small cub nestled in the upper branches of a hardwood tree.

Endangered species and recovery

One of the primary responsibilities of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is to protect and recover imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend. Congress defined “species” to include subspecies, varieties, and, for vertebrates, distinct population segments. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is America’s strongest conservation law. Originally passed by Congress in 1973, the ESA is jointly administered by the Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Learn more...

Louisiana black bear female with her two cubs in a tree. Photo by Clint Turnage, USDA.