A consultation agreement between the agencies and resulting grazing criteria concluded that grazing on 940 of 962 allotments would not adversely affect threatened or endangered species. The agencies worked together during the informal consultation process; this enabled the Forest Service to comply with their positive conservation requirements to develop modifications to grazing programs where there was a potential to affect listed species.
The Fish and Wildlife Services formal biological opinion identifies specific adjustments to grazing on 22 allotments. These adjustments were needed to avoid adverse impacts on one or more listed species. The USDA Forest Service will take actions on these allotments to improve ecological conditions (watershed, soil, range, riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.
Learn more about riparian , and stream channels), provide protection to stream courses and aquatic habitats from impacts of livestock grazing, and closely monitor grazing activities to ensure conditions improve and species continue to be protected.
"Our consultation with the Forest Service is a great example of a time-efficient, but comprehensive effort that occurred as a result of federal agencies working together to conserve our resources," said Nancy Kaufman, Regional Director of the Fish and Wildlife Services Southwest Region. Regional Forester Eleanor Towns said, "This is an excellent example of cooperation between the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service in working through a very complicated consultation in less than a year.
"I believe the changes made in grazing practices will result in long-term benefits to both the threatened and endangered species and to the grazing permittees," Towns added. "The grazing permittees have been very cooperative during the consultation and nearly all of them have already made the changes needed to protect threatened and endangered species.
Determinations of effect on threatened and endangered species were made on an allotment-by-allotment basis for 962 grazing allotments on 11 National Forests. During the informal consultation process, a team of biologists with the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed information in the Forest Services Biological Assessment, and made recommendations to modify grazing practices in order to remove threats to listed species.
"Our bottom line was to work with all interested and affected parties to improve the status of listed species and the health of natural resources in the Southwest," said Kaufman. "Our goal is to maintain economic viability for the multitude of different lifes and cultures that have come to define the spirit of the West."
Only one of the 962 allotments was determined to jeopardize listed species, the endangered loach minnow and spikedace, two rare fish in the Gila River. The "jeopardy" opinion on the Sapillo Allotment in the Gila National Forest contains a
