The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the availability of the final recovery plan for six Mobile River Basin aquatic snails on December 2, 2005. The six snails included in the recovery plan are: the endangered (Lepyrium showalteri), and (Leptoxis taeniata), (Elimia crenatella).
All six snails are endemic to the Mobile River Basin of Alabama where they inhabit shoals, rapids and riffles of large streams and rivers above the Fall Line. All six species have disappeared from more than 90 percent of their historic ranges as a result of such threats as impoundment, channelization, mining, dredging, and pollution.
The recovery plan includes specific recovery objectives and criteria to be met in order to downlist the cylindrical lioplax, flat pebblesnail, and plicate rocksnail to threatened species and for the eventual delisting of all six species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act).
The plan will serve as a guide for federal and state agencies, industries, private groups, and individuals whose actions may affect the conservation of these listed snails. The recovery plan calls for protection of river and stream habitats and water quality, development of mitigation strategies for unavoidable impacts to these habitats, community-based watershed stewardship planning and action, concerted public education efforts, and basic research on the six snail species.
Copies of the plan can be obtained by visiting our recovery plan website at http://endangered.fws.gov/recovery/index.html#plans, or may be requested by contacting
