Special Status and SEIS Special Attention Species Habitat

Objectives

See Late-Successional Reserve, Riparian Reserve, Matrix and Special Area Objectives.

Protect and conserve Federal listed and proposed species, and manage their habitats to achieve their recovery in compliance with the Endangered Species Act, approved recovery plans, and Bureau special status species policies.

Manage for the conservation of Federal candidate and Bureau-sensitive species and their habitats so as not to contribute to the need to list and to contribute to the recovery of the species.

Manage for the conservation of State listed species and their habitats to assist the State in achieving management objectives.

Protect and manage assessment species where possible so as to not elevate their status to any higher level of concern.

Protect SEIS special attention species so as not to elevate their status to any higher level of concern.

Study, maintain or restore community structure, species composition, and ecological processes of special status plant and animal habitat.

Land Use Allocations

All of the major land allocations in this plan are designed in part to benefit special status species across the District. Specific land use allocations are generally too small to be mapped at the scale used for the RMP.

Management Actions/Direction

Management Actions/Direction - Late-Successional Reserves

Consider projects required for recovery of threatened or endangered animal and plant species even if they result in some reduction of habitat quality for late-successional species. These projects will be designed for least impact to late-successional species.

Management Actions/Direction - All Land Use Allocations - Special Status Species

Review all proposed actions to determine whether or not special status species occupy or use the effected area or if habitat for such species could be affected.

Conduct field surveys according to current protocol. This includes surveying during the proper season. Field surveys may not be conducted in all cases depending on the number and timing of previous surveys conducted, whether previous surveys looked for all species that a new survey would, and the likelihood of potential habitat. The intensity of field surveys will also vary depending on the same factors.

Consult/conference with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) or National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for any proposed action that may affect Federally listed or proposed species or their critical or essential habitat. Based on the results of consultation, modify, relocate, or abandon the proposed action. Request technical assistance from one of these agencies for any proposed action that may affect Federal candidate species or their habitat.

Coordinate with the USFWS, NMFS, and other appropriate agencies and organizations and jointly endeavor to recover Federal listed and proposed plant and animal species and their habitats.

Modify, relocate, or abandon proposed actions that contribute to the need to list Federal candidate species, State listed species, Bureau-sensitive species, or their habitats.

Coordinate with the State of Oregon to conserve State listed species.

Identify impacts of proposed actions, if any, to Bureau-sensitive and assessment species and clearly describe impacts in environmental analyses. As funding permits and as species conservation dictates, assessment species will be actively managed.

Retain under Federal management (or other appropriate management organizations), habitat essential for the survival or recovery of listed and proposed species. Retain habitat of candidate, or Bureau-sensitive species where disposal could contribute to the need to list the species.

Where appropriate opportunities exist, acquire land to contribute to recovery, reduce the need to list, or enhance special status species habitat.

Coordinate with other agencies and groups in management of species across landscapes. Coordination will be accomplished through conservation plans or similar agreements that identify actions to conserve single or multiple species and/or habitats. Such strategies could preclude the need for intensive inventories or modifications to some projects where the conservation plan provides adequate protection for the species and meets the intent of policy.

Where plans exist for species no longer on the special status list, continue with the prescribed conservation actions if determined to be required to avoid relisting or future consideration for listing. In the case of interagency plans or agreements, this determination will be mutually decided. Such plans may be modified as needed, based on adequacy of existing range-wide conditions and conservation management.

Pursue opportunities for public education about conservation of species.

Where appropriate, pursue opportunities to increase the number of populations of species under BLM management through land acquisition and/or species reintroduction.

Integrate management of special status plants into watershed assessment, looking at historic patterns and modeling to improve habitat for special status plants.

Implement prescribed burns to enhance habitat for special status plants.

Implement noxious weed control in habitat of special status plants.

Develop and implement automated data bases for storage and retrieval of information on special status plants.

Design and schedule site-specific management prescriptions and projects to benefit individual species habitats in allotment management plans and recreational management plans.

Develop monitoring plans for special status plants and their habitats that schedule measurement and periodic evaluation of trend, status, and progress toward meeting recovery and conservation objectives.

Develop monitoring plans to determine viability of populations over time and effects of management actions.

Develop Conservation Agreements with USFWS on Federal candidate plants to act as recovery plans and prevent listing.

Develop and implement education and outreach plans to improve public understanding and awareness of the need to protect and manage special status plants. Develop botanical (Wildflower) viewing sites for the public as part of the Watchable Wildlife Program.

Collect seed from special status plant species for storage at Berry Botanic Garden Cryogenic Seed Bank.

Implement Rare Plants and Natural Plant Communities, Fish and Wildlife 2000.

Identify and manage special habitat areas such as wetlands, serpentine areas, wet and dry meadows, and rock cliffs where over 50 percent of the special status plants occur.

Where sites are occupied by Siskiyou Mountain Salamander or Del Norte Salamander, protect the site from ground-disturbing activities. Designate a buffer of at least the height of one site-potential tree or a 100-foot horizontal distance, whichever is greater, surrounding the location. Within the site and the surrounding buffer, maintain at least 40 percent canopy closure and avoid any activities that would directly disrupt the talus layer. Develop and use standardized survey protocol to determine occupancy. These sites are referred to as managed late-successional reserves in the SEIS ROD.

Conduct surveys for roosting bats. As an interim measure, prohibit timber harvest within 250 feet of sites containing bats. Develop management standards and guidelines for each site.

Management Actions/Direction - All Land Use Allocations - SEIS Special Attention Species

Appendix C identifies species included under the following groupings: survey and manage and protection buffer species (both from the SEIS ROD), and special status species specific to the district.

Management Actions/Direction - Survey and Manage Strategies

Implement the survey and manage provisions of the SEIS ROD. Appendix C shows which species are covered by this provision, and which of the following four categories and management actions/direction are to be applied to each:

Survey Strategy 1: Manage known sites (highest priority).

Acquire information on these sites, make it available to all project planners, and use it to design or modify activities;
Protect known sites. For some species, apply specific management treatments such as prescribed fire; and
For rare and endemic fungus species, temporarily withdraw 160 acres around known sites from ground-disturbing activities until the sites can be thoroughly surveyed and site-specific measures prescribed.

Survey Strategy 2: Survey prior to ground disturbing activities and manage sites.

Continue existing efforts to survey and manage rare and sensitive species habitat;
For species without survey protocols, start immediately to design protocols and implement surveys;
Within the known or suspected ranges and within the habitat types of vegetation communities associated with the species, survey for Allotropa virgata, Bensoniella oregana, Cypripedium fasciculatum and Cypripedium montanum. Survey for Del Norte salamanders, Siskiyou Mountain salamanders, and red tree voles. These surveys will precede the design of all ground-disturbing activities to be implemented in 1997 or later;
For the other species listed in Appendix C, begin development of survey protocols in 1994 and proceed with surveys as soon as possible. These surveys will be completed prior to ground-disturbing activities that will be implemented in Fiscal Year 1999 or later. Work to establish habitat requirements and survey protocols may be prioritized relative to the estimated threats to the species as reflected in the SEIS;
Conduct surveys at a scale most appropriate to the species;
Develop management actions/direction to manage habitat for the species on sites where they are located; and
Incorporate survey protocols and proposed site management in interagency conservation strategies developed as part of ongoing planning efforts coordinated by the Regional Ecosystem Office.

Survey Strategy 3: Conduct extensive surveys and manage sites.

Conduct extensive surveys for the species to find high-priority habitat for species management. Specific surveys prior to ground-disturbing activities are not a requirement;
Conduct surveys according to a schedule that is most efficient and identify sites for protection at that time;
Design these surveys for efficiency and develop standardized protocols; and
Begin these surveys by 1996.

Survey Strategy 4: Conduct general regional surveys.

Conduct general regional surveys to acquire additional information and to determine necessary levels of protection for arthropods, fungi species that were not classed as rare and endemic, bryophytes, and lichens; and
Initiate these surveys no later than Fiscal Year 1996 and complete them within 10 years.

Management Actions/Direction - Protection Buffer Species

Provide protection buffers for specific rare and locally endemic species (see Appendix C). These species are likely to be assured viability if they occur within reserves. However, there might be occupied locations outside reserves that will be important to protect as well. Special habitats such as wet meadows, dry meadows, and caves, will get 100 to 200 feet no cut buffers for protection. Special Status plant species will receive appropriate buffers.

Apply the following management actions/direction:

Develop survey protocols that will ensure a high likelihood of locating sites occupied by these species;
Following development of survey protocols and prior to ground-disturbing activities, conduct surveys within the known or suspected ranges of the species and within the habitat types or vegetation communities occupied by the species. See the previous Survey and Manage section for an implementation schedule; and
When located, protect the occupied sites as follows:

Nonvascular Plants

Ptilidium californicum (Liverwort):

Management direction includes finding locations and maintaining stands of overmature white fir at about 5,000-feet elevation for inoculum and dispersal along corridors, and studying specific distribution patterns; and
Protect known occupied locations if distribution patterns are disjunct and highly localized by deferring timber harvest and avoiding removal of fallen trees and logs.

Ulota meglospora (Moss):

Management direction includes conducting basic ecological studies and surveying for presence;
Protect known occupied sites if distribution patterns are disjuncnt and highly localized; and
Defer timber harvest or other activities that would not maintain desired habitat characteristics and population levels.

Brotherella roellii (Moss):

Management direction includes locating specific populations and protection of large decay class 3, 4, and 5 logs and maintaining canopy closure greater than 70 percent; and
Defer management activities that conflict with maintaining suitable habitat characteristics and known population levels.

Buxbaumia piperi, B. viridis, Rhizomnium nudum, Schistostega pennata, and Tetraphis geniculata (Mosses):

Management direction includes surveying to determine presence and distribution; and where located, maintaining decay class 3, 4, and 5 logs and greater than 70 percent closed-canopy forest habitats for shade.

Aleuria rhenana (Fungus):

Management direction includes conducting ecological studies and surveys to determine localities;
Protect known populations if surveys continue to indicate that the population is rare; and
Defer ground-disturbing activities.

Otidea leporina, O. onotica, and O. smithii (Fungi):

Maintain a spatially explicit data base of all known sites in planning area; and
Develop species or area management plans to be implemented under the guidance of the regional botany programs.

Polyozellus multiplex (Fungus):

Management direction for this species includes conducting surveys to define its distribution and studies to assess its habitat requirements.

Sarcosoma mexicana (Fungus):

Management direction for this species includes conducting surveys to define its distribution and studies to assess its habitat requirements.

Management Actions/Direction - All Land Use Allocations - Listed and Proposed Threatened and Endangered Species

Management Actions/Direction - General

Implement the land use allocations and management actions/direction of this resource management plan that are designed to enhance and maintain habitat for threatened and endangered species.

Management Actions/Direction - Northern Spotted Owl (Federal threatened species)

In the Matrix, retain 100 acres of the best northern spotted owl habitat as close as possible to a nest site or owl activity center for all known (as of January 1, 1994) northern spotted owl activity centers.

With minor exceptions, restrict human activities that could disturb owl nesting, especially timber falling and yarding and the use of large power equipment, within one-quarter mile of all active northern spotted owl nest sites from approximately March 1 to September 30.

Management Actions/Direction - Marbled Murrelet (Federal threatened species)

Conduct two years of survey prior to any human disturbance of marbled murrelet habitat within 50 miles of the coast.

Protect contiguous existing and recruitment habitat for marbled murrelets (i.e., stands which are capable of becoming marbled murrelet habitat within 25 years) within a 0.5 mile radius of any site where the birds' behavior indicates occupation (e.g., active nest, fecal ring or eggshell fragments, and birds flying below, through, into, or out of the forest canopy within or adjacent to a stand).

During silvicultural treatments of nonhabitat within the 0.5 mile radius around occupied stands, protect or enhance suitable or replacement habitat.

Neither conduct nor allow harvest of timber within occupied marbled murrelet habitat at least until completion of the Marbled Murrelet Recovery Plan.

Amend or revise management direction as appropriate when the Recovery Plan is completed.

Restrict human activities that could disturb marbled murrelet nesting.

Management Actions/Direction - Bald Eagle (Federal Threatened Species)

Comply with the Pacific Bald Eagle Recovery and Implementation Plan and existing, site-specific habitat management plans.

Within one-half mile of active bald eagle sites, do not allow aerial use of herbicides or pesticides and minimize human disturbance between February 1 and August 15. Retain requisite forest habitat characteristics including large trees, snags, and at least 50 percent canopy closure. Prepare a site-specific management plan to provide more specific management guidelines for bald eagles.

Protect the core area around known bald eagle nest sites. In addition to the measures used in the one-half mile radius within the protected core area, allow no planned timber harvest except to benefit bald eagle nest habitat, no new road construction, and no surface occupancy (NSO) for leasable minerals.

Retain two additional 80-acre areas with suitable nesting characteristics for future territory establishment consistent with the Pacific Bald Eagle Recovery Plan. One of these would be located along the wild section of the Rogue River in the vicinity of Whiskey Creek and the other would be in the Finley Bend area along the recreational section of the Rogue River. In addition, manage one block of at least 80 acres for nesting habitat within one-half mile of each of the following water bodies to provide for future population expansion: Galesville Reservoir, Illinois River, Emigrant Lake, Hyatt Lake, Howard Prairie and Lost Creek reservoirs.

Management Actions/Direction - Peregrine Falcon (Federal Endangered Species)

Comply with the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Plan and existing, site-specific habitat management plans.

Minimize human disturbance with the potential to disturb nesting falcons within one mile of active peregrine falcon nest sites between January 1 and July 15. Prepare a site-specific management plan for each active site.

The core area within one-half mile of active peregrine nest sites would receive additional protection. In addition to the measures used in the one-mile radius within the protected core area, there would be no scheduled timber harvest, no aerial application of herbicides or pesticides, and no surface occupancy (NSO) for leasable minerals. There will be no new road construction unless the activity would not adversely affect the integrity of the site.