Today, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced 90-day findings on petitions to add five species to the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The Service found that the petitions to list the following four species presented “substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned actions may be warranted” for the following:
- Bleached Sandhill Skipper (Polites sabuleti sinemaculata) – a butterfly found in Humboldt County, Nevada.
- Blue Tree Monitor Lizard (Varanus macraei) – a reptile found in Indonesian New Guinea.
- Bornean Earless Monitor Lizard (Lanthanotus borneensis) – a reptile found in India.
- Pinyon Jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) – a bird found in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, and Baja California, Mexico.
The potential listing of the Pinyon Jay has the most potential significance for the work of England|Ecology. Primary considerations for listing of the Pinyon Jay include adverse habitat treatments in piñon-juniper woodlands, increased wildfire frequency, invasive species, inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms, and climate change. You can read the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s species account here and see their range map for Pinyon Jay in California here. The All About Birds species account from Cornell Labs is here.
The Federal Register document with full details of this announcement is located here.
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