J9S 



Himuiu Influences — Our Living Resources 



effects on wildlife habitat. 



Overall, these varied articles introduce the 

 ways in which large-scale as.sessments of status 

 and trends in the health and condition of biota 



also provide an excellent indication of overall 

 ecosystem health, particularly in relation to the 

 less visible effects such as long-term, subtle 

 declines due to diseases and pollution. 



Significance of 

 Federal Lands 

 for 



Endangered 

 Species 



by 



Bruce A. Stein 



The Nature Consenancy 



Tom Bredeii 



Association for Biodiversity 

 Information 



Richard Warner 

 The Nature Conservancy 



^1 90% or more ol occurrences 

 I I 50% or more of occurrences 

 ^1 Occurring at least once 

 ^1 Not recorded on federal lands 

 ^1 Total listed species 



The federal government has overall trust 

 responsibilities for species listed as threat- 

 ened or endangered under the Endangered 

 Species Act (ESA). The options available for 

 managing and protecting these species, howev- 

 er, are directly related to the ownership of the 

 lands on which the species are found. This arti- 

 cle provides information about the presence and 

 numbers of federally listed species on federal 

 lands and the responsibility of federal land man- 

 agers to care for these species. Our analysis 

 helps evaluate the potential and actual role of 

 federal land-management agencies in the over- 

 all protection of threatened and endangered 

 species (Natural Heritage Data Center Network 

 1993). 



Natural Heritage Programs — a partnership 

 between state and federal agencies and The 

 Nature Conservancy — gather and manage a 

 variety of information linking both biological 

 and nonbiological factors of relevance to bio- 

 diversity conservation. Central to this effort is 

 the inventory of all known occurrences for 

 species of conservation concern, including all 

 federally listed endangered or threatened 

 species. An occuirence is defined as an example 

 of a species at a specific location representing a 

 habitat capable of sustaining the survival of that 

 species. What constitutes an occurrence 

 depends on the biology of the particular species, 

 but most often reflects a mappable and geo- 

 graphically distinct population or subpopula- 

 tion. Pertinent information is documented for 

 each occurrence, such as the biological health 

 and population trends of the occurrence, habitat 

 quality, protection or management status, and 

 land ownership. 



Heritage Programs in all 50 states queried 

 their data bases for all documented occun-ences 



Fig. 1. Listed species occurring 

 on federal lands. 



Karncr hllK' tiLl(lcrtl\ (IahicuIcs nulissti saniucli.^). an 

 endangered species found partially on federal lands. 



Vertebrates 



Plants 



of federally listed species in their jurisdiction 

 and reported the class of landowner or type of 

 tnanaging agency. (Note: "Species"" under the 

 ESA includes subspecies as well as full species; 

 in the strictest taxonomic sense these collective- 

 ly would be referred to as "'taxa."") Only occur- 

 rences observed since 1973 were included in the 

 analysis. 



While the Heritage Programs are the most 

 comprehensive source for such locality infor- 

 mation on rare species and reviewed about 

 350,000 occurrence records for this analysis, 

 this information is incomplete for four reasons: 

 ( 1 ) Heiltage Programs may not be aware of all 

 occurrences, and indeed, many populations for 

 species of concern may yet be discovered; (2) 

 most programs have a data-entry backlog; (3) 

 not all data centers have completely recorded 

 the land ownerships for all their occuiTcnce 

 records; and (4) species occurrences in lakes 

 and rivers are generally not recorded as under 

 the jurisdiction of a federal agency except 

 where they are entirely included in such areas as 

 national parks or wildlife refuges. On the other 

 hand, in many states more is known about the 

 status of listed species on federal lands than on 

 state or private lands. This imbalance in the 

 available data, largely the result of federally 

 funded inventories on federal lands, will tend to 

 overstate the proportion of a species" range or 

 population on federal lands. 



Species on Federal Lands 



This analysis includes 344 plant, 254 verte- 

 brate, and 1 30 invertebrate species found in the 

 50 United States that as of March 1993 were 



