The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has completed a second status review of
Peirson’s milk vetch and concluded the plant should remain listed as
threatened under the Endangered Species Act, it was announced Wednesday.
The Fish and Wildlife Service’s 12-month status review will be published in today’s edition of the Federal Register.
In
the U.S., the plant’s only known population is in Imperial County in
the Algodones Dunes. Most of the Algodones Dunes is managed by the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management as part of the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation
Area. The milk vetch is responsible for the closure of tens of
thousands of acres of the dunes.
Fish and Wildlife was
originally petitioned by the American Sand Association and other
off-highway vehicle groups to delist the plant in 2001. In 2004, the
agency completed a 12-month status review of the 2001 petition and
determined the plant should remain listed under the ESA.
The
2005 petition to delist the plant was also submitted by the ASA and
other OHV groups, and asserted that based on additional data collection
Peirson’s milk vetch is more abundant than was reported in the 2001
petition, and the plant’s population and reproductive capacity are so
stable and strong as to warrant delisting. After determining the
petition provided substantial information a second status review was
initiated.
Based on Fish and Wildlife’s review of all
information provided in the petition, additional research and input
from peer reviewers, the agency determined that Peirson’s milk vetch is
threatened by habitat destruction and modification from OHV use,
predation by beetles that likely exacerbates other existing threats and
inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms to protect the plant
because of uncertainties regarding future management of the ISDRA.
Although
the petition asserted the population of Peirson’s milk vetch is more
abundant than in 2001, this claim cannot be supported by the available
survey data due to differences in rainfall amounts, survey
methodologies and variations in climatic conditions between the survey
years, Fish and Wildlife said in a press release.
The ISDRA is one of the most heavily used off-highway
vehicle recreation areas in the U.S. Although more than 27,000 acres is
a designated wilderness area permanently closed to OHV use, this area
supports less than 9 percent of the U.S. population of Peirson’s milk
vetch. More than 65 percent of the plant’s population within the ISDRA
is located in temporary closure areas. Depending upon future management
decisions by BLM these closure areas could reopen to OHV use, leading
to an estimated 41 percent reduction in the plant’s population.
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