Listing of Endangered, Threatened,and Special Concern Species in.pdfVIP

Listing of Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concern Species in Massachusetts Natural Heritage Endangered Species Program Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife D R A F T October 3, 2007 1 Table of Contents Preface ……………………………………………………………………… 2 Statement of Purpose ……………………………………………………….. 3 Guiding Principles ………………………………………………………….. 3 Definitions ………………………………………………………………….. 5 Criteria for Changes to the MESA List …………………………………….. 7 MESA Listing, Delisting, and Status Change Procedure …………………... 13 17 Appendix C: Excerpt from the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act …… 21 Appendix D: Excerpt from the Code of Massachusetts Regulations ……….. 22 Appendix E: Guidelines for Dealing with Peripheral Populations………….. 25 Literature Cited ……………………………………………………………... 28 Appendix A: Proposal Form for Listing Change …………………………… 15 Appendix B: Assessment Form for Listing Change ………………………... Preface This document describes the rationale, criteria, and procedure with which decisions are made regarding the listing and delisting of Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concern species in Massachusetts. Listing is based on the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act (MESA) statute (see Appendix C) and its implementing regulations (see Appendix D), and this draft builds upon listing policy as administered since implementation of the regulations in 1991. MESA listing policy draws upon other major systems used in the assessment of extinction risk, specifically the systems of NatureServe (Master et al. 2007) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN 2001). Concordance with these and other major systems is sought through the use of three main criteria in the assessment of extinction risk: rarity, trend, and threat. In addition, recent scholarly articles on endangered species listing policy have influenced this document, most notably the studies of O’Grady et al. (20