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000888 .. " ..~ TASK 4: Development of Criteria for Identifying Increments of Managed Land for Recovery Purposes. The issue under Task 4 is how to handle contributions to the habitat conservation endeavor of the Platte River Management Joint Study (PRMjS). Private organizations, individuals, and public agencies will be contributing to habitat conservation. Described here is a process to manage and direct the receipt of resources for habitat conservation. The PRMjS calls for the conservation of habitat for endangered and threatened species along the Central Platte, which is divided into ten segments by principal bridge crossings between Chapman and Lexington, Nebraska. The habitat conservation would be undertaken in each of the bridge segments. Each bridge segment would have a habitat complex of open river channel roosting habitat and wetland meadow, the principal habitats to be conserved. Habitat conservation signifies the acquisition (fee title and easement, private landowner outreach program) and protection of existing land which meets the biological and hydrological criteria of the PRl\fJS and the acquisition of land which could be restored to habitats meeting the PRl\fJS criteria. The habitat management areas in each bridge segment would vary in size with smaller segments of land being managed in between large blocks of land. The PRMTS Biology Work Group estimated four blocks and six segments should be developed for threatened and endangered species habitat. The block/segments plan consists of one management area in the ten bridge segments. A segment must contain an area of about 250 acres per roost site of river channel for whooping cranes (1,150 ft x 2 miles) plus 2,000 acres wet meadow buffer and 110 acres of least tern and piping plover habitat (including at least two 3.6 acres of nesting islands). The resulting areas will be approximately 2,400 acres. Four of the segments are called blocks and must include additional 1,450 acres of habitat for whooping cranes, least terns, and piping plovers to complete the block portion of the plan. Therefore, six segments win have management areas of 2,400 acres and four blocks wiH have management areas of 3,800 acres. Land acquisition and management which does not occur within these blocks and segments wiH marginally contribute toward achieving the purpose and goal of the PRMJS.