9669

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9669
• Author: U.S. Department of the Interior.
• Title: Policy and Guidelines for Planning and Coordinating Recovery of Endangered and Threatened Species.
• USFW Year: 1990.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

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species. Action-oriented tasks designed to achieve specific
recovery goals are appropriate.

o A recovery plan must estimate the time frame required for
accomplishing recovery, assuming that sufficient funds are provided
and in accordance with the schedule in the plan. Estimates of
time to recovery must be based on known biological factors and a
determination of the likelihood that other management programs,
including regulatory and law enforcement programs, might facilitate
or detract from task accomplishment. If they are uncertain, the
nature of the uncertainty must be discussed in the plan. If
unknown, discuss recovery tasks that will make it practical to
oijtline tasks and time frames in future plan revisions.

o A recovery plan must estimate the cost of complete recovery of the
species. If the estimate is uncertain, the nature of the
uncertainty must be discussed in the plan. In the past, some
recovery plans have given only the Service's recovery costs.
However, Congress now requires that all recovery plans estimate
the total cost for all Federal and State agencies and private
organizations involved.

o A recovery plan must set forth precise, measurable criteria
and/or identify research needs that will allow the Service
and others to objectively determine when recovery has been
achieved when it is, in fact, achievable.

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With this information in the recovery plans, all interested parties
will have a better idea of the funds necessary for recovery. These
documents then can be used to support Service budget initiatives.

C. Recovery Priority System and Policies

The Service recognizes the necessity to assign priorities to listing,
delisting,and recovery actions in order to most appropriately use the
limited resources available to implement the Act. The December 1988
General Accounting Office re'Port to Congress criticized, the Service for
not following its own priority system and for devoting an inordinate amount
of resources on either high-profile, low priority species or on low priority
tasks for high priority species.

Two priority systems guide species recovery. The first is the Species
Recovery Priority System (See Appendix IV.) This numerical system assigns
species a rank of 1 to 18 according to the degree of threat, recovery
potential, taxonomic distinctness, and presence of an actual or imminent

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