7863

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7863
• Author: Nature Conservancy, T.
• Title: Candidate Species Reports from the Natural Heritage Central Database.
• USFW Year: 1996.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

..ll~

United States Department of the Interior
FISH AND Wll...DLIFE SERVICE
Washington, D.C. 20240

I N REPLY REFER TO,

IUld 28 1,"'1,'''''
V I'~ i::lJQ

In Reply Refer To:
FWS/TE

Memorandum

To:

Chief, Division of Endangered Species, Regio~ ,id'/' r\ \
~~ ~ j ~U1n \
~hief, Division of Endangered Species <S~ Yf\. ~

Candidate Species Reports from the Natural Heritage Central Databas

From:

Subject:

On April 23, 1996, the Director issued a memorandum to the Regional Directors transmitting
the Protocol for Identifying Candidate Species as well as lists of species that the Division of
Endangered Species generated from the Natural Heritage Central Database (formerly referred
to as the Biological and Conservation Data System) under our Cooperative Agreement with
The Nature Conservancy. These lists included species ranked by TNC and the Network of
State Natural Heritage Programs as G1 or T1 (critically imperiled), G2 or T2 (imperiled), or
G3 or T3 (vulnerable). The lists excluded taxa that already were listed, proposed or candidate
species under the Endangered Species Act. These lists serve to identify species that may be at
risk and may warrant consideration as possible candidates for listing under the Endangered
Species Act.

We are attaching a second batch of reports from the Natural Heritage Central Database for
your use. These are Element Global Ranking (EGR) reports and Element Stewardship
Abstract (ESA) reports for several current candidate species. The EGR reports contain
background information on the species' (i.e., element's) global conservation status rank, the
criteria used to determine that rank, and any research, inventory, protection and stewardship
needs that have been identified for that species. The ESA report contains information on
natural history, management, monitoring and research programs and needs, as well as some of
the information in the EGR report and other data files. The ESA report is intended to
summarize current knowledge on the species and point to relevant literature and other
information sources. For both types of reports, we are attaching outlines of the structure of
the reports, which include descriptions of the fields and explanations of the acronyms.

EGR reports are currently available for 85 of the 182 candidate species, and ESA reports are
available for 9 of these. Each Region is receiving all of the available EGR and ESA reports
for candidate species, regardless of the species' Region of occurrence, as examples of the
types of data available. They are separated into vertebrates, invertebrates, and vascular plants
and arranged alphabetically by genus. We intend to transmit available EGR and ESA reports