PRRIP Draft Environmental Impact Statement

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Chapter 1— Purpose of and Need for Action Whooping Crane Northern Great Plains Piping Plover Listing as an Endangered Species (32 Federal Register Listing as a Threatened Species [FR], March 11, 1967) (43 FR 20938, May 15,1978) (50 FR 50726, December 11, 1985) Reasons for listing: Reasons for listing: Considerable reduction in habitat, particularly in the Platte Modification, curtailment, and destruction of the piping River area, has reduced the whooping crane population. plover's habitat (i.e., development of coastal beaches in wintering grounds and channelization of rivers) have led to > Insufficient food (such as crayfish, frogs, small fish, its decline. insects, etc.), water, and other nutrients to meet physiological needs. > Decline in population numbers, including those in Nebraska, based on Gulf of Mexico wintering ground and > Inadequate amounts and quality of roosting areas during other independent counts. migration, rearing, and wintering. � Elimination of nesting sandbar habitat and reduced > Inadequate areas of open expanse required by whooping availability of wetlands along hundreds of miles of rivers cranes for nightly roosting on sand or gravel bars in rivers because of dams and river channelization. and lakes. Trampling of nests by cattle and an increase in the Human disturbances (loss of wetlands, hunting, etc.), numbers of predators, which may contribute to the which can quickly put a whooping crane to flight at decrease in piping plover populations. distances of over one quarter mile. �> Increased use of nesting areas by humans, which can > (Critical habitat designated in 1978 [43 Code of Federal disrupt incubation or interfere with fledging success by Regulations 20938, May 15, 1978]). separating chicks from parents. > (Critical habitat designated in 2001 [66 Federal Register 36038, July 10, 2001]). Interior Least Tern Pallid Sturgeon Listing as an Endangered Species Listing as an Endangered Species (50 FR 21784, May 28, 1985) (55 FR 36641, September 6, 1990) Reasons for listing: Reasons for listing: > Permanent inundation or destruction of many nesting > A sharp decline in pallid sturgeon has been observed over islands in rivers by reservoirs and channelization projects. its range. *» Alteration of natural river dynamics has caused > Construction of dams and related activities, particularly unfavorable vegetational succession on many remaining extensive in the 1950s and 1960s, changed water islands, curtailing nesting sites. temperatures, flow patterns, and other factors that have contributed to declining pallid sturgeon observations. > Recreational use of sandbars has been a major threat to the reproductive success of the interior least tem. > Lack of natural reproduction, for reasons that are yet unclear and under further study. > Delay of annual spring floods of the watershed past the onset of normal breeding, and many islands are not Decline of the species, which appears to correspond with exposed as suitable sites in time for nesting. expanded commercial harvest; some States do not have regulations in place to prohibit keeping pallid sturgeons > Interior least tern distribution on the Platte River formerly once caught. included western Nebraska; however, by 1985, the interior least tern was found only in the Central and Lower Platte Declining pallid sturgeon observations occurred in part River regions. because of hybridization with a close species, the shovelnose sturgeon, in parts of its range. Figure 1 -2. —The four target species listed as endangered or threatened in the Platte River Basin under the Endangered Species Act. December 2003