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<br />Arizona Game and Fish Department <br />Draft EA: Kanab Ambersnail <br /> <br />June 1998 <br />Page 4 <br /> <br />University (NAU), USBR, and USFWS, Beginning in 1998, KAS monitoring at VP was contracted <br />out to individuals! organizations through a competitive bid-process established by GCMRC, <br /> <br />C. PURPOSE OF THE PROPOSED ACTION <br /> <br />The 1996 and 1997 USFWS Biological Opinions on the operation of Glen Canyon Dam, concerning <br />BHBFs, identified the need to establish or discover a second wild population of KAS in Arizona, <br />before additional BHBFs could occur, At it's January 1998 meeting, the Adaptive Management <br />Work Group (AMWG) adopted a set of hydrologic criteria that would trigger a BHBF during the <br />spring/summer of 1998 and between January and July in future years, The AMWG also recognized <br />the need to develop biological resource criteria that would be applied, in addition to the hydrologic <br />criteria, and would include compliance with the 1996 Biological Opinion concerning KASs and <br />proposed BHBFs, NPS and AGFD are working together to complete environmental compliance <br />documentation for the establishment ofa wild KAS population in Grand Canyon, <br /> <br />The Kanab Ambersnail Recovery Plan (USFWS 1995) provides an outline of KAS recovery <br />objectives, Habitat surveys for KAS were proposed in Task 3,2 of the recovery plan under: <br /> <br />Identify and survE:)' potential habitat. Potential habitat in spring and seep-fed <br />wetlands near the CUlTent range of the Kanab ambersnail will be surveyed for <br />suitable habitat. It is possible that additional Kanab ambersnail populations <br />exist and may be found, Unoccupied potential habitat may have harbored <br />populations of the species in the past and should be considered as <br />reintroduction sites, if necessary. Additional discovered or introduced <br />populations of the Kanab ambersnail will increase its abundance and could <br />contribute to maintaining the species overall viability in the event of a <br />catastrophic loss of one or more of the existing populations, <br /> <br />- <br />The KAS Recovery Plan documents the need to establish or discoverten additional KAS populations <br />before their endangered status can be downlisted, <br /> <br />With interagency support, AGFD has conducted exhaustive surveys of 74 springs, seeps, and wetland <br />areas of the Grand Canyon region and northern Arizona between 1996 and 1997, No additional KAS <br />populations were found, Evaluation of potential KAS habitat is documented in AGFD Nongame <br />Technical Reports 122 and 125 (Sorensen and Kubly 1997, 1998), Eleven sites in Grand Canyon <br />National Park were identified as having optimum or more desirable habitat for establishing KAS wild <br />populations (Sorensen and Kubly 1997, 1998), Four additional sites in Grand Canyon, with <br />acceptable habitat, are also included as proposed sites based on high environmental category ratings, <br />Based on preliminary data from single visits, three other sites outside Grand Canyon National Park <br />(two on the Hualapai Reservation and one on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest) were identified <br />as more desirable habitat for KAS, More information on these sites is required before they can be <br />considered as KAS establishment areas, <br />