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Center For Plant Conservation Assessment Of Federally Listed And Candidate Species On Public Lands
The Center for Plant Conservation (CPC), its member institutions and several partners are embarking on an ambitious project to conduct a comprehensive assessment of almost 900 plant species currently listed as endangered, threatened, proposed or candidate species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The national office of CPC will partner with participating institutions of CPC, NatureServe, state Natural Heritage programs, and cooperating federal agencies.

This study will contribute significantly to the current understanding of the status of imperiled plant species and their potential for recovery across federal lands. Results of this study will provide federal agencies with a clearer understanding of the number and condition of populations of imperiled species on lands they manage and the relative contribution to total recovery that could be made through conservation and restoration efforts for these populations and species.

This study will not involve any collection of new data from the wild. Existing available information will be collected from federal (and possibly state) agencies and other sources, reviewed and compared with existing NatureServe and state Heritage Program information, and used in the analysis for the species summaries.

Prior to the collection of data, information protocols will be developed and a database designed. A steering committee will meet in an initial three-day workshop in early September 2005 in St Louis to develop these protocols which will be peer reviewed. This committee will develop methods of evaluating and indexing the relative level of recovery potential represented by the populations on federal lands collectively and for each agency.

A summary of the condition and number of verified populations occurring on public lands, particularly federal lands for each threatened, endangered, proposed and candidate species will be produced. Lists of species for federal lands (collectively and for each agency) will be generated and ranked by the relative level of potential contribution to recovery needs represented by the populations on agency lands. Likely ranking indices will be expressed by classes including potential to achieve full recovery, potential to contribute to majority of recovery needs, potential to contribute a significant contribution to recovery needs, the potential for partial recovery needs, or potential to achieve little or no contribution to recovery.

This project is being funded through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation along with generous matching grants from the Henry Luce Foundation, Chevron Texaco and the Edward K. Love Conservation Foundation. This project is set to be complete by the end of 2006. For more information about this project contact Bruce Rittenhouse, CPC Conservation Program Manager, at 314-577-9450 or email at bruce.rittenhouse@mobot.org.

Endangered species hocked on cyber market
Online sale of endangered species in international markets is becoming a major problem. All governments should put forth more effort to enforce and control online sale of threatened and endangered species.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Discovery in Arkansas
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, once considered extinct in the United States, has been documented in seven confirmed sightings in Central Arkansas. The discovery was part of an organized search by many experts, volunteers and biologists.

New blood pulls Florida panthers back from brink
Scientists have released Texas cougars in areas in Florida to interbreed with the Florida panther. Their research has shown that this may result in a breed of panther that will be more likely to survive and expand its range.

Proposal to Remove Brown Pelican from Endangered Species List

Red-cockaded woodpecker
The red-cockaded woodpecker, that was once near extinction, is now making a comeback in some areas of the south. With the restoration projects of many biologists, land managers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, healthy populations of the endangered woodpecker are being established in the South. Woodpecker clusters, groups of three birds or more, have increased nearly 30 percent, from 4,694 in 1994 to 6,061.