9.

Endangered and Threatened Fish and Wildlife

The species included below (Table 9) are the Endangered Native Fish and Wildlife species declared by the Secretary of the Interior and those "threatened" species reported in the publication Threatened Wildlife of the United States, Resource Publication 114 compiled by the Office of Endangered Species and International Activities, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.

The national usage of designation "Rare or Endangered" has been replaced by the term "Endangered". The Endangered Species Conservation

Act of 1969 instructs the Secretary of the Interior to seek the counsel of specialists and agencies with expertise on the subject and to rely upon their combined judgment to determine whether or not an animal is "endangered with extinction". The wording of the Act is as follows:

"A species of native fish and wildlife shall be regarded as threatened with extinction whenever the Secretary of the Interior finds, after consultation with the affected States, that its existence is endangered because its habitat is threatened with destruction, drastic modification, or severe curtailment, or because of overexploitation, disease, predation, or because of other factors, and that its survival requires assistance. In addition to consulting with the States, the Secretary shall, from time to time, seek the advice and recommendations of interested persons, or organizations, including, but not limited to, ornothologists, icthyologists, ecologists, herpetologists, and mammalogists. He shall publish in the Federal Register the names of the species of native fish and wildlife found to be threatened with extinction in accordance with this paragraph.

Table 9. THE OFFICIAL LIST OF ENDANGERED FISH AND WILDLIFE SPECIES WITHIN THE AREA AFFECTED BY THIS PROPOSAL

Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentalis

Southern Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus leucocephalus
Arctic Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus tundrius

Attwater's Prairie Chicken Tympanuchus cupido attwateri
Whooping Crane Grus americana

In addition to the endangered species in the proposed area, Figure 24 shows the distribution of the species listed in the Threatened Wildlife of the United States. These additional species are either threatened, peripheral, or status-undetermined species.

A peripheral species or subspecies is one whose occurrence in the United States is at the edge of its natural range and which is threatened with extinction within the United States although not in its range as a whole. Special attention is necessary to assure retention in our Nation's fauna.

A status-undetermined species or subspecies is one that has been suggested as possibly threatened with extinction but about which there is not enough information to determine its status.

Table 10 is a list of all the species listed as endangered, threatened, peripheral, or status-undetermined in the proposed area, including a distribution key.

Figure 24.

*6 Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Although this refuge is out of the immediate proposed area it was still considered in the data on endangered, threatened, peripheral, and status-undetermined species.