Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 27, 1994 TAG: 9401270113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The U.S. Forest Service and four other federal agencies signed a sweeping agreement this week to protect the habitat of species whose numbers are dwindling, but not yet disappearing.
The tiny Cow Knob salamander, found only in the George Washington National Forest in Western Virginia, is such a species.
Immediately after the national agreement was signed, representatives of the George Washington forest and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enacted a conservation accord to protect the salamander's sole habitat.
"We're taking steps to preclude this critter from being listed as threatened or endangered," forest spokesman Terry Smith said.
The national agreement "sends a clear message to our administrators that this is the direction we're going," said Bob Nelson, a wildlife expert with the Forest Service.
The idea is to save rare plants and animals before they are officially designated as threatened or endangered. This week's interagency agreement stems from a call last year by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to protect entire ecosystems, rather than wait until a species is teetering on the brink of extinction.
The Forest and Wildlife services, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service are participating agencies.
Once a species is added to the federal list, it cannot be killed or collected on private or public lands.
But the process is time-consuming, costly and increasingly controversial. Too often, it results in what Babbitt dubbed "train wrecks" in public policy, such as happened in the Northwest when loggers in the old-growth forests were pitted against the endangered Northern spotted owl.
Unlike the owl, however, the Cow Knob salamander is not listed as threatened or endangered. But it is on the federal government's "candidate list."
"I would not even hazard a guess" as to the number of these salamanders left, said Joseph Mitchell, a herpetologist with the University of Richmond who has studied the species. Years of logging, road building and other activities have fragmented the animal's habitat.
First described in Rockingham County in 1927, the Cow Knob is one of 40 species of salamanders in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee and Virginia. It lives on Shenandoah Mountain above 3,000 feet, preferring the dank leaves and logs on the forest floor.
Last year, the Forest Service designated 43,000 acres of this mountaintop as a special biological area to protect and enhance the salamander's habitat and that of almost 30 other significant species.
Under the plan signed Tuesday, the Forest Service agreed to build no new roads, ban commercial logging, limit use of motorized vehicles and take other conservation measures in that area.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, along with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, will help the Forest Service monitor the salamander's health and distribution.
The multiagency team also will review Forest Service activities that could harm the salamander.
"It's going to get listed [as threatened or endangered] if we don't do this," Nelson said.
These sorts of agreements herald fundamental changes in how federal lands will be managed. Besides the salamander, the George Washington forest has many other rare species.
And in the Jefferson National Forest, which covers about 710,000 acres in Southwest Virginia, 137 animal species and 67 plant species have been identified as rare, threatened or endangered, said spokesman Dave Olson.
by CNB