Investments from the state and other partners in listed species recovery have been significant since the passage of the Endangered Species Act almost 50 years ago. With the investments that have been made, partners should be seeing success in the form of delisting or downlisting species. Some of Utah's species should be considered for regulatory status changes, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service, without this partnership, does not have the staff needed to work through the lengthy status review and regulatory process to delist or downlist a species.

Objective 1 - Use criteria (considerations) for evaluating Utah's listed species for delisting or downlisting consideration to update species in the queue for consideration. Objective 2 - Implement the regulatory process to consider species for delisting or downlisting based on those identified in Objective 1.

Listed species under consideration may have specific recovery plans that are considered during this effort.

The regulatory process identified in the Endangered Species Act will be followed to ensure compliance with the Act.

Methods initially include applying the established Criteria (Considerations) for Evaluating Utah's Listed Species for Delisting or Downlisting Consideration to develop a short list of species that meet the criteria for consideration. Once a short list is established and agreed to by Partners, the regulatory process as defined under the Endangered Species Act and US Fish and Wildlife Service policies is implemented. This regulatory process includes: 1) conducting a Species Status Assessment that includes the recommendation of whether a change in regulatory status should be considered; 2) if a change in regulatory status is recommended, an internal US Fish and Wildlife Service review team determines whether to move forward with a formal status change recommendation; 3) a proposed status change is published in the Federal Register with a public comment period; 4) public comments are considered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and if nothing is submitted to change their proposed status change, the final rule to change the species status is published in the Federal Register, typically one year after it is proposed.

Post delisting monitoring is a requirement under the Endangered Species Act for species successfully ushered through the delisting process.

Partners to this effort include: US Fish and Wildlife Service Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife Resources US Department of the Interior, CUPCA Completion Office US Bureau of Reclamation US Bureau of Land Management Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission Central Utah Water Conservancy District

Once a species is downlisted or delisted, conservation needs for the species does not end. But without being federally listed, species management returns to the state Division of Wildlife Resources (for 'protected wildlife'). Specific species may be managed under a state-led conservation agreement under the umbrella of the Utah Wildlife Action Plan.

07/01/2021

06/30/2022

2022

An MOU exists between several partners to fund a position at the FWS Ecological Services Office in Salt Lake City. This position is funded to solely work on the regulatory process for down-listing and de-listing efforts for ESA listed species that have been identified. The partners evaluated the status of species identified by the Utah Endangered Species Act (ESA) Listed Species Status Review Partnership as potential candidates for delisting or downlisting. During FY19, the FWS drafted documents and coordinated actions to consider delisting or downlisting, as appropriate. The FWS moved forward to implement those status changes as supported by regional and national leadership.

A draft Species Status Assessment (SSA) for Ute ladies' Tresses for review was completed in 2021. The development of the SSA involved coordination across eight States, three USFWS Regions, and management of a large and wide-ranging team of over 40 technical experts, including independent experts and those from numerous State and Federal agencies. The SSA Report was submitted for internal review in September 2021. After internal review and revision, the SSA was made available for peer and partner review from January 2022 through March 2022. Based on comments received during the process, the SSA was heavily revised. Additional occurrences were added to the current condition analysis, both newly discovered occurrences as well as older occurrences not previously considered. This was based on comments from peer and partner reviewers that we should not only consider occurrences verified within the last ten years, but should include all historical occurrences in current condition analysis unless we had reason to believe them extirpated. For occurrences with older data only we used the most recent available reports combined with land ownership and aerial photography to determine whether they were still likely extant and to rate their condition. The future climate projections were also revised several times in an attempt to find a type of measurement that would be suitable for a wetland obligate plant occupying narrows strips of wetland over a large and variable range. We received a number of comments that the use of evaporative deficit as a measure of climate change was at too large a scale and more suited to upland species than to a wetland plant that, by definition, is in a system with an excess of water most of the time. It is likely this original analysis resulted in artificially pessimistic projections for Ute ladies'-tresses future status. Based on those comments, we conducted a number of climate analyses to determine what a more suitable metric for climate change would be for Ute ladies'-tresses. We evaluated a number of different predictive climate models for Ute ladies'-tresses based on snowpack, soil moisture, streamflow, and total precipitation, none of which were found to be suitable for this project. Ultimately, we settled on using a combination of projected precipitation minus evaporation at the analytical unit level and projected changed to decadal drought frequency at the occurrence level as the metrics that best described how climate change is likely to affect Ute ladies'-tresses in the future, based on the species' needs. The revisions to the SSA were ongoing as of June 30, 2022, but we recently completed all revisions to the SSA as of September 2022. In addition, additional data and recovery information was collected for several plant species that may be considered for status changes in the near future, including Welsh's milkweed, Kodachrome bladderpod, and Heliotrope milkvetch. We began preparing for development of an SSA for Heliotrope milkvetch, including developing a project plan and requests for information letters for State and Federal stakeholders.

The SSA will be finalized with the revisions based on peer and partner comments and reviewed by the core team and Regional USFWS personnel. A Ute ladies'-tresses Recommendation Team Meeting will be held with regional leadership across the range of the species to determine whether a status change is recommended. This decision will be issued in the form of a five-year review. If Ute ladies'-tresses is found to be eligible for a status change based on the SSA, work would include beginning development of a Proposed Rule to delist the species and a draft post-delisting monitoring plan. Such a plan is required to provide range wide monitoring for at least five years after removal from the List of Threatened and Endangered Species in order to detect any changes to the population that might indicate an unanticipated decline after delisting. Additional goals for the next year include the initiation of an SSA on at least one other species already identified by the Utah ESA Listed Species Status Review Working Group. Identified listed species potentially ready for status review in the next five years include Heliotrope milkvetch (threatened), Kodachrome bladderpod (endangered), Welsh's milkweed (threatened), Virgin River chub (endangered), and Utah prairie dog (threatened). Of these species, Heliotrope milkvetch has been identified as having the fewest regulatory hurdles and requiring little additional conservation effort and may be the species most suitable for review.