MONTPELIER — The populations of five Vermont species have recently dwindled enough to merit increased protection from the state.
The Vermont Endangered Species Committee recommends that the Legislature list the American bumblebee and two plants — the rue anemone and the Houghton’s sedge — as endangered. The committee also recommends listing the Eastern meadowlark, a grassland bird whose population has declined precipitously, as threatened.
A species is considered to be endangered when “its continued existence as a sustainable component of the state’s wildlife or wild plants is in jeopardy,” and threatened when it’s “reasonable to conclude, based on available information, that its numbers are declining” and, unless protected, will become endangered, according to state law.
Meanwhile, two species — the bald eagle and the Canada black snakeroot, a member of the carrot family — have rebounded so strongly that the committee recommends removing their protected status.
Currently, 36 animals and 69 plants are considered endangered in Vermont, and 16 animals and 94 plants are considered threatened. The listings come as federal officials recently announced 20 species extinctions across the country, many exacerbated by climate change.
Mark Ferguson, a wildlife biologist with Vermont Fish & Wildlife, told VTDigger that some species declining in Vermont may be affected by climate change, but it’s hard to know for sure. Warming waters could be affecting the brook floater, which is a freshwater mussel, and several listed species of bumblebees have reportedly migrated north, but there isn’t enough suitable habitat in northern areas to support them.
“It’s kind of squeezing them into smaller areas,” he said.
The rue anemone, a flowering plant that’s a member of the buttercup family, exists in only two locations in the state and is limited to fewer than 100 reproducing individuals, according to officials with the Department of Fish & Wildlife. Houghton’s sedge, a perennial found in sandy soils, has only one known location in Vermont.
No sightings of the American bumblebee have been documented since 2000 despite increased surveys, officials said at a presentation of the proposed changes Tuesday night in Montpelier. Of 17 bumblebee species in the state, this would be the fourth listed as endangered or threatened.
Committee members also recommend changing the status of the brook floater, now found in only one river in Vermont, from threatened to endangered. The mussel lives in clear, moderately fast waters, Ferguson said Tuesday, and is one of the “most imperiled mussels in North America.” Its population has declined in 12 out of the 16 states and provinces where it resides, according to the presentation.
Ferguson said Tuesday there are between 105 and 163 pairs of Eastern meadowlarks in the state. Data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey shows a 95% population decline over the last four decades, and the Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas shows a 55% decline over the last 25 years.
It might be worse
Kevin Tolan, a staff biologist with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies who attended the meeting Tuesday night, conducted a statewide survey of meadowlarks over the summer. He told Fish & Wildlife officials that he thinks the population stands at roughly half of their estimate.
Grassland habitat, often located in Vermont’s farm fields, has become less hospitable recently because of development, more intense agricultural practices, and the intrusion of invasive plant species. Proposed measures to keep grassland birds safe include providing incentives to farmers who skip the first cutting of hay, when the birds are breeding in their fields.
“We’re not even just losing delay-hayed fields, we’re losing fields in general,” Tolan told VTDigger. “If they’re not profitable, they’re going to get transitioned to corn. Now, with the booming housing market, a beautiful slab of land in Champlain Valley is going to get bought up.”
Also, when farmers abandon fields, Tolan said, they often revert to less hospitable habitat for birds within several years.
“It’s kind of this weird intersection where we can’t manage it much, but we have to manage it some,” he said.
Tolan said Vermont’s conservation landscape has changed dramatically in the last 50 years.
“It’s crazy to me that, when we had no breeding pairs of eagles here in the ’50s, meadowlarks were everywhere,” Tolan said.
Saving habitats
The committee is also proposing to list three habitats as “critical.”
- Small islands in Lake Champlain are home to nesting grounds for the common tern, which is endangered.
- Aeolus Cave, located in Dorset on land owned by the Nature Conservancy, is home to between 70,000 and 90,000 bats, the largest colony in New England, Ferguson said Tuesday. That includes all four species of bats on the state’s endangered species list.
- The only known spiny softshell turtles in New England and Quebec nest along the shore of Lake Champlain, and the committee has proposed listing the four most productive sites as critical. The sites are owned by the state, save for one, where a private landowner supports the designation.
The committee includes six members of the public appointed by the governor, plus the secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, the commissioner of Fish & Wildlife and the commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation.
Mark Scott, the state’s director of wildlife, said committee members make recommendations after reviewing a vast amount of scientific data about each species.
“When a species becomes threatened or endangered, it’s not good news for us,” he said, “but it is good news for the species that gets special legal protection.”
Members of the public can comment on the proposed changes until Oct. 13.
