\(614\) 469-6923/FAX (614) 469-6919

March 26, 2008

Devela Clark

District Ranger TAILS- 31420-2008-F-0504

Wayne National Forest

13700 U.S. Hwy 33

Nelsonville, OH 45764

Re: Request to Reinitiate Consultation to Modify the Incidental Take
Statement for the Athens 2006 Prescribed Burning Project

Dear Mr. Clark:

Your March 19, 2008 letter reinitiates section 7 consultation pursuant
to the Endangered Species Act and complies with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (Service) procedures for seeking modification of
Biological Opinions and Incidental Take Statements. Guidance to handle
the request is provided at Section 4.6 and Exhibit 4-4 of the March 1998
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service
Endangered Species Consultation Handbook. Your letter indicates that the
amount of constructed fireline needed to implement the Athens Prescribed
Burning Project will increase from 29.0 miles to 33.5 miles.

The effects of prescribed fire, including construction of firelines, on
the Indiana bat were disclosed in the Wayne National Forest's Revised
Land and Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan) Programmatic Biological
Opinion (PBO) (p. 48-53) and a tier 2 Biological Opinion dated December
8, 2006 (TAILS: 31420-2007-F-0086). The environmental consequences of
constructing firelines could include loss of an undetected roost tree,
alteration of foraging habitat, and disturbance from noise/human
presence. Hazard trees represent the biggest danger to firefighter
safety, therefore hazard trees are removed along firelines. Some of
these hazard trees could provide current or future Indiana bat roosting
habitat.

You indicate that an additional fireline will need to be constructed
within the Upper Baily Unit for safety reasons. The proposed fire line
is 1.5 miles long and occurs along an old skid trail. The proposed
fireline may be used up to three times in the next ten years resulting
in 4.5 miles of potential impact to the Indiana bat. You do not
anticipate that the addition of this fireline will result in any
additional impacts not previously analyzed.

You have properly reinitiated consultation pursuant to 50 CFR 402.16
regarding the change in amount of incidental take for fireline
construction on the Athens Burn Project. The Service anticipates that
the proposed action will result in incidental take associated with fire
line construction (33.5 miles). It is anticipated that occupied
secondary roost or less important roost trees may be unknowingly cut.
These trees are likely to be occupied by either singly roosting males or
a few females. It is reasonable to assume that only a subset of these
individuals will be directly taken through injury or death and that most
of the individuals in the occupied roost tree will escape, and hence not
be incidentally taken. Although very difficult to predict, we
anticipated in the PBO that one unknown occupied roost tree could be cut
during fireline construction over a ten year period. As incidental take
is difficult to detect, the PBO established habitat acreages/miles as a
surrogate for tracking take. This reinitiation adds 4.5 miles of fire
line to the cumulative total of incidental take for the implementation
of the WNF's Revised Forest Plan. This brings the total amount of
incidental take for this project to 33.5 miles (see table below). This
project, added to the cumulative total of incidental take for the
implementation of the WNF's Revised Forest Plan, is well within the
level of incidental take anticipated in the PBO through 2015.

  -------------------- ---------------- ------------- ---------------------
  **Activity**         **IT anticipated **IT for this **Cumulative IT
                       in PBO**         project**     granted to date**

  Permanent Road       392 acres        0             38.88
  Construction                                        

  Temporary Road       146 acres        0             9.03
  Construction                                        

  Skid Trails & Log    740 acres        0             199.8
  Landings                                            

  Utility Development  50 acres         0             0

  Fire Lines           750 miles        33.5          68.06
  -------------------- ---------------- ------------- ---------------------

We determined that this level of anticipated and exempted take of
Indiana bats from the proposed project, in conjunction with the other
management actions taken by the WNF pursuant to the PBO to date, is not
likely to result in jeopardy to the species.

The Forest Service is implementing all pertinent Indiana bat standards
and guidelines, specifically, SFW-TES-2, GFW-TES-3, SFW-TES-4,
GFW-TES-9, SFW-TES-10, and SFW-TES-11 stipulated in the Forest Plan and
on pages 88-94 of the PBO. In addition, the Forest Service is monitoring
the extent of incidental take that occurs on a project-by-project basis.
These measures sufficiently minimize the impact of the anticipated
incidental take, and thus, no further Reasonable and Prudent Measures
are necessary.

If you have any questions regarding our response or if you need
additional information, please contact Sarena Selbo at extension 17.

> Sincerely,
>
> Mary M. Knapp, Ph.D.
>
> Supervisor