July 9, 2008

Public Comments Processing\
Attn: RIN 1018-- AT79

Division of Policy and Directives Management

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222

Arlington, VA 22203

*Re: Comments on the Proposed Designation of Critical Habitat for the
Endangered Salt Creek Tiger Beetle*

These comments are regarding the Proposed Designation of Critical
Habitat for the Endangered Salt Creek Tiger Beetle, *Cincindela nevadica
lincolniana* (50 CFR Part 17

Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Designation of Critical
Habitat for the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle (*Cicindela nevadica
lincolniana*); Proposed Rule Federal Register / Vol. 72, No. 238 /
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 / Proposed Rules).

The 1795 acres (727 hectares) proposed is not adequate pursuant to the
Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 [et seq]{.underline}. ("ESA")
and cannot be scientifically or legally justified. The crux of these
comments is quite simple. The ESA requires that critical habitat
designations include those geographic areas needed to achieve the
"conservation" of a species, i.e., recovery of the species to the point
that it may be taken off the endangered species list. The US Fish and
Wildlife Service (USFWS) has failed to do this in designating 1795 acres
of critical habitat for the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle.

The ESA is a federal statute whose purpose is to conserve \"the
ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend\"
and "to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered
species" \[16 U.S.C. § 1531(b)\]. To this end, the ESA requires that the
USFWS protect such species by listing them as either \"threatened\" or
\"endangered,\" and by creating \"critical habitat\" for each listed
threatened and endangered species (16 U.S.C. § 1533). The protections of
critical habitat are important because, once designated, these areas are
subject to a prohibition of "destruction or adverse modification" by any
action authorized, funded, or carried out by any federal agency \[16
U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2)\]. \"Critical habitat\" means those geographic
areas, both occupied and unoccupied by a species, that are essential to
the "conservation" of a species \[16 U.S.C. § 1532(5)(A)\].
"Conservation" means "the use of all methods and procedures which are
necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the
point at which the measures provided pursuant to this chapter are no
longer necessary" \[16 U.S.C. § 1532(3)\].

In 2005 the USFWS developed a *Draft Strategy for the Designation of
Critical Habitat for the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle* Cicindela nevadica
lincolniana*, Advanced Concept Paper* (USFWS 2005); (this Advanced
Concept paper is attached as a pdf). This paper was prepared by
biologists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission, Lower South Platte Natural Resource District and the
Nebraska Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Three
independent peer-reviewers, each knowledgeable about the conservation of
rare and listed tiger beetles and other insects, reviewed and concurred
with the strategy. The paper proposes 36,906 acres (14,935 ha),
comprising ten recovery units, as critical habitat for the Salt Creek
Tiger Beetle (USFWS 2005).

The authors proposed the establishment of six sustainable source
populations and six peripheral populations based on extensive evaluation
of the population status for the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle and intensive
identification of recovery units. The authors also concluded that the
distribution of the six populations necessary to conserve the Salt Creek
Tiger Beetle should be throughout multiple stream systems in the Salt
Creek basin, as opposed to a single stream (USFWS 2005).

The proposal is based on an evaluation of population status consisting
of minimum sustainable population number, distribution, size, and the
selection of recovery units based on the presence of physical and
biological features or primary constituent elements that have been
determined to be essential for the conservation of the Salt Creek Tiger
Beetle (USFWS 2005).

The conclusion supporting the need for six populations of the Salt Creek
Tiger Beetle is comparable to conclusions made for other listed tiger
beetles whose metapopulation protection strategies are similar to that
of the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle (Murphy et al. 1990). For example, the
recovery plan for the Puritan tiger beetle *(C. puritana)* identified
that a minimum number of six populations (and several peripheral
populations) needed to be protected to sustain this insect (Hill and
Knisley 1993). Further, their conclusion that sustainable source
populations should be distributed among multiple stream systems
addresses concerns made by other researchers regarding the risk from
adverse or unpredictable habitat impacts and weather events should a few
populations be located in close proximity to each other. For example,
Murphy et al. (1990) and Howe et al. (1991) stressed that greater
emphasis should be placed on the maintenance of multiple metapopulations
as opposed to simply protecting single reservoir populations. Local
extinctions caused by habitat deterioration and stochastic weather
events are frequent for species whose life histories were characterized
by short generation time, small body size, high rates of population
increase, and high habitat specificity (Murphy et al. 1990 and Ruggerio
et al. 1994). The Salt Creek Tiger Beetle is extremely vulnerable to
extinction because of its life history characteristics.

USFWS subsequently asked the authors of the Advance Concept Paper (USFWS
2005) to revise and lower the acreage of the critical habitat proposal
(Spomer personnel communication 2007). The authors revised their
recommendation to 15,000 acres of critical habitat, distributed across
six recovery areas: (1) Upper Salt Creek, (2) Haines Branch/Middle
Creek, (3) Oak Creek, (4) Little Salt Creek, (5) Lower Salt Creek, and
(6) Rock Creek. Of these six areas, one is currently occupied by the
Salt Creek Tiger Beetle (Little Salt Creek) and two were previously
occupied (Rock Creek, Oak Creek). Based on existing recovery plans of
other endangered/threatened tiger beetles, they felt that establishing
minimum (500-1000 individuals) populations at each of these six sites
would reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic event wiping out the
species (Spomer 2008). Some team members felt that 15,000 acres was the
bare minimum needed to allow the species to recover (Spomer personnel
communication 2007).

The USFWS then proposed only 1795 acres (727 hectares) of critical
habitat in four small habitat areas (Proposed Rule Federal Register /
Vol. 72, No. 238 / Wednesday, December 12, 2007). There is no rational
for the USFWS to cut over 13,000 acres from the previous proposal. The
USFWS has not provided any scientific justification for how 1795 acres
would allow the recovery and long term maintenance of the Salt Creek
tiger beetle. One of the authors of the Advanced Concept Paper (USFWS
2005) has called the decrease from 15,000 acres to 1,795 acres ludicrous
(Spomer 2008).

As stated above, a critical habitat designation must contain sufficient
areas such that if those areas are restored and protected, and an
endangered species is successfully reintroduced into such areas if
currently unoccupied, then the species may be "delisted."

The best available scientific evidence as presented in the Advanced
Concept Paper (USFWS 2005) clearly shows that the current proposed
critical habitat is woefully inadequate for the recovery and long term
maintenance, let alone the delisting, of the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle.

Sincerely,

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Scott Hoffman Black\              | Michael Senatore                  |
| Executive Director                |                                   |
|                                   | Center for Biological Diversity   |
| Xerces Society                    |                                   |
|                                   | 1601 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.,    |
| 4828 SE Hawthorne Blv.            | Suite 701\                        |
|                                   | Washington, D.C.  20009           |
| Portland, OR 97215                |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

**Literature Cited**

Hill, J. M., and C. B. Knisley. 1994. Northeastern Beach Tiger Beetle
(*Cicindela dorsalis dorsalis* Say) Recovery Plan. Final report to the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 53 pages.

Howe, R. W., G. J. Davis, and V. Mosca. 1991. The demographic
significance of 'sink' populations. Biological Conservation 57:239-255.

Murphy, D. D., K. E. Freas, and S. B. Weiss. 1990. An environmental
approach to population viability analysis for a threatened invertebrate.
Conservation Biology 4(1): 41-51.

Ruggerio, L. F., G. D. Hayward, and J. R. Squires. 1994. Viability
analysis in biological evaluations: concepts of population viability
analysis, biological population, and ecological scale. Conservation
Biology 8(2): 364-372.

Spomer, Stephen. 2008. Comment on the Proposed Designation of Critical
Habitat for the endangered Salt Creek tiger beetle (SCTB), *C. nevadica
lincolniana*. 25 January 2008.

USFWS. 2005. Draft Strategy for the Designation of Critical Habitat for
the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle *Cicindela nevadica lincolniana*, Advanced
Concept Paper. 4 May 2005. (attached as a PDF)

**Personal Communication**

Stephen M. Spomer, Research Entomologist, University of Nebraska August
2007.