Results

This overview compares the proposed regulation (68 FR 15879) and the changes made in the recent final rule (70 F.R. 1286) that concerns the Western Distinct Population Segment for the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus).

Final rule by the FWS designating a critical habitat for the Buena Vista Lake Shrew, consisting of 84 acres, in accordance with the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The shrew was listed as endangered through a final rule that was published in the Federal Register on March 6, 2002 (67 FR 10101). The designation of the critical habitat for the shrew was made pursuant to a judicial order from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. The order arose from Kern County Farm Bureau v. Badgley, U.S. Dist, LEXIS 24125, 2002.

This final rule downgrades the Mariana fruit bat from endangered to threatened throughout its range in the Mariana archipelago, which is subject to US jurisdiction. The reason for the down grade is the FWS initially made a mistake in the taxonomy of the Mariana fruit bat. When the FWS listed the bat as endangered on Guam in 1984, it believed that the bat was a species only endemic to Guam. Since that time, the FWS has discovered that the bat is endemic to the entire Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and the Territory of Guam.

FWS has designated critical habitat pursuant to section 3 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the federally endangered riverside fairy shrimp that encompasses 306 miles within Ventura, Orange, and San Diego Counties in California. The riverside fairy shrimp is a freshwater crustacean that is found in vernal pools (a shallow depression that fills with rainwater and does not drain into the lower drainage section) in the coastal California area. The shrimp is the second most primitive living crustacean and is the most recently discovered crustacean in California.