Region 6 (Northern Great Plains) of the US Fish and Wildlife Service published a 12-month finding on a petition to list the Sprague's pipit under the Endangered Species Act yesterday. The finding was that listing is warranted, but precluded by other higher priority actions right now. This means, however, that the Sprague's pipit is now a candidate species (while it gets in a que for listing funding). Region 6 has information on the finding posted on their website (http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/birds/spraguespipit/).
Sprague's Pipits were once common breeders along the western border of the state but intensive agriculture, especially in the Red River Valley (gotta have those sugar beets, let's put high fructose corn syrup in everything we eat) doomed the species in the state. Once restoration of Glacial Ridge NWR's 32,000 acres is completed perhaps a reintroduction project might be feasible along with Baird's Sparrow which shares similar habitat. Sprague's Pipits are likely highly vulnerable to wind turbine projects since their courtship flights take them well into the rotor sweep zone of the largest turbines now popping up all over the prairies. Bob Russell, US Fish and Wildlife Service ****************************************************************** ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
