Post_Assessment_Discovery_Of_Bats_Form.pdf

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and Federal Transit Administration (FTA)

Range-wide Programmatic Consultation for Indiana Bat and Northern Long-eared Bat

Post Assessment Discovery of Bats at Bridge/Structure Form

October 2017

In the Programmatic Biological Opinion with FHWA, FRA, and FTA for Transportation Projects in the Range of the Indiana Bat and Northern Long-eared Bat (PBO), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) anticipated that there may be instances where bridge assessments are completed in fulfillment of requirements of the PBO but fail to detect Indiana bats that are later detected during construction. The Service anticipated that, in these instances, construction could result in incidental take in the form of harassment, injury, or death to as many as 5 Indiana bats for any particular project, with no more than 50 Indiana bats taken range-wide in any particular 12 month period. This amount of incidental take was exempted in the incidental take statement of the PBO for all projects utilizing the PBO, provided that the take is reported to the Service. In order to track the incidental take exempted, please report, to the best of your ability, the number of bats taken and the form of take that occurred within 2 working days of the incident to the local Service field office. Construction activities may continue without delay provided the limits of 5 bats per project and 50 bats per 12 month period, range-wide have not been exceeded.

Project Consultation Code: ________________

Project Name: ________________

Project Location: ________________

Name of Observer: ________________

Observer Affiliation: ________________

Date of Observation: ________________

# identified as listed species ________________

# not identified (assumed listed) _________________

# harassed ____________

# injured ____________

# killed ____________

As stated in the PBO, the Transportation Agencies, State/local DOTs will make all reasonable efforts to educate personnel to report any sick, injured, and/or dead bats (regardless of species) located in the Action Area during construction, operations, maintenance, or monitoring activities immediately to the local Service Field Office. Due to the number of staff/contractors, it is not expected or required to educate all personnel working in the Action Area, but only those who are most likely to observe bats during the course of normal working conditions.

Reinitiation of consultation is required where discretionary federal agency involvement or control over the action has been retained (or is authorized by law) if the amount or extent of incidental take of Indiana bats is exceeded.