A06_Attchmt9_im-or-2012-010-vouchering-policy.pdf

United States Department of Agriculture

Forest Service R-6 United States Department of the Interior

Bureau of Land Management

OR/WA

Reply Refer To: 2670 (FS)/ 6840 (BLM) (OR931) P Date: 11/28/2011

FS-Memorandum

EMS TRANSMISSION 12/01/20111

BLM-Information Memorandum No. OR-2012-010

To: Region 6 Forest Service National Forest Supervisors and Oregon/Washington

Bureau of Land Management District Managers

Subject:

Interagency Special Status/Sensitive Species Program and Survey and

Manage Mitigation Measure Species: Vouchering Policy for Bryophytes, Lichens, Fungi, Vascular Plants, Mollusks, and All Other Invertebrates

Region 6 Forest Service and Oregon/Washington Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have had a requirement to document all new sites of Survey and Manage or Sensitive and

Strategic bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and mollusk species with specimen voucher collections since January 2002 (IB-OR-2002-083). The policy was updated in May 2005

(IB-OR-2005-120) and April 2007 (IM-OR-2007-049). This memorandum reiterates and revises the vouchering requirement.

The Survey and Manage and Sensitive and Strategic bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and terrestrial and aquatic mollusks, as well as all other Sensitive and Strategic invertebrates, are regarded as “cryptic” species. A voucher is a “piece of evidence” validating the presence of a species in a specific locality on a certain date. These taxa require expert identification to provide consistent and defensible verification. If a vouchered specimen is verified as a Survey and Manage or Sensitive and Strategic species, the specimen is then curated and submitted to one of the regional herbaria or museums to allow access to researchers for further work and to provide centralized, permanent, and safe storage.

The past requirement was to voucher all new sites of Survey and Manage or Sensitive and Strategic bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and mollusk species with a voucher collection.

With this memorandum, the policy is being revised to include Sensitive and Strategic vascular plants and all other invertebrates and to acknowledge that some target species may occur frequently within a geographic area so that collecting a voucher from each new site creates an excessive workload and is unnecessary as long as species location data are being collected at each new site. For the Survey and Manage species, use the list from the 2011 Settlement Agreement available from:

http://www.blm.gov/or/plans/surveyandmanage/gg.htm.

The new vouchering requirement is that a minimum of at least one voucher of each

Survey and Manage or Sensitive and Strategic species (or unusual variant) should be collected from each project per each square mile map section for verification of identification and future reference in a public repository. For example, if a project is 500 http://www.blm.gov/or/plans/surveyandmanage/gg.htm acres and covers 3 square-mile sections, that would be a minimum of 3 voucher collections if that species is found distributed throughout the project area. If you are at all uncertain about the identity of the species, collect more than one voucher for expert verification. If the species occurs in an unusual habitat, or if there is a change in habitat, a voucher should be collected. If a species is rarely encountered on your field unit, voucher all sites. Do not collect a voucher if removal of specimens will impact the population (observe the “1 in 20 rule”). Data for all sites must still be collected and entered into the agency database. Vouchers of common or unknown species may also be forwarded to the Regional Office/Oregon State Office for taxa expert identification or verification if desired.

Specific vouchering instructions are found on the “Identification Services” section of the

Interagency Special Status/Sensitive Species Program (ISSSSP) web page

(www.fs.fed.us/r6/sfpnw/issssp/inventories/identification.shtml). Voucher specimen description forms for each taxa group are also located on the website. The State Office and Regional Office will continue to pay for contracted expert voucher specimen identification of target species. Agency personnel are responsible for knowing and following state and Federal scientific collection permit and annual reporting systems, which differ for different types of plants and animals and by state and agency (for web links see http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/sfpnw/issssp/inventories/permits.shtml). Personnel conducting surveys for Survey and Manage species within Forest Service Region 5 or

California BLM may want to contact their Regional Office/State Office for vouchering instructions.

Vouchering vascular plants is now required for new sites of Survey and Manage or

Sensitive and Strategic species where the vascular plant species has few documented sites, generally less than 20 per state, or the new site is a range extension such as in a previously undocumented county. The new site should be vouchered and submitted by the local agency botanist to the regional herbaria, which is the University of Washington

Burke Museum for Washington and the Oregon State University Herbarium for Oregon.

Vascular plant specimens need not be submitted to the Regional Office/State Office.

Agency personnel are required to enter data for every voucher collection into the agency database. Forest Service personnel must enter data into the Natural Resources

Information System (NRIS) Wildlife for terrestrial mollusks and aquatic mollusks and

NRIS and Threatened and Endangered Species Plants for lichens, bryophytes, fungi, and vascular plants. The BLM personnel must enter all voucher data, including aquatic mollusks, into GeoBOB. Mandatory data entry fields for vouchers include: the unique species collection number, collection date, name of collector, name of expert who determined the identification, name of the repository where the voucher collection is housed, and any identification notes provided by the expert, such as lichen chemical tests or fungal spore measurements.

Send all lichen, bryophyte, fungi, mollusk and other invertebrate specimen vouchers to the following interagency individual:

Please submit voucher specimens monthly, and email Darci Rivers-Pankratz to let her know to expect their arrival. Vouchers should first be identified by field staff to the best of their ability prior to submitting specimens to help hold down the per specimen identification costs. Contractors are required to have identifications completed within 30 days.

If you have questions concerning vouchering, please contact Darci Rivers-Pankratz, Assistant Inventory Coordinator, at (503) 808-2688 or Kelli VanNorman, Inventory

Coordinator, at (503) 808-6606 (kvannorm@.blm.gov).

Claire Lavendel

For KENT CONNAUGHTON

Michael S. Mottice

For EDWARD W. SHEPARD

Regional Forester, Region 6 State Director, Oregon/Washington

USDA Forest Service USDI Bureau of Land Management

Forest Service Distribution

WO Joseph A. Burns

Forest Service R5

Diane Ikeda

Barnie Gyant

Patricia A. Krueger

Forest Service R6

Debbie Hollen

Mark Skinner

Carol S. Hughes

Sarah Madsen

Darci Pankratz

Elaine Rybak

Scott Woltering

Robert Alvarado

FS-pdl r6 nr forest botanists

FS-pdl r6 forest-district wildlife-bio

FS-pdl r6 forest wildbios

FS-pdl r6 regional fish bios

FS-pdl r6 forest fish bios

FS-pdl r6 district fish bios

FS-pdl r6 nr forest staff

BLM Distribution

WO230 (204LS) (Peg Olwell, Nikki Moore)

OR931 (Bruce Hollen, Rob Huff, Lee Folliard, Mark Mousseaux, Kelli VanNorman, Al

Doelker, Diane Stutzman)

OR933 (Cynthia McDonald)

BLM OR BOTANY ALL

BLM OR WILDLIFE ALL

BLM OR ARIMS Data Stewards

CA030 (Jennifer Wheeler)

CA930 (Amy Fesnock, Christina Lund)

Darci Rivers-Pankratz

Forest Service, Region 6, Natural Resources

P.O. Box 3623

Portland, OR 97208-3623

Phone: 503.808.2688 FAX: 503.808.2469 e-mail: dpankratz@fs.fed.us mailto:dpankratz@fs.fed.us