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The Endangered Species Act was created in 1973 with the intention of providing broad protection for plants and animals. The species either receives threatened or endangered status depending on the degree of threat that populations face. A species is considered endangered if it is facing the possibility of extinction throughout a significant portion or all of its range. A species is considered threatened if it is deemed likely that the species will become endangered in the immediate future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. The law requires protections and management strategies for listed species. These include recovery plans for enabling populations to rebound, critical habitat designations that set aside key habitat from development, and other procedural outlines for federal agencies to follow when taking actions that may possibly jeopardize listed species. The Endangered Species Act is also the enabling legislation for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and provides criminal and civil penalties for any violations.

The Northwestern Pond Turtle was petitioned for listing under the ESA in 1992. During the following year the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service conducted a formal review procedure that concluded there was insufficient information available to merit such status. Currently, the species is listed as a BLM Sensitive species which is defined as being a species that could easily become extinct or endangered within a particular state. The NWPT also has designation as a USFWS Species of Concern in Oregon and an Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife Sensitive-Critical species. In addition, the West Eugene Wetlands management plan lists the species as rare.

The BLM has not conducted any formal population surveys of NWPT within the forested sections of District land so the distribution of turtle populations remains unknown. Approximately 61 sightings of NWPTs have been documented within the Eugene district but these have occurred on adjacent private land. The sightings indicate that there are most likely populations inhabiting BLM land but the status of these populations, in terms of reproductive capacity and absolute numbers, is not known. Current BLM management strategies require that potential aquatic habitat within project areas be buffered from degrading activities and potentially harmful impacts. Most projects occurring within the district do not take place near potential aquatic habitat but because the buffers only cover riparian zones outer portions of terrestrial habitat, which is crucial to the health of populations, may be put at risk. Mitigations for protection are currently conducted on a project-by-project basis and there is no consistent direction due to the unknown status of populations.

The opportunities for BLM intervention include the following:

Develop associations with adjacent private landowners to protect natural dispersal corridors such as creeks and rivers
Determine current NWPT population viability
Determine habitat status including the quality, quantity, spatial distribution and connectivity between other populations
Develop a “big-picture strategy” based upon population and habitat status that would allow effective measures to be conducted so as to maintain or enhance NWPT viability within the district

A discussion of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and turtle project by Paula Larson at the BLM, our project manager:
I have worked as a wildlife biologist for the BLM here in Eugene for 7 years, before that I worked for the Forest Service in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California for 10 years.  It was in California that I first developed and interest in and profound respect for Northwestern pond turtles.  This is a very old species that has, despite incredible human encroachment and habitat fragmentation, held on.

The thing about the turtles is that they are a long-lived species.  This can be misleading to those of us who are interested in maintaining viable populations of this species.  For many short-lived species it is readily apparent when the species or population is in trouble because their numbers start to obviously decline.  The thing about the turtles is that the population could be headed for extirpation because they aren't recruiting young turtles into the population, but it's not detected for years and years because you still have a large number of adults.  So you can have a large population of turtles, but if they are not reproducing to replace themselves someday, the population will one day disappear.  And, while it's relatively easy to detect adult turtles, it's not easy to detect juvenile turtles because they are so small.

Historically, the best and most turtle habitat was within the Willamette Valley.  The BLM lands in the foothills of the valley also provided habitat for this species, and continues to do so.  Eugene BLM had a number of incidental sightings of turtles over the years, but we had never been able to inventory potential habitat.  Knowing where potential habitat is located is the first step to managing potential turtle habitat and populations. The habitat surveys that are being done by the U of O students this spring will be the springboard for population monitoring and habitat restoration for this species.  The long term goal is to provide habitat for healthy, viable populations on BLM lands.