The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced its Vulnerable Species Action Plan (VSAP), finalizing its transition from its June 2023 Vulnerable Species Pilot (VSP) in order to help conserve federally threatened and endangered (listed) species from pesticides. As part of implementing EPA’s Endangered Species Act Workplan, the VSAP is intended to provide a framework for EPA to adopt early, meaningful protections to address potential impacts for listed species that EPA identifies as particularly “vulnerable” to pesticides. The plan describes the framework that EPA will use for vulnerable species when considering Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) actions for conventional pesticides (such as new chemical registrations and registration review). EPA plans to incorporate mitigations from the VSAP into applicable pesticide actions, even if EPA has not yet determined effects under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) or consulted with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). EPA will address species listed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) through a separate process. The VSAP describes how the approach EPA plans to use to evaluate potential impacts to these listed species and any associated mitigations, and how EPA plans to expand the approach to additional listed species in the future. In the VSAP, EPA has identified 27 species listed by FWS in the lower 48 states as “vulnerable species” and within the scope of the VSAP. The species include the following:
Species | Taxon |
Attwater’s prairie chicken | Bird |
Buena Vista Lake Ornate Shrew | Mammal |
Avon Park harebells* | Plant |
Carter’s mustard* | Plant |
Florida ziziphus* | Plant |
Garrett’s mint* | Plant |
Highlands scrub hypericum* | Plant |
Lewton’s polygala* | Plant |
Sandlace* | Plant |
Scrub blazingstar* | Plant |
Scrub mint* | Plant |
Short leaved rosemary* | Plant |
Snakeroot* | Plant |
Wireweed* | Plant |
Leedy’s roseroot | Plant |
Madison cave isopod | Aquatic Invertebrate |
Mead’s milkweed | Plant |
Ozark Cavefish | Fish |
Palmate-bracted bird’s beak | Plant |
Poweshiek skipperling | Terrestrial Invertebrate |
Rusty patched bumble bee | Terrestrial Invertebrate |
Scaleshell mussel | Aquatic Invertebrate |
Spring creek bladderpod | Plant |
White Bluffs Bladderpod | Plant |
Whorled Sunflower | Plant |
Winged Mapleleaf | Aquatic Invertebrate |
Wyoming toad | Amphibian |
The VSAP applies a three-step framework which builds off the herbicide and insecticide strategies and is intended to provide similar mitigations for the vulnerable species for pesticides with similar characteristics (e.g., exposure, toxicity, application method). The VSAP identifies the potential for impacts (Step 1), the type and level of mitigation (Step 2), and where mitigation applies (Step 3). Any needed mitigations will only apply in geographically specific areas (referred to as Pesticide Use Limitation Areas or PULAs). EPA is refining the species maps that it will use for PULAs and will not implement the VSAP in registration review until those maps are refined, which will likely be later in 2024. The VSAP includes mitigations for common exposure routes, including spray drift and runoff, but also addresses other routes of pesticide exposure to the vulnerable species. Examples include on-field exposure to a vulnerable species and pesticide volatilization (the movement of pesticide vapors through the air). This action plan, along with the Ecological Mitigation Support document, are available in the public docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0327 at regulations.gov, and on EPA’s website.