The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation cooperate to provide protection for Virginia’s threatened and endangered species.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is the regulatory authority for the conservation and preservation of threatened and endangered plant and insect species. The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources has legal authority for preservation of vertebrate and other invertebrate endangered and threatened species. The Department of Conservation and Recreation Division of Natural Heritage produces an inventory of the Commonwealth's natural resources, and maintains a database of ecologically significant sights.
Federally listed threatened and endangered species are monitored and regulated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
In 1979, the Endangered Plant and Insect Species Act of the Code of Virginia mandated that the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services conserve, protect and manage endangered and threatened plant and insect species. The impetus for the legislation was to protect species from possible extinction throughout all or a significant part of its native range. In addition, the legislation requires the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to monitor the harvest and export of American ginseng to ensure compliance with requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). When the act was passed, it listed ginseng as threatened and Virginia round-leaf birch as endangered. Additional plants and insects which are listed as threatened or endangered can be found in the Listing of Endangered and Threatened Plant and Insect Species.
Virginia Endangered Plant and Insect Species Program personnel cooperates with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Division of Natural Heritage and other agencies and organizations on the recovery, protection or conservation of listed threatened or endangered species and designated plant and insect species that are rare throughout their worldwide ranges.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Endangered Species Protection Program is designed to determine whether pesticide use in a certain geographic area may affect any listed species. If limitations on pesticide use are necessary to protect listed species in that area, the information is relayed through Endangered Species Protection Bulletins. In Virginia, the program is administered by the VDACS Office of Pesticide Services.
Contact
Keith Tignor
VDACS Endangered Plant and Insect Species Program
804.786.3515
keith.tignor@vdacs.virginia.gov
Click here for Office of Plant Industry Services contact information.
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