WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will begin 5-year status reviews of five animals and two plants listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The five animal species up for review are the gray bat, the Indiana bat, the copperbelly water snake, the scaleshell mussel and Curtis' pearlymussel. The two plant species are the Decurrent false aster and Fassetts locoweed.
The agency conducts 5-year status reviews to ensure that a species has been properly listed and to review any new scientific or commercial data that becomes available after a final listing decision has been made.
As a result of the reviews, the agency can determine that no change in listing status is warranted or it can uplist a species from threatened to endangered, downlist a species from endangered to threatened, or remove it from the list entirely.
The agency is asking for public comments on the listing status of all seven species.
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