NJ "list"

[Michael Gochfeld]

	Since I suggested compiling the various state lists it was 
logical that someone would ask me what NJ's list is.  I will find it and 
send it, but  I'm not sure what its status is. 

The Non-game Council which is advisory to the NJ Dept of Environmental 
Protection has gone through an 18 month Delphi process for 
BUTTERFLIES involving 8 participants representing different regions of 
the state. The process went through four rounds, in an effort to build 
consensus.  We started with the whole state list, whittled it down to 
about 30 species in which one or more of the participants posed a status 
question (usually "it's very rare here but I don't know about other 
parts of the state". 

At each round the list was whittled down further. 

As far as I know there is a list. But it does not become enforceable 
until it goes through some additional processes of publication, comment 
period, etc. 

The only ones I remember were Hesperia leonardus which is nominated for 
"special concern" (two of us thought it was threatened). 

and N. mitchelli (which will be listed as endangered, although it is 
generally conceded that it has been extirpated for more than a decade. 

When it became known that Leonard's skipper might be listed a developer 
agreed to set aside what amounts to a conservation easement, where the 
only central NJ colony survives. Whether this will be sufficient to 
protect this colony remains to be seen after the development begins 
later this spring (2000). 

Some of the issues concerned what to do with species that are or were 
only marginal in the state.  Is there any point in worry about a 
marginal population of a species that is common and widespread in 
adjacent states?  I am ambivalent about this.  I think it depends on the 
nature of the local, marginal population?

Mike Gochfeld