March 2008

U.S. Water News Online

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- State and federal wildlife officials have drafted an agreement to conserve a tiny snail that lives primarily in springs within a small area along Oak Creek.

The Page springsnail — a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection — is vulnerable because its available habitats are small and isolated, the introduction of nonnative species such as crayfish, and spring flow changes resulting from groundwater pumping.

Officials don't know exactly how many of these snails still exist, but in a free-flowing spring, they have found as many as 3,000 per square meter.

"If we have habitat, we have lots of snails," said Mike Martinez, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "However, they don't have a lot of known habitat."

The Page springsnail is found primarily in a series of springs within a one-mile area along the west side of Oak Creek around the community of Page Springs, in the Verde Valley of Yavapai County.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department, which together drafted the agreement to conserve the snail and its habitat, are seeking comments on the agreement this month, and inviting area spring owners to participate in conserving and restoring the species.

Page springsnails, which are about a tenth of an inch long, need permanent springs, seeps, marshes and running water where they can attach to firm substrates such as cobble, rocks, woody debris and plants. They graze mainly on microscopic attached diatoms.

The draft agreement identifies ways to ensure that the Game and Fish Department's management of its Page Springs and Bubbling Springs fish hatcheries will minimize the loss of resident Page springsnails and the impacts on their habitat.

The two agencies will monitor springsnail populations and encourage neighboring landowners to help conserve the species.