Take Estimation and Results. The covered activities, including vegetation management, are outlined in the Agreement and include activities that are already occurring as part of routine maintenance and modernization on transportation and energy rights-of-way and associated lands. The Agreement encourages the use of integrated vegetation management and specific tools that promote diverse herbaceous groundcover that is compatible with facility and rights-of-way operations, while supporting habitat improvements for monarchs and other pollinators. The Agreement is intended to improve vegetation maintenance practices (relative to monarchs) within land management sectors that rely upon rights-of-way and their associated facilities. Vegetation management is an on-going practice that focused historically on maintenance, safety and reliability and not traditionally on habitat conservation. We expect ongoing maintenance and modernization of infrastructure outside the Adopted Acre areas to be consistent with pre-Agreement levels (frequency, duration, and magnitude) of impacts. Considering these, the actions undertaken by this Agreement do not pose a significant change from current operations except in the Adopted Acres, whose extent the Adoption Rates will determine. This Agreement formalizes and promotes improvements in operations on the Adopted Acres by promoting conservation measures that adapt the timing, frequency, or method by which Partners will apply them to improve habitat for monarchs. We consider actions that pose threats of loss to other listed animal species to be outside the scope of this Agreement. We think that with a few exceptions, they have already been consulted on under section 7(a)(2) of the ESA and, if not, would not be covered by the Agreement. USFWS consults routinely under section 7(a)(2), for example, with Federal Highway Administration (FHA). For actions that are reasonably certain to result in take of a federal listed wildlife species, USFWS provides incidental take statements along with its biological opinions. The incidental take statements include terms and conditions that, if complied with by the FHA, exempt the anticipated incidental take. We expect that benefits from conservation measures included in this Agreement will outweigh the adverse effects including the injury or death of individuals resulting from both conservation measures and covered activities. The Service’s assessment of the adverse effects or potential risks to the species and its habitat from imp...
