HCP CONSIDERATIONS Sample Clauses

HCP CONSIDERATIONS. Consistent with the objectives of the FESA and the California Fish and Game Code (FGC), the Plan is a long-term comprehensive program to ensure the continued health of the biological communities on PALCO’s property and to minimize and mitigate impacts of PALCO activities on individual species. In this regard, the Plan has both a multi-species and a habitat focus; it also has a specific legal purpose with regard to impacts to species and habitats. Similar to other habitat-based multi-species HCPs (e.g., Plum Creek and plans approved in southern California under the Natural Community Conservation Planning [NCCP] Act), this Plan was developed by focusing on the requirements of selected species (focus species) while also addressing the needs of other species in the same habitat. This tiered approach is an essential feature of the Plan’s terrestrial and aquatic conservation strategies. Marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) and northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) are the focus species for the terrestrial strategy, and the measures for these two birds are designed to benefit a broad range of other species in PALCO’s managed forests. Some measures, such as the establishment of marbled murrelet conservation areas (MMCAs), preserve and protect Focus and other species in specific locations. Other measures, such as maintaining a mix of seral types across the landscape and retaining structural components of wildlife habitat, benefit Focus and other species by sustaining important features of the larger ecosystem. The Plan’s aquatic habitat conservation strategy functions in a similar way. In this case, the focus species are four fish (coho salmon in the southern Oregon/northern California coastal evolutionary significant unit [ESU], Oncorhynchus kisutch; chinook salmon in the southern Oregon/California coastal ESU, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha; cutthroat trout in the southern Oregon/California coast ESU, Oncorhynchus clarki, and steelhead trout in the northern California ESU, Oncorhynchus mykiss). Measures for these species focus on habitat conditions in fish-bearing streams and extend outward to encompass riparian zones and entire watersheds. As described in Part A of Volume V, of the July 1998 Draft SYP/HCP a primary purpose of the Plan is to provide the basis for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) to authorize incidental take of certain listed...