Endangered Species Law & Policy

On September 12, 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) published notice of its final rule listing the Georgia rockcress (Arabis georgiana) as a threatened plant species under the Endangered Species Act.  On the same day, the Service published notice of its final rule designating 732 acres within Georgia and Alabama as critical habitat for the species.  Designated critical habitat for the Georgia rockcress includes riparian and river bluff habitat within Gordon, Floyd, Harris, Muscogee and Clay Counties in Georgia and Bibb, Dallas, Elmore, Monroe, Sumter, and Wilcox Counties in Alabama.  In the final rule the Service stated that Georgia rockcress is threatened throughout all of its range and that habitat degradation, including disturbance that promotes invasion of nonnative weeds, is the most serious threat to the species’ continued existence.