Texas Coastal Bend Landscape Conservation Design

Texas Coastal Bend Landscape Conservation Design INTRODUCTION The Texas Coastal Bend is well known for its prominent place in the American wildlife conservation movement. In 1941, when only 14 whooping cranes survived in the wild, the bird became emblematic for all endangered and threatened species, and Aransas became a focal point of the national and worldwide effort to rescue the species from extinction. As whooping crane populations have grown, the areas surrounding the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge have become equally important from a conservation perspective. The Texas Coastal Bend area has a long history of cooperative conservation. Recently, a multi-partner coalition purchased the 17,351- acre Powderhorn Ranch along the Texas coast in Calhoun County; one of the largest remaining undisturbed tracts of native coastal prairie habitat left in Texas and likely one of the largest single conservation projects in the history of Texas. Recognizing the great opportunity to invest Gulf restoration funds to benefit oil-impacted, at- risk, and threatened and endangered species and their habitats in the Texas Coastal Bend, Partners have developed a science based landscape level approach to collaborative strategic habitat conservation in this area to serve as a blueprint for coordinated cooperative conservation efforts of agencies, organizations, landowners and other stakeholders. PURPOSE The purpose of this Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) is to provide a shared strategy on current and future landscape conservation focus that may be used to align conservation efforts across the Texas Coastal Bend in response to stressors such as climate change, including sea level rise and development and land/water use practices. The process includes use of interdisciplinary science to identify priorities and coordinated adaptation strategies that protect biodiversity in the Coastal Bend and disseminating this plan to all who are interested. In addition, the LCD products are useful for guiding CCPs (Comprehensive Conservation Plans) and LPPs (Land Protection Plans) of the NWRS. LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION DESIGN As defined by the “guidance on landscape conservation design memo signed 10-03- 2016, “Landscape Conservation Designs (LCDs) describe shared, cross-jurisdictional visions for meeting conservation objectives. LCDs evaluate drivers that have created the current patterns on the landscape and that affect potential future landscape patterns. LCDs use a partnership-driven, science-based planning process that (1) assesses the current and projected landscape condition; (2) identifies desired landscape characteristics through the integration of quantifiable biological, cultural, social, and physical resource objectives; (3) analyzes the landscape's ability to achieve desired resource objectives under a variety of scenarios and/or limiting factors; and (4) provides landscape-scale management, mitigation, and monitoring strategies to achieve resource objectives. This information will inform a description of a desired future condition for identified landscape features, processes, or resources and a suite of management strategies developed with partners to achieve the desired future condition. Understanding historic and current environmental drivers will inform and guide management plans to achieve conservation goals for targeted features or resources or for a specific area under a bureau's jurisdiction. LCDs inform the development of each partner’s site-specific management plans (and NEPA documents) and actions within the landscape of the LCD to deliver conservation activities, attain desired resource objectives, sustain ecosystem function/processes, and achieve the missions, mandates, and goals of partner agencies/organization.” The science that informs the Texas Coastal Bend LCD is included in this document and is described as the Scientific Foundation for the Landscape Conservation Design in the Texas Coastal Bend. GULF OF MEXICO Funding from Gulf of Mexico oil spill penalties offers an unprecedented opportunity to address complex Gulf ecosystem issues and to make strategic investments in the ecological challenges of tomorrow. In addition to recovering species directly damaged by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, these funds can simultaneously secure habitat for At-Risk species in the Gulf region, can protect conservation corridors and buffers that support wildlife, water supplies, and communities, and can help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implement its science-based strategic habitat conservation goals. Over a two-year period (2011-2013), the National Wildlife Refuge Association (Refuge Association) worked with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS/Service) on an assessment of ecologically significant estuaries and watersheds in the Gulf Coast region, with emphasis on landscapes where national wildlife refuges and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs play a central role (Putting the Vision for a Healthy Gulf of Mexico Watershed into Action through Collaborative Community- Driven Conservation NWRA 2015). Based on this assessment of important habitats for gulf-wide rare species, the integrity of these habitats, partnerships and opportunities, a greenprint of the Gulf coast was developed. The Texas Coastal Bend area was one of the areas recommended for further collaborative strategic habitat conservation efforts. COASTAL BEND CONSERVATION PARTNERS Partners have continued to work together to design this Coastal Bend Landscape Conservation Design to further focus cooperative conservation efforts in the Coastal Bend area. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department(TPWD), Texas Coastal Program, Gulf Coast Joint Venture, Partner’s for Wildlife, Texas Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS), Trust for Public Lands, The Conservation Fund, San Antonio Bay Foundation, Guadalupe Blanco River Authority (GRBA), Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust, The National Wildlife Refuge Association and The International Crane Foundation initiated and/or participated in the development of The Texas Coastal Bend LCD to identify priority habitats for conservation of focal species of fish and wildlife in the area that will be most resilient to changes occurring such as increasing development and sea level rise. The Texas Coastal Bend LCD has been developed to serve as a focus for strategic coordinated cooperative conservation efforts. TEXAS COASTAL BEND The Texas Coastal Bend area contains interests of a combination of Federal and State agencies, non-government organizations, landowners, stakeholders and others. There are approximately 403, 241 acres of protected lands in the Coastal Bend and many organizations involved in landscape conservation. However, many of these protected areas contain habitats that are not valuable to whooping cranes and similar salt marsh obligate species. There are many threats to coastal habitats in the Texas Coastal Bend including invasive animal and plant species, coastal erosion, human development, and climate change (CWS and USF&WS, 2005). Invasive plant species may change the physical structure and composition of habitat. Invasive animal species such as feral hogs can also alter the vegetation community and enhance erosion. Coastal erosion contributes directly to loss of salt marsh. Areas with the highest erosion are often adjacent to high traffic shipping routes such as the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (Evans and Waring, 1993; Evans and Stehn, 1997). The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and other shipping routes also bring chemicals in close proximity to important habitat, increasing the potential for toxic spills that could cause direct mortality of whooping cranes, loss of food resources, and changes to vegetation communities (Robertson, 1993). Increasing oil and gas development further increases the potential for both offshore and land-based spills. Increasing industrial and residential development may cause direct loss of habitat and often increases the frequency of human disturbance. Human disturbance is an indirect threat to whooping crane habitat, potentially leading to abandonment of useable habitat. Climate change increases salt marsh habitat loss via sea-level rise and may have indirect impacts associated with extended periods of drought and increasing storm frequency (Chavez-Ramirez and Wehjte, 2012). Sea-level rise and subsidence in coastal salt marsh is expected to cause loss of wintering habitat converting coastal salt marshes to open water habitats and adjacent coastal prairies and palustrine marshes to coastal salt marshes. Drought periods alter crane habitat in multiple ways such as decreasing freshwater inflows which reduce food sources and alter plant communities in coastal salt marshes (TPWD 1993; NWF 2004). Freshwater inflows are also reduced from increased water use upstream from municipalities and agriculture. This alters flow patterns, reduces sediment supply for salt marshes, and increases channelization. Further hydrological alterations occur from increased ditching, creation of roads, and other man-made changes to natural elevation contours. BACKGROUND Description of the Texas Coastal Bend LCD Area The area included in the Texas Coastal Bend LCD includes at least part of four of the seven major estuary systems of the Texas Gulf Coast stretching from Corpus Christie to Galveston Bay (Figure 1). Matagorda, Aransas, Corpus Christi, and Upper Laguna Madre are shallow and biologically productive estuaries. Although connected, the estuaries are biogeographically

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