Kansas is the home of 21 endangered species and another 29 that are threatened.
The world has more than 7,000 endangered species, and the United States designates a species as threatened or endangered if the following occurs:
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Its habitat or range is threatened with destruction, modification or curtailment.
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It is overutilized for commercial, recreational, scientific or educational purposes.
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It is diseased or overly predated.
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Existing regulatory mechanisms to protect the animal are inadequate.
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If natural or manmade factors are affecting a species’ continued existence.
In Kansas, there are more than 20,000 species, and some may be listed as endangered due to the rarity of an animal’s specialized adaption or to an imminent threat to the species continued existence.
An employee holds three black-footed ferret kits being raised at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center in Colorado for reintroduction into the wild.
Kansas’s endangered mammals
There are only two endangered mammals in Kansas. The black-footed ferret lived throughout central and western Kansas and have typically lived alongside prairie dogs, which make up about 90% of its diet.
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks points to conversion of its habitat to rangeland and the poisoning of prairie dogs. The black-footed ferret was declared extinct in 1979, but later surveys discovered wild populations. It’s now believed there are about 200 mature black-footed ferret in the wild across 18 populations.
The gray bat is a species of microbat with a habitat in Kansas carving out a sliver of the Ozark Plateau in the southeastern corner of the state. Though the bat is “almost totally cave dwelling,” according to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, its only known population in Kansas is a series of storm sewers in the southeast corner of the state.
A colony of gray bats live at Sequiota Cave in Springfield, Missouri. In Kansas, their only known location is in sewer drains.
Kansas’s endangered birds
The least tern is a small migratory bird that can be found throughout Kansas during migratory periods in the summer. Of three subspecies of least terns, two are considered endangered.
The largest American bird, the whooping crane, has historical habitat in south-central Kansas, where it generally passed through during migratory periods in spring and fall. The species declined due to unregulated hunting and habitat loss, it rebounded from a low of just 21 wild whooping cranes in 1941 to about 800 birds today.
Whooping cranes stop briefly in Kansas during migratory periods.
Kansas’s endangered fish
The pallid sturgeon can get as large as five feet long, and usually reside in main channels of large turbid rivers where currents are swift. The fish was common during the 20th century, but it’s believed habitat loss dwindled the numbers with the channeling and damming of the Missouri River.
Pallid sturgeon were once common in the United States but are now considered endangered.
Three species of chub are considered endangered:
The 2.5-inch peppered chub is found in the lower Arkansas River and its major tributaries, but due to the dewatering of western Kansas streams, it’s now limited to lower portions of the river’s basin in Kansas.
The sicklefin chub is found in the Missouri River in the northeast portion of the state, favoring areas with a strong current.
The silver chub used to be common in the Kansas and Missouri rivers, but the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History hasn’t documented a specimen in the Kansas River since 1980.
The Arkansas River Shiner was formerly common in the Arkansas River but is reliant on flood flows and has fared poorly with reduced streamflow.
Kansas endangered amphibians
The spotted cave salamander, like the gray bat, is only present in a small sliver of the Ozark Plateau in southeast Kansas. It lives in pitch-black caves or near cold springs in the forest. The second edition “Pocket Guide to Kansas Threatened and Endangered Species” says the salamander is a “unique component of Kansas natural heritage” because the habitat itself is uncommon in Kansas.
The grotto salamander resides in the same region as the spotted cave salamander in southeast Kansas. They are blind cave-dwelling salamander that grow up to 5 inches long.
Freshwater mussels make up eight of 11 endangered invertebrates in Kansas.
Kansas’s endangered invertebrates
Of the 11 endangered invertebrates in Kansas, eight are mussels:
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Cylindrical papershell mussel.
The American burying beetle only has one habitat in Kansas in Scott State Park.
There are also two endangered species of beetle in the state, with the American burying beetle losing ground in the eastern third of the state and the Scott optioservus riffle beetle only known to reside in Scott State Park in Scott County.
The slender walker snail has one isolated population in northeast Kansas wetlands. The U.S. government doesn’t consider them endangered, but Kansas does.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas has 21 species that are considered endangered. Where they are.