Greater short-horned lizard COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 10

Existing Protection or Other Status Designations

Very recently, Alberta’s Minister of Sustainable Resource Development has approved the listing and protection of the Short-horned Lizard in Alberta as Endangered under the Wildlife Act (Robin Gutsell pers. comm.). Greater Short-horned Lizards were previously categorized as May Be At Risk in the “General Status of Alberta Wild Species 2000” publication (ASRD 2000). The Alberta Wildlife Act provides legal protection for the species in Alberta where it is listed as a Non-Game Animal under Schedule 4 Part 5 of the Wildlife Regulation Section of the Alberta Wildlife Act (Government of Alberta 2006). The Alberta Natural Heritage Information Centre, as of 2004, had ranked Phrynosoma hernandesi as S2 due to its localized distribution in Alberta and low number of occurrences (ANHIC 2004).

In Saskatchewan, the provincial Wildlife Act governs protection of this species. Short-horned Lizards are exempted from hunting under General Hunting Restrictions, Part II, Section 4(1)a of the W-13.1 Reg. 1 Wildlife Regulations (Government of Saskatchewan 1981). The Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre (2005) lists the provincial protection status as Vulnerable (proposed), with a provincial rank of S2S3.

COSEWIC designated Phrynosoma hernandesi as a species of Special Concern in 1992 (COSEWIC 2005). This federal level designation is based upon apparently small, localized, isolated populations that are restricted to pockets of favourable habitat (COSEWIC 2005). The Species At Risk Act public registry also assigns the Greater Short-horned Lizard to the Special Concern category, under Schedule 3 (SARA Public Registry 2006). The Greater Short-horned Lizard is listed by the Nature Conservancy as N2N3 in Canada, and in the U.S. as N5 (NatureServe 2005).

In Montana, the only U.S. state with the potential for contiguous populations with those in Canada, the Greater Short-horned Lizard is listed as a Montana Species of Concern with a Global Rank of G5 and a state rank of S3 (MNHP 2006; NatureServe 2005). The G5 ranking is assigned to species that are not vulnerable over most of their range. Within Montana, the S3 ranking suggests it is potentially at risk due to limited and possibly declining numbers and limited habitat extent, although it may be locally abundant in some areas. The Montana Species of Concern category includes taxa that are, or may be at-risk for reasons of rarity, restricted distribution, habitat loss, and/or other factors. The status rank for this species put forward by both the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is ‘Sensitive’. For the BLM this is defined as “…any species proven to be imperiled in at least part of its range and documented to occur on BLM lands” (MNHP 2006).

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