Banff Springs snail (Physella johnsoni) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 12

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Existing Protection or Other Status Designations

The Banff Springs Snail is currently on Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act (SARA) and therefore protected under provisions of SARA (Statutes of Canada 2002). It was originally designated Threatened by COSEWIC in April 1997 and then uplisted to Endangered in May 2000 (COSEWIC 2006). Because the only population is found within Banff National Park, P. johnsoni is protected under provisions of the Canadian National Parks Act. Furthermore, a Banff National Park Superintendent Restricted Activity Order prohibits entry and the handling or disturbing of any organic material and/or aquatic wildlife at the Kidney and C&BNHS springs and outflow streams. The area immediately surrounding Kidney spring has been closed to the public since November 2001. The area enclosing Gord’s, Upper Middle, and Lower Middle are within the Sulphur Mountain wildlife corridor (Parks Canada 1997), also closed to the public since 1995. NatureServe (2006) assigns a global rank of G1 and an Alberta provincial rank of S1 primarily from information in the original COSEWIC status report (Lepitzki 1997a) and the Alberta status report (Lepitzki 2002b).

Direction for the species’ research and recovery program since January 1996 has been provided by the Parks Canada approved Resource Management Plan (Lepitzki et al. 2002b). Future direction is given in the Recovery Strategy and Action Plan (Lepitzki and Pacas 2007).