The interim 4(d) rule’s main impacts on forest management on lands identified within the White-Nose Syndrome buffer areas, as of its May 4 effective date, will be:

 

(1)  On land which USF&WS has confirmed to be a Northern Long-Eared Bat cave or other hibernation space ("hibernaculum") that was occupied last winter, there is to be no forest management or harvesting within a quarter mile of that cave at any time during the year - without risk of being held liable for any "incidental take" of a bat as a result of such operations.  However, the landowner does not have to prove there is not a hibernaculum - it is enough to ask USF&WS field office representatives whether their surveys indicate that there is.

 

(2)  If there is a known bat roosting-tree on your land - again, USF&WS’s records are considered sufficient - you cannot clearcut or conduct other intensive management within a quarter-mile of that tree from June 1 through July 31, if you want to have the 4(d) rule’s protection against liability for "incidental takes."  Although you may do some sort of (undefined) non-intensive management during that period, you must be sure not to harvest the roosting tree, itself. Outside of that period, you can manage the land as you prefer. That guidance seems to permit burning, spraying as well as harvesting, during the other 10 months of the year.

 

(3)  If you convert hardwood forest to "intensively managed pine monoculture," you cannot claim the 4(d) rule’s protection from liability for "incidental takes" of the bat for land associated with those operations.

 

There is much emphasis on "known" bat locations (hibernacula or roost trees); but the standard for "known" seems to be, not what you know but what USF&WS knows.