Project Name: Nebletts Creek Forest Health and Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project

Project Location: San Jacinto County, Texas

Project Type: Biological Evaluation

Owner: US Forest Service Region 8

Hicks & Company ecologists conducted sensitive and threatened and endangered species habitat evaluations for this approximately 4,380-acre forest thinning project to improve overall forest health and wildlife habitat within three compartments of the Sam Houston National Forest. Ecologists conducted fieldwork and prepared a Biological Evaluation for consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in support of a NEPA Categorical Exclusion which addressed potential effects and proposed conservation measures for the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis), Tricolored Bat (Perimyotis subflavus), Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus), Texas Emerald Dragonfly (Somatochlora margarita), Rafinesque’s Big-eared Bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii), Southeastern Myotis (Myotis austroriparius), Panicled Indigobush (Amorpha paniculata), and Texas Bartonia (Bartonia texana). During field investigations, ecologists found and documented a previously unknown population of Texas Bartonia.