A wetland plant that thrives in the vernal pools and sinkhole ponds of Pennsylvania and other Eastern states will no longer receive federal protections after a more than 30-year recovery effort that led its population to rebound.
The northeastern bulrush, a grassy sedge with a brown flowering crown that inhabits marshy regions of states ranging from Virginia to New Hampshire, has recovered sufficiently to warrant removal from the list of endangered and threatened species, the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded in a Federal Register filing scheduled to publish Wednesday.
With only 13 known populations when the plant was listed as endangered in 1991, the FWS said there are now 148 known populations in eight states.
Nearly 60 percent of the plant populations are in Pennsylvania, while more than a fifth are in Vermont and almost 10 percent in New Hampshire. The bulrush still retains protections under state laws in all states where it resides save for West Virginia, which has no endangered species law, according to the FWS. Sixty percent of its populations are found on public land.
