2011 Vermont Code
Title 10 Conservation and Development
Chapter 123 PROTECTION OF ENDANGERED SPECIES
§ 5401 Definitions

§ 5401. Definitions

As used in this chapter:

(1) "Agency" means the agency of natural resources.

(2) "Secretary" means the secretary of natural resources.

(3) "Species" includes all subspecies of wildlife or wild plants and any other group of wildlife or wild plants of the same species, the members of which may interbreed when mature.

(4) "Wildlife" means any member of a nondomesticated species of the animal kingdom, whether reared in captivity or not, including without limitation, any mammal, fish, bird, amphibian, reptile, mollusk, crustacean, arthropod or other invertebrate, and also including any part, product, egg, offspring, dead body, or part of the dead body of any such wildlife.

(5) "Plant" means any member of the plant kingdom, including seeds, roots and other parts thereof.

(6) "Endangered species" means a species listed on the state endangered species list under this chapter or determined to be an "endangered species" under the federal Endangered Species Act. The term generally refers to species whose continued existence as a viable component of the state's wild fauna or flora is in jeopardy.

(7) "Threatened species" means a species listed on the state threatened species list under this chapter or determined to be a "threatened species" under the federal Endangered Species Act.

(8) "Endangered Species Act" and "federal Endangered Species Act" means the Endangered Species Act of 1973, Public Law 93-205, as amended.

(9) "Habitat" means the physical and biological environment in which a particular species of plant or animal lives.

(10) "Conserve," "conserving" and "conservation" mean to use and the use of all methods and procedures both for increasing the number of individuals within species and populations of wildlife or wild plants to the optimum carrying capacity of the habitat, and for maintaining those numbers.

(11) "Optimum carrying capacity" for a species means a population level of that species which, in that habitat, can indefinitely coexist with healthy populations of all wildlife and wild plant species normally present.

(12) "Methods" and "procedures" means all activities associated with scientific resources management, including, without limitation, research, census, law enforcement, habitat acquisition and maintenance, propagation, live trapping and transplanting. The terms also include the periodic or continuous protection of species or populations, where appropriate, and the regulated taking of individuals of the species or population in extraordinary cases where population pressures within a habitat cannot be otherwise relieved.

(13) "Possession" of a member of a species means the state of possessing, exporting, importing, processing, selling, offering to sell, delivering, carrying, transporting or shipping by any means a member of that species.

(14) "Taking," with respect to wildlife means "taking" as defined in section 4001 of this title, and with respect to wild plants means uprooting, transplanting, cutting, injuring or killing or any attempt to do the same or assisting another who is doing or is attempting to do the same. (Added 1981, No. 188 (Adj. Sess.), { 2; amended 1985, No. 192 (Adj. Sess.), { 1; 1987, No. 76, { 18.)