Cliff paintbrush (Castilleja rupicola) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 12

Existing protection or other status designations

International status

Castilleja rupicola is not covered under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Endangered Species Act (USA) or the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Data Book. Globally, C. rupicola has a rank of G2G3 indicating that in most of its range the plant is either “imperiled because of rarity (typically 6-20 extant occurrences or few remaining individuals) or because of some factor(s) making it vulnerable to extirpation or extinction” or it is ”rare or uncommon (typically 21-100 extant occurrences); may be susceptible to large-scale disturbances; e.g., may have lost extensive peripheral populations” (NatureServe 2003).

This species is ranked SR and SU, in Washington and Oregon, respectively, by NatureServe (2003). The SU rank for Oregon indicates that the species is “unrankable”. The Oregon Natural Heritage Information Center (2003), however, has ranked C. rupicola as S2S3. The SR rank for Washington is also in error since that rank should indicate that a species is “reported for the state, but without persuasive evidence for either accepting or rejecting the report”. In fact, the species may be found in the floristic treatments of Jones (1938), Muenscher (1941), Ownbey (1959), Douglas (1971) and Taylor and Douglas (1995). The latter two floras mention that it is common in the western North Cascade Range of Washington. The correct rank should be S?, indicating that it has yet to be ranked (NatureServe 2003).


National and provincial status

Since the species in Canada is restricted to British Columbia, it has a national rank of N2. Provincially, Castilleja rupicola is ranked by the Conservation Data Centre as S2 and appears on the British Columbia Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management Red List (Douglas et al. 2002). The S2 rank is one of the most critical ranks that can be applied to species at the provincial level and indicates that the species is "imperiled because of rarity (typically six to 20 extant occurrences or very few remaining individuals) or because of some factor(s) making it very susceptible to extirpation or extinction".

Recent changes in legislation brought about with the passage of the Wildlife Amendment Act of British Columbia allow for the listing and protection of plants under the Act. At this time, however, the necessary regulations for the Act are not in place and this species does not occur on the list of four species currently protected under the Act. Some of the populations of C. rupicola in British Columbia, however, are protected by the Provincial Parks Act which does not allow such activities as logging and mining.

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