Properties occupied by Florida Scrub-Jays need a federal Incidental Take Permit to clear land or build. Getting one starts with a Scrub-Jay survey, submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for evaluation alongside your local permit filing. If the survey shows impacts to Scrub-Jays, USFWS will require a strategy for avoidance, minimization, and/or mitigation before the Incidental Take Permit is issued. Some Florida counties have a blanket Incidental Take Permit already in place, which makes the process meaningfully faster and cheaper than going through it parcel by parcel.
In counties without a blanket Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) agreement with USFWS, plan on roughly a 12-month lead time for permitting and mitigation before you can start clearing or prepping a Scrub-Jay-listed parcel for development. Counties with an approved, active HCP move on a timeframe closer to a non-Scrub-Jay lot.
If your lot appears in a Scrub-Jay database or list, and your county doesn't have an HCP in place, here's the general path:
- Hire an environmental consultant to determine whether a Scrub-Jay survey is needed.
- If the survey shows Scrub-Jays present, the survey results go to USFWS for evaluation.
- If the survey is negative, you can submit the results along with your building permit application.
- If USFWS confirms the lot isn't occupied and you've filed a building permit, USFWS sends the county a confirming letter.
- If Scrub-Jays are present, you apply for an Incidental Take Permit before building or clearing vegetation. That requires an approved conservation plan covering impact avoidance, minimization, and/or mitigation.
Mitigation: if mitigation is required, replacement ratios are set by the specific Habitat Conservation Plan or permit conditions that apply to your parcel — historically cited planning estimates have ranged from roughly 2:1 up to 3–4:1 (acres set aside per acre taken), but there's no single fixed federal ratio, and the number that applies to your property depends on the county and the current HCP or permit terms. Mitigation is typically satisfied through title to other Scrub-Jay-occupied land, a conservation easement, purchased credits at a Scrub-Jay conservation bank, or payment to a Scrub-Jay land acquisition fund. Incidental Take Permits are issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — confirm the current ratio with USFWS or your county's HCP administrator before budgeting a project.
Incidental Take Permit basics: applying requires the permit applicant to prepare a conservation plan. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) defines a "take" as habitat destruction, harassment in any form, harming, hunting, trapping, or collecting a threatened or endangered species — in short, anything that interferes with a Scrub-Jay's continued existence.
- A complete count of all Scrub-Jay groups onsite.
- An approximate territory map or home-range center for each group.
- Dates, with start and end times, of all surveys conducted.
- Weather conditions for each survey: average temperature, wind speed and direction, visibility, and precipitation.
- Total number of Scrub-Jay groups found, and the number of Scrub-Jays (and juvenile-plumaged birds) in each group.
- An aerial photo or vegetation map showing the full area of interest, transect lines and playback stations, locations of all Scrub-Jays seen or heard (including flight direction), and approximate territory boundaries between groups.
Survey reports for South Florida counties go to: USFWS Scrub-Jay Survey, 1339 20th St., Vero Beach, FL 32960-3559. For North Florida counties: USFWS Scrub-Jay Survey, 7915 Baymeadows Way, Suite 200, Jacksonville, FL 32256-7517.
Clearing without a permit: clearing a lot with endangered species or endangered-species habitat present can violate the Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 1533–1540) — a Class A misdemeanor carrying potential fines up to $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for business entities, up to 1 year in jail, and civil penalties up to $25,000.
If you know your lot is a Scrub-Jay lot, you're technically required to disclose that to a potential buyer — Florida's Vacant Land Disclosure form specifically asks whether the property has endangered or protected species present. If you've discovered Scrub-Jays on land you want to sell, get advice on the best way to position and market it before you list.
If you're buying a Scrub-Jay lot as a long-hold investment, the birds are, unfortunately, projected to be gone from much of their range by the time you're ready to sell (see the outlook below). Once a parcel is removed from the Scrub-Jay list, its value should move in line with a comparable non-Scrub lot. As long as you bought the Scrub-Jay lot below the market value of an equivalent non-Scrub lot, you should come out ahead versus a lot purchased at full market value over the same holding period. A federal recovery plan exists that could still change this outlook if it succeeds (linked below).
Coverage varies by county, and sometimes by city within a county. As of this writing, Sarasota County's list ran about a page and a half of Scrub-Jay parcels, while North Port's own list (North Port is a city within Sarasota County) ran 37 pages. If your parcel is inside a city, check with that city's zoning department to see whether it keeps its own list or defers to the county's.
Budget for the 12-month lead time noted above in counties without a blanket HCP, and factor mitigation costs into your acquisition math from the start — not after you've already closed.
Charlotte County put a blanket mitigation solution in place in 2014: a Scrub-Jay Habitat Conservation Plan that includes a blanket Incidental Take Permit from USFWS, developed in consultation with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Once land acquisitions and allotments are complete, the resulting reserve totals roughly 4,500 acres, managed in perpetuity for the Scrub-Jays' benefit. Charlotte County is responsible for keeping the HCP compliant with the Endangered Species Act. Before this blanket approach existed, mitigating a typical quarter-acre Scrub-Jay lot cost $15,000–$20,000; under the HCP, permitting cost for that same size lot dropped to roughly $3,400 on top of normal permitting fees.
| Lot size | Permitting cost |
|---|---|
| 0 – 0.22 acre | $1,700 |
| 0.23 – 0.49 acre | $3,400 |
| 0.50 – 1.00 acre | $6,499 |
| 1.01 – 3.00 acres | $19,780 |
| 3.01 – 5.00 acres | $52,696 |
| 5.01 – 20.00 acres | $118,527 |
| 20.01 – 99.99 acres | $492,959 |
| 100+ acres | $1,962,205 |
At 3.01 acres and up, on-site conservation may be required in addition to the listed fee.
Sarasota County, unlike Charlotte, has no blanket HCP or blanket Incidental Take Permit in place. That means filing a report directly with USFWS — a straightforward process, but one that takes time and can get expensive. Check with your city or county zoning department for current filing instructions before you start.
The Florida Scrub-Jay population has declined an estimated 90% over the last 100 years. These birds have existed for roughly 2 million years but are now on the verge of extinction in parts of the state — driven initially by habitat loss from housing development and land clearing for agriculture, and worsened as remaining habitat gets fragmented, isolating family groups from each other and reducing breeding opportunities.
The Herald Tribune reported on September 30, 2021 that, according to Elizabeth Landrum, a USFWS authority on Scrub-Jays, the birds in North Port are aging out without reproducing enough to sustain the population — her outlook was that North Port would have no Scrub-Jays left by 2032, calling it "just a matter of how long it takes for them to die off."
Sarasota, Charlotte, DeSoto, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties, plus parts of Lee, Pasco, and Manatee counties — North Port, Englewood, Punta Gorda, Valrico, Brandon, Lithia, FishHawk, and wherever clients call in from. Personalized referral service is also available statewide, including a price opinion before the referral is made.
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