Citrus County, FL Tree Protection: Protected Tree Species (2026)

S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) list as endangered, threatened, or of special concern. The section reaches two kinds of projects: nonresidential development exceeding five acres reviewed through the site development plan process, and new residential development reviewed through platting, whenever the land carries native vegetative communities and wildlife habitat. Covered developers must submit three copies of a professionally prepared biological survey documenting the wildlife and native plant communities present, and that survey must follow the standards and criteria the FFWCC has adopted.

The substantive protection follows directly from the survey: destroying an endangered, threatened, or special-concern species, or altering an area where such a species has been documented, is prohibited unless the FFWCC or USFWS authorizes it. Authorization must take the form of a state or federal permit obtained before any development activity begins on the site; the county's own approval does not substitute for that permit. Once a biological survey comes in, the Department of Growth Management forwards a copy to the FFWCC and USFWS, and where listed species turn up, mitigation, protective measures, or taking permits from those agencies become a condition of moving forward, with the property owner or their designee responsible for obtaining them.

This is a Land Development Code standard, so it governs unincorporated Citrus County only; it does not apply to land inside the City of Crystal River or the City of Inverness, each of which administers its own separate code.