State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) are developed by U.S. states and territories to help conserve wildlife and habitat before they come under consideration for listing by the FWS. In 2005, all 50 States and five U.S. Territories developed a SWAP and submitted them for approval to the FWS as a condition for receiving funding through the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants program. Each plan includes the identification of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) for that state, an evaluation of threats and identification of action steps to recover and conserve imperiled wildlife. Required revisions (every 10 years or less) to SWAPs occurred in 2015 with all 50 States and five U.S. territories submitting their current plans for review and compilation into a national list.
The SGCN are identified and evaluated using a variety of information sources and criteria, including current state and federal status, NatureServe Network Programs and other wildlife occurrence databases, data from other planning efforts and assessments (including data from DoD and installations), and input from agency biologists, academics, and other scientific experts. States identify SGCN based on a variety of criteria: if a species had low populations, had already been formally identified as a conservation priority, or showed other signs of imminent decline, it was flagged for attention. Some states use a tiered approach, prioritizing their state’s wildlife of concern in two or more levels of concern or priority. Because each state uses a different approach, the wildlife identified as SGCN vary significantly. For example, the South Carolina action plan identifies more than 1,200 species in need of conservation, while the North Dakota wildlife action plan identifies 100 (Oberbilling, undated). In partnership with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the U.S. Geological Survey developed a process that allows the SGCN from all the state plans to be compiled and accessible via the Species Conservation Analysis Tool29.
Under a Legacy Program grant, Klopfer and Kane (2017) developed a “downscaling” process for integrating SWAP SGCNs into INRMPs to minimize federal listings that could impact military training. This approach aims to reduce the number of SGCN at each step of the downscaling process described below (Klopfer and Kane 2017):
- Determine the installation landscape—e.g., ecological or administrative boundaries, existing off-installation partnerships, or shared boundaries and conservation goals with neighbors.
- Identify Wildlife Action Plan SGCN and associated information, e.g., data, threats and management actions.
- Identify species within the installation landscape.
- Identify SWAP priority SGCN on the installation.
- Determine which priority SGCN are installation priorities.
- Identify associated threats and conservation actions.;
- Conservation opportunities, existing efforts, and potential mission conflicts.
Klopfer and Kane (2017) recommend focusing on the integration of specific SGCN especially where:
- The installation comprises a significant portion of the species’ range.
- Installation activities provide unique opportunities.
- Economies of scale with habitat conservation are achievable.
- The installation is critical for continued presence within the greater landscape.
29https://www1.usgs.gov/csas/swap/
Next Page: DoD species at risk
Author
David S. Jones, RA IV, Ecologist/Project Manager
Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands
Warner College of Natural Resources
Colorado State University