Much of the wildlife conservation that occurs in the United States is due to state fish and wildlife agencies. Up until recently, land and wildlife conservation was largely funded by fees and taxes associated with hunting and fishing and was directed, as would thus be expected, towards game species management and protection.  This left the other 90 percent of America’s non-game wildlife at risk for local extirpation, and quite possibly extinction.  In 2000, Congress created the State Wildlife Grants Program with the hopes of rectifying this dire situation.  The program allocates federal funding for wildlife conservation to each and every state that has developed a State Wildlife Action plan with the goal of preventing wildlife from becoming endangered in a cost-effective manner.

The State Wildlife Grants Program put the responsibility of creating a statewide wildlife action plan or “comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy” on each individual state and territory.  The purpose of these plans is to identify species and habitats of greatest conservation need while developing directed strategies geared toward conserving all wildlife species and distinct natural areas for decades to come.  State Wildlife Action Plans put a priority on preventing species from being listed by the Endangered Species Act through effective conservation measures in order to save taxpayer dollars from the costly impacts of listing a species.  Ultimately, this proactive approach allows federal and state wildlife agencies to identify specific conservation concerns while protecting at risk wildlife and habitats before they become considerably more costly to do so.

The implementation of State Wildlife Action Plans occurs through a guided, step-by-step process known as “strategic habitat conservation.”  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes SHC as,  “A framework for setting and achieving conservation objectives at multiple scales based on the best available information, data, and ecological models.”  This process aims to determine the most efficient manner through which stable populations of all species within a state can be achieved (the conservation of populations) and maintained (the conservation of the ecological functions that sustain them) by way of prioritizing habitat/land conservation.

The implementation of SHC occurs through the use of four elements that form an “adaptive management loop:”

Biological Planning

a. Identify a priority species (i.e., species of greatest conservation need)

b. Formulate population objectives

c. Assess the current state of the populations

Conservation Design

d. Designate priority conservation areas/habitats

e. Formulate habitat objectives and design

Deliver of Conservation Actions

f. Implement the comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy/wildlife action plan

Monitoring and Research

g. Continued monitoring of populations to determine long-term success

h. Adjust the wildlife action plan as necessary (adaptive management)