WFF Updating Plan for Imperiled and At-Risk Species

February 7, 2025 - MONTGOMERY, AL - Every 10 years, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' (ADCNR) Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division (WFF) is required to update its State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) to be eligible for federal funding that is crucial to many endangered and threatened species in the state.

ADCNR staff members are currently in the process of updating the SWAP, which will be submitted by September 2025. The Congressional State Wildlife Grant (SWG) assists state fish and wildlife agencies in the conservation of species of greatest conservation need (SGCN).

"This will be our third SWAP that our agency has done," said Traci Wood, WFF's Habitat and Species Conservation Coordinator. "This is required by Congress to receive the grants, which are important for the recovery and restoration of the Alabama species that are imperiled or at risk. The SWAP is a roadmap to guide us and our conservation partners in Alabama when identifying priorities for species recovery efforts. Recovery efforts can include research and surveys to better understand population status of our imperiled species, habitat restoration or land acquisition, which is the most effective way to ensure permanent protection for imperiled species and their habitats. That is all imbedded in the SWAP for all species in greatest conservation need."

Examples of identified species in current or previous SWAPs are the Eastern Indigo snake, gopher tortoise, red-cockaded woodpeckers, the Alabama Pearlshell and other endangered mussels, and crayfish, just to name a few. SWAP-related funding is also used to operate the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center, where numerous species of aquatic mollusks are studied and recovered. WFF's Fisheries Section also has a Rivers and Streams Program to monitor and collect data on imperiled fishes in Alabama.

"The Eastern Indigo was identified in previous SWAPS, and that reintroduction program has been underway for the past 12 years," Wood said. "This has been the main funding mechanism for the reintroduction of the Eastern Indigo snake in the Conecuh National Forest for the entire project's life.

"The mussel recovery at the Biodiversity Center includes the Alabama Pearlshell, the Southern Combshell, Finelined Pocketbook, Alabama Lampmussell, Orangenacre Mucket and Coosa Moccassinshell."

Alabama's largest crayfish species, the Tennessee Bottlebrush Crayfish, has been petitioned for federal listing as endangered. It lives in the Shoal Creek drainage of the Tennessee River.

"It's important to remember the history with crayfish because so many people are surprised by the fact we have crayfish research going on," Wood said. "We have 100 recognized crayfish species in Alabama, but most people think we have a few. We added crayfish in our second SWAP revision in 2015, which enabled us to expand the research needs for crayfish."

The taxa groups (biological classifications) included in the SWAP are birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, gastropods, mussels, snails and crayfish. WFF is adding imperiled plants to the plan for first time.

Wood said the conservation groups participating in the SWAP have to rank affected species according to conservation priorities. If the species is of conservation concern, they are ranked Priority 1 through 3.

"We've gone through the rankings for all of those taxa groups, and 200 of those plants species have been identified as Priority 1 in Alabama," she said. "We reviewed more than 6,000 plants in that taxa group.

"We focus on Priority 1 and Priority 2. Priority 3s are of moderate conservation concern. The P3s are species we think are going to be okay, but we may not have the data to support that. That is just field observation and hasn't had any research performed. We assign a priority rank in each species, identify the threat and identify conservation actions needed to protect that species."

In addition to conservation groups, the public is encouraged to participate in the review process. The public can submit reviews online on the SWAP website listed below or at public meetings that will be announced at http://www.outdooralabama.com.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will perform a review process and determine final approval. Wood said in the past five years, those grants and matching funds have resulted in a $1.2 million expenditure annually for the plan.

Wood praised the efforts of Ashley Peters, ADCNR State Lands Division GIS (Geographic Information System) specialist, and Katie Lawson, assistant professor of Environmental Sciences at Auburn University, in helping to make the SWAP revision process more efficient. The duo used the ArcGIS suite of products to develop a program to help the experts across the nine taxa groups in submitting surveys prior to in-person meetings. This information was used to determine the SGCN rankings. Almost 5,000 surveys were submitted by the experts across all nine taxa groups. These data were then analyzed, and a dashboard was used to display summarized data during meetings, which greatly facilitated and expedited the process of reaching consensus on SGCN rankings.

"Gathering information on the approximately 2,000 species considered by the taxa teams and reaching consensus on SGCN status has been difficult and time-consuming during previous revisions," Wood said. "We sought to streamline this process. We wanted to standardize the approach in revising the SWAP. Now everybody is on the same page. A regional project was developed to guide state fish and wildlife agencies to do that. We took part of that regional project and applied it to what we needed in Alabama. What Ashley and Katie did was take my thoughts to develop a database and dashboard so all of the reviewers, the experts so to speak, could fill out the database and answer the same questions to come to a conclusion of what the SGCN rank should be.

"It not only standardized the approach and made sure the experts reviewed taxa groups in the same way, but it also cut down on the number of in-person meetings. It is very time-consuming to review taxa groups. This had a lot of the work done prior to our in-person meetings. It took a day to go through each taxa group instead of five, six or seven days."

For their efforts to improve the SWAP process, Peters and Lawson were awarded the Excellence in GIS Award from the Alabama Geographic Information Office at the 2024 GIS of Alabama Conference held at Gulf State Park in November 2024.

"With their background and GIS experience, Ashley and Katie were able to create a database online for participants to use," Wood said. "It was such a great product that they were recognized for its excellence."

Visit http://www.outdooralabama.com/2025-swap-update for more information about the species of animals and plants in the SWAP revision as well as the process involved.