The newly updated State Wildlife Action Plan 2025 was released this week by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The plan highlights how California should protect wildlife throughout the state.
The State Wildlife Action Plan is updated every 10 years and focuses on protecting habitats and species, like snakes, bats, fish and frogs, that are not legally listed as endangered, but are at risk, as well as those that are on the endangered list.
Cassidee Shinn, an environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the plan identifies where the most imperiled habitats are.
“It can be seen as a blueprint or visionary guiding document to help not only the department, but also conservation planners statewide, understand, like where we should or where we can focus our efforts,” said Shinn.
Shinn said one California conservation project that benefits from the plan is the Snake Fungal Disease surveillance project, which monitors snakes that are vulnerable to the disease first found in California in 2019.
The nearly 900 hundred page plan was put together by over 175 staff members and around 100 representatives from state and federal agencies and tribes.
The plan makes California eligible for federal funding though the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service State Wildlife Grant program.
