CNDDB News Blog

California Amphibian and Reptile Species of Special Concern (Thomson, Wright, and Shaffer 2016), a collaborative project of California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the University of California, Davis, is now available for PDF download. The publication provides a synthesis of the conservation risk faced by California’s amphibians and reptiles that qualify as Species of Special Concern. Using a full list of the native amphibian and reptile taxa known to occur in the state and eight metrics that capture key elements of declining and at-risk species, 73 nominee taxa were scored based on an extensive literature review and evaluation by a Technical Advisory Committee. Peer-reviewed species accounts for each of the resulting 45 Species of Special Concern, now available in PDF format, provide available information on their basic biology, known or hypothesized reasons for decline, proposed management, and future research needs. The result is a clear, transparent publication that explicitly states why decisions were made, supports them with a summary of the best available science, and contributes in a meaningful way to the conservation goals of our State Wildlife Action Plan.

A curious mind never runs short of unanswered questions. While the great mysteries remain unsolved, we can offer to shed some light on the CNDDB.

We have gathered our most frequently asked user questions and created a new FAQ page. Topics include CNDDB lingo, data submission, tools and products, subscriptions, and more.

If you take a look at the page and feel like you still have unanswered questions, write us an email and we will get in touch with you. If we get enough questions, we may address those in future blog posts and/or update the FAQ page.

Does the CNDDB ever seem like a black box? Confused about when to use which of our products? Locked down by the pandemic and hungry for something new?

Since we have also been working from home and unable to meet with our users in-person, this seemed like the right time to revise some training material. We have just released a modernized version of our CNDDB overview video. It covers why we do what we do, how we process information, and what products we make available to others. This video will help you get the most from your CNDDB access, with an awareness of some pitfalls and misconceptions about our products. Even our most seasoned subscribers will likely learn a thing or two.

While we recommend that all users of our database are familiar with all of the content in this video, if you only have a few minutes to spare or just want to know about a particular topic, you can click on a link to jump ahead to the relevant section in the video.

Check it out on our training webpage!