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State Wildlife Action Plan

A plan for conserving California's wildlife resources while responding to environmental challenges

CDFW conducted a comprehensive review and update of the California State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP). The draft was made available for public comment in March 2025 and a recording of a public presentation is now available. Please find more information on the review process along with the recorded presentation and other resources below.

California’s distinctive topography and climate have given rise to a remarkable diversity of habitats that support a multitude of plant and animal species. In fact, California has more species than any other state in the U.S. and also has the greatest number of species that occur nowhere else in the world. Many of the places where wildlife thrive are the same as those valued for recreation and other human activities. To ensure a sustainable future for wildlife – and the enjoyment of wildlife by generations to come – there is a need for a collaborative approach to conservation.

The State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) examines the health of wildlife and prescribes actions to conserve wildlife and vital habitat before they become more rare and more costly to protect. The plan also promotes wildlife conservation while furthering responsible development and addressing the needs of a growing human population.

CDFW released the draft SWAP 2025 for public review and hosted two Public Information Sessions in March. Please find a session recording and more information below under “External Partner, Tribal, and Public Engagement”. The public is welcome to contact the SWAP staff with comments or questions by email to SWAP@wildlife.ca.gov. Comments submitted on the draft after March 31, 2025 may not be considered for the SWAP 2025, but will be considered for future updates. Please utilize this online form to submit comments on the draft.


SWAP 2025 Update Information and Additional Resources

External Partner, Tribal, and Public Engagement

The SWAP update presents an opportunity to conduct a progress evaluation and incorporate new information and lessons learned since 2015. As part of the process, CDFW hosted two Public Information Sessions in March 2025 to provide an overview of SWAP, share proposed updates, and to answer questions. A recording of the presentation can be found here.

Presentation recording: 2025 update of CDFW's Wildlife Action Plan. Slide Deck (PDF)

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    SWAP Update Phases

    The comprehensive revision process includes several phases as outlined below:

    • Phase 1: CDFW scientists and managers statewide to evaluate progress since 2015 and to develop a draft SWAP 2025; Solicit external partner SWAP feedback and perspectives via an online survey (July 2022 - February 2025).
    • Phase 2: Conduct a public review of the draft SWAP 2025 and ensure all interested parties, including tribal governments, external partners, and the public, are provided opportunities to contribute suggestions (March 2025).
    • Phase 3: Finalize and submit the SWAP 2025 to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (April - October 2025).
    • Phase 4: Publish final SWAP 2025 online (TBD)

    Data Layers

    Visit BIOS and click on the “BIOS 6 Viewer (Public & Secure)” button. Then, enter “State Wildlife Action Plan” into the “Add Data: BIOS” search box at the top of the screen. The available GIS data includes SWAP province boundaries, aquatic targets, and terrestrial targets. Clicking on any of the layers will open a popup box that allows users to download the GIS data and metadata. Additionally, you can view these layers on a CDFW SWAP Map hosted on ArcGIS.These provinces, conservation units, and targets are discussed in Chapters 5 and 6 of the 2015 SWAP 2015.

    User Guidance for Prospective Grantees and Others

    If you have ever applied for a State Wildlife Grant, you likely needed to consider how your proposed project would address the objectives of the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP). For those and others who wonder how their conservation projects can help implement SWAP, here are some basic guidelines:

    Will the project cover most of the state? If so, see whether there is alignment between the goal of the project vs. the goals listed in the chapter regarding statewide conservation strategies (PDF) (see page 4-3).

    OR

    If the project cannot be considered “statewide”, determine the ecoregion(s) in which the project is to be sited. You can use this GIS map tool. (Note: this guidance applies to all but anadromous fishes, which are covered in Vol. 1, Chapter 6 (PDF).)

    1. In the tool, enter the location name (e.g., for a city, county, park, etc.) or project coordinates in the gray search box (top right-hand side of the webpage). (You could also just click around on the map, but it may be easiest to use the search function.)p
    2. Then, click on the black dot that appears on the map. This will prompt the white box that appears beneath the search box to display the terrestrial and aquatic conservation unit(s), which can be viewed by clicking on the small blue arrow button that appears at the top of the white box.p

    Make note of the SWAP province(s), which correspond to SWAP 2015 Vol. 1, Chapters 5.1-5.7, as well as the terrestrial and aquatic conservation units, which correspond to the conservation targets prioritized in SWAP 2015 for the specific province(s) covering your project area.

    If the conservation target(s) do include your target habitat or the habitat in which your target species is typically found, it is possible that SWAP 2015 does not consider it to be a major priority (“conservation strategies were fully developed only for the targets that contained the greatest number of SCGN and that were most immediately threatened”) or does not prioritize it because it is covered by another plan (for example, through the Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) program).

    In this case, check to see whether your target species is listed as SGCN in SWAP 2015 Appendix C (PDF). If it is not, SWAP 2015 acknowledges that it is “an adaptive management plan that will continually be updated, revised, and improved, based on the input and deliberations of all those involved in wildlife conservation.” It makes sense that threats to species and habitats will change over time, so you could still make a case for your project, given the latest information that has yet to be incorporated into SWAP.