FWS Announces Work Plan For ESA Listing And Critical Habitat Decisions Through 2023

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has released a National Listing Workplan outlining its planned approach to address a backlog of Endangered Species Act listing petitions and critical habitat decisions for species over the next seven years. The Workplan includes 30 candidate species that FWS previously determined warrant ESA protection, as well as 320 other species based on third party listing petitions, and 11 species FWS has determined to evaluate as discretionary status reviews.

The Workplan utilizes FWS' new methodology for prioritizing status reviews published earlier this year. Under this methodology, FWS uses a bin approach by placing each species in one of five bins based on various components of the listing petition for that species. FWS prioritizes the review of species that appear to be critically imperiled; followed by those species for which the Service has strong data available; and those species for which new science is underway to better