Species Status Assessments Under The Endangered Species Act

On February 28, 2023, I published a post on the Center for California Water Resources Policy and Management's DeltaCurrents blog discussing Species Status Assessments (SSAs) as a tool to facilitate implementation of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) describes the SSA framework as "an analytical approach developed . . . to deliver foundational science for informing all [ESA] decisions." The Service has explained it intends SSAs to provide "focused, repeatable, and rigorous scientific assessment" that results in "improved and more transparent and defensible decision making, and clearer and more concise documents."

The Service overhauled its guidance on the preparation of SSAs in 2015 and 2016. At that time, in many respects, the guidance referred to as the SSA Framework reflected best practices in conservation biology. That said, several years of experience have identified ways in which the SSA Framework can be