By Joe Kosack, Wildlife Conservation Education Specialist, Pennsylvania Game Commission

The federal government has praised Pennsylvania for assembling a comprehensive Wildlife Action Plan that will expand and strengthen the state's management of fish and wildlife resources, particularly species of greatest conservation need.

Partnering with the Fish and Boat Commission, the Game Commission coordinated development of this Wildlife Action Plan. Contributing technical expertise to this progressive and ambitious wildlife conservation plan were the Pennsylvania Biological Survey, several universities and a cadre of the Commonwealth's brightest and best biologists and ecologists.

"We appreciate your hard work, the work of your sister agency, and that of your partners, and congratulate you on this important achievement," wrote U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall in a letter commending the Game Commission for its thorough planning document. "We are confident that your efforts will yield great benefits in the conservation of Pennsylvania's wildlife."

Developed in response to a federal mandate that required each state to put together a Wildlife Action Plan to guarantee future State Wildlife Grants appropriations, the plan provides Pennsylvania with an unprecedented opportunity to focus its management and increase its understanding of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, as well as invertebrates. Research projects in Pennsylvania currently being financed jointly by a SWG and state funding include studies of declining or endangered species such as the northern flying squirrel, Atlantic sturgeon, the eastern massasauga rattlesnake and the state's second Breeding Bird Atlas.

Pennsylvania's Wildlife Action Plan promotes and champions residents, businesses, organizations and government working together to attain sustainable wildlife populations, communities and ecosystems. Its goals are to: improve the scientific basis for making conservation decisions; conserve the state's biodiversity; cultivate a knowledgeable citizenry that supports and participates in wildlife conservation; ensure resources are available to conserve wildlife; and expand and improve the coordination of public agencies and other partners in wildlife conservation planning and implementation.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked Pennsylvania and every other state for a comprehensive wildlife action plan, an effort that required us and our conservation partners to think strategically about our individual and coordinated stewardship efforts," noted Game Commission Executive Director Carl G Roe. "What evolved from this extraordinary undertaking is a plan of action that defines where and how Pennsylvania should focus its resources and energy to more progressively and adequately manage the myriad members of Pennsylvania's diverse wildlife community."

Fish and Boat Commission Executive Director Dr. Doug Austen noted, "Our Wildlife Action Plan will dovetail with the work of other states to ensure nationwide consistency in the management of species of greatest conservation need, particularly those creatures with an overwhelming majority of their global range concentrated in Pennsylvania.

"The shorthead garter snake, for example, has robust populations in some locations in Pennsylvania," Dr. Austen said. "However, 90 percent of its global range occurs in the Commonwealth, so Pennsylvania has a high responsibility for the species' long-term survival. If we lose it here, it will likely be gone everywhere."

Although Pennsylvania's Wildlife Action Plan focuses management attention primarily on species of greatest conservation need, its theme is to monitor and manage all fish and wildlife proactively, instead of waiting until declining species require crisis care to resuscitate their populations. The ecology-rooted plan also strives to create a conservation consciousness that will better protect Pennsylvania's vast wildlife community and the varied habitats it is dependent upon.

But the unfortunate reality is that many species currently are under the radar of Pennsylvania's ongoing fish and wildlife management programs. Their population densities and range - as well as threats they face - are mostly unverified, and predominantly unknown.

An infusion of state funding or new revenue streams is needed to cover the currently unmanaged or under-managed species identified in the Wildlife Action Plan, particularly as declining hunting and fishing license sales continue to impact the programs of the Game Commission and Fish and Boat Commission.

Managing the state's fish and wildlife resources properly has always been a bigger job than what could be financed through selling hunting and fishing licenses. Over the past 20 years, declining license sales and increasing management responsibilities have contributed to further distance many species from the management attention they require, or likely never received in the first place.

"Our two agencies have always had limited resources to direct toward species that are not hunted, trapped or fished, and yet that is where some of our greatest conservation challenges lie," Dr. Austen pointed out. "A long-term, dedicated revenue stream is needed in Pennsylvania to address unmet needs and to match potential future funding from others sources, such as federal monies."

"We have defined and mapped out the future of fish and wildlife management for the Commonwealth by developing a Wildlife Action Plan, but the plan won't be effective if we don't have adequate and stable funding to support it," Roe emphasized. "Pennsylvania is fast approaching a conservation crossroads. The future of this state's fish and wildlife resources will be shaped as much by funding as it will by our Wildlife Action Plan. A plan, alone, will not get it done."

Pennsylvania's Wildlife Action Plan covers the diverse species that inhabit the state's physiographic mosaic, a melting pot of rolling hills, plateaus and ridges, and valleys, lowlands and river basins. Accented with estuaries, Lake Erie shoreline, glaciated potholes and the Appalachian and Allegheny mountains, Pennsylvania's topographic composition creates incredible landform diversity and an ecological paradise for Pennsylvania's vast wildlife community. Maintaining this biodiversity requires composite and coordinated management with varying degrees of specialized species conservation actions.

Game Commission biologist Lisa Williams was primarily responsible for moving Pennsylvania's unfolding Wildlife Action Plan from myriad drawing boards scattered across the state to a computerized clearinghouse, where she worked long hours to standardize and authenticate plan components. She also developed an innovative system of prioritizing species and conservation actions that address federal plan requirements and will direct future action toward meeting the state's strategic conservation goals.

"Lisa Williams' dedication to and directing of this unprecedented task in wildlife conservation were critical in shaping this multi-dimensional wildlife management plan for Pennsylvania," noted Cal DuBrock, Game Commission Bureau of Wildlife management director. "She didn't just get it done, she did it right. Pennsylvania now has a wildlife conservation strategy that can address the varied needs of the state's exceptional biodiversity."

Since 2001, annual federal appropriations have provided more than $10 million in funding for the Game Commission and Fish and Boat Commission through the State Wildlife Grants Program. To date, SWG funding has been used for a variety of fish and wildlife projects that further the conservation of species of greatest conservation need in the Commonwealth.

The Game Commission and Fish and Boat Commission currently receive between $1.5 million and $2 million annually from the federal SWG program to be used to conserve low and declining species. Pennsylvania's Wildlife Action Plan now guides the Commissions in how to spend future SWG funds.

The plan provides information on the location and general condition of habitats used by wildlife in Pennsylvania; threats to these habitats and the species that use them; conservation actions, and research, survey and monitoring efforts needed to address these threats; priorities for implementing these conservation needs; and distribution and abundance of species of greatest conservation need in Pennsylvania.

Additionally, the plan identifies the necessity for cooperation between agencies, businesses, organizations and individuals interested in Pennsylvania's wildlife diversity.

Congress expressed two driving interests when creating the State Wildlife Grants program and the Wildlife Action Plan requirement: a focus on "endangered species prevention" and "keeping common species common."

Pennsylvania's Wildlife Action Plan addresses these concerns by including low and declining species that are in great need of proactive conservation, by focusing on more abundant species for which Pennsylvania bears a special responsibility in their long-term conservation, and by emphasizing habitat-level management rather than case-by-case, species-specific intervention.

Pennsylvania's Wildlife Action Plan is available online.

9/8/2006