ESA - Updates & Links

Listing and Recovery Planning Updates

Schedules for listing, downlisting, and delisting decisions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Also:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Endangered Species Act

A wealth of materials and information about the ESA and species conservation and recovery, including background about the Act, Endangered Species Bulletin, general regulations and policies, candidate conservation, consultations, listing and critical habitat, species recovery, and more.

Links to ESA policies and regulations, regulation revisions, and a new endangered species webpage.

Critical Habitat

This page contains the spatial data for active proposed and final critical habitat for FWS only and Joint FWS/NMFS threatened and endangered species. ECOS is a FWS-sponsored platform for FWS data. The ECOS critical habitat on-line mapper includes (some, not all of the) proposed and final critical habitat for species listed as Threatened and Endangered by the FWS, or that are jointly managed by FWS/NMFS. 

Environmental Conservation Online System (ECOS)

ECOS serves a variety of reports related to Threatened and Endangered Species. A full list of species reports available on ECOS is available here. One can also access the IPaC site, which is described in more detail below.

Information for Planning and Conservation (IPaC)

Main links: (May 2021)

  • Production (live) IPaC: https://ecos.fws.gov/ipac/ - for real projects
  • Consultation Package Builder -   *New*

    IPaC has released a major update that includes its newest piece of functionality within the IPaC interface – the Consultation Package Builder (CPB). The CPB walks users through an interactive, step-by-step process to help them prepare a full consultation package (e.g., biological assessment). To assist users in analyzing a project, CPB displays available USFWS data and recommendations from our Effects Pathway Manager (EPM) application, including conservation measures designed to help project proponents avoid or minimize effects to listed species. This release of CPB is being considered an initial version of the software that will be improved over time. The IPaC team is already underway building additional features to make CPB more efficient and easier to use, with our highest priority enhancements being released by July 2021.

    Here is a helpful glossy brochure about CPB.

    Also check out this instructional Consultation Package Builder (CPB) demo video (103 min; 02.10.2021 - full CPB demonstration)

    The IPaC team is accepting feedback and answering questions via email (fwhq_ipac@fws.gov). We will consider feedback received while we continue to make improvements to IPaC and CPB. Reach out to the team at anytime if you would like to schedule a training or demonstration for your office(s). However, we suggest working with your agency contact at the state or regional level to help organize and consolidate trainings to the extent possible.

  • Beta (testing) IPaC: https://ecos-beta.fws.gov/ipac/ - for testing and training (a no-commitment sandbox!)
    Take a CPB test drive with much of the functionality and none of the section 7 commitment.

Other Helpful IPaC Training Videos:

Candidate Conservation

Species Status Assessments