What are Species of Greatest Conservation Concern?
This list was gathered as an attempt to create an easy navigational reference of all the state’s profiles listed for their Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN).
The SGCN lists are made to assist in conservation planning and as a funding prioritization tool to support biodiversity of native wildlife and plants. These species are experiencing population declines or otherwise facing significant threats that could lead to further endangerment or even extinction if conservation action is not taken.
These lists are used in the United States by state wildlife agencies to formulate their State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP). By including species in these lists, conservation action can be funded before they require emergency protections under the Endangered Species Act.
Notice
This is a region-specific list for the United States
SGCN List Qualifications
A species may be placed on the SGCN list if it meets two or more of the criteria below:
- If it is already state-listed as Endangered, Threatened, or of Special Concern
- If the species’ habitat is rapidly degrading or disappearing
- If the species’ populations are showing clear downward trends over time, if they are limited in distribution, or naturally low in number.
- If the species face threats that will likely cause future declines.
Having a Species of Greatest Conservation Need list allows a state to procure a State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP). If a SWAP is published and updated regularly, it qualifies the state to receive governmental funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The goal of this funding is to protect species before they become more endangered and more costly to protect. Species that are already considered endangered may still be a part of the SWAP.
Each fact sheet for species on the SWAP typically has the following elements:
- Description, Identification, and Characteristics
- Abundance and Distribution
- Locations and Conditions
- Threats to Species and Habitats
- Conservation Actions to Address Threats
- Plans for Monitoring Species and Habitats
How SGCN Can Help Conservation Planning
While the SGCN lists are meant to help plan the State Wildlife Action Plan and indirectly help fund conservation actions, the fact sheets are supportive in disseminating information about specific species in different localities. This is helpful for research, conservation planning, and identification.
Some examples of this usefulness is that many fact sheets contain a section on research needs for individual species in a state or region. This can be useful in planning a new research project or directing efforts. Field biologists may find the fact sheets useful in learning identification characteristics, behaviors, or habits. This is particularly useful in species that have locality-dependent traits. Mapping specialists may find it useful to gather information about habitat, while municipalities and land trusts may be able to use this information to target major threats, prioritize habitat restoration, and take other conservation action.
What This Resource Contains
This list is an attempt to consolidate the SGCN fact sheets that almost every state in the United States produces. Some are difficult to find, and it can be beneficial to conservation planning and may have useful identification information for biologists.
Priority was given to state organizations that have fact sheets based on their State Wildlife Action Plans. In some cases, however, these resources simply don’t exist, or aren’t able to be found at the time of writing. In these cases, priority is given to Natural Heritage endeavors, which are programs by either a state agency or large and well-funded educational institutions.
Sometimes, fact sheets are not determined by species of greatest conservation concern, but can only be found for all native fauna and/or flora. This will be noted on the state selected within the list.
List Exclusions
Some states are home to large organizations that provide a focus on specific species types, such as native plant organizations or invertebrates associations, which will also have a large amount of information about different species. To narrow the scope of this list, these organizations were not included.
In general, conservation funding and attention is typically given to wildlife first, with plants coming in second-rate, and fungi and/or lichens rarely included. If an agency has fact sheets on wildlife, they may not have fact sheets or tracking for plants, fungi, or lichen. It depends on the organization and funding priorities.
Not all fact sheets or profiles are complete, or have comprehensive information. It depends on their known inventory and management of species, as well as funding and task prioritization. In these cases, iNaturalist and NatureServe are two alternative places to find information when there is a gap.
Have a Suggestion?
Information is current as of the time of this writing. If you notice a broken link or a need for updated information, please let us know!
Linked by State Name
Search by U.S State in Alphabetical Order:
For Alabama, species of greatest conservation concern fact sheets are listed in the first paragraph where there are text-links to fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, or mammals respectively. Click through those categories to find a list of species. Linked species have fact sheets.
Aquatic plants appear to be under the fishing section of the website, and no terrestrial plants appear to be available.
Most of Alaska’s species are whales and other mammals. There is, however, one species of fern listed at the time of this writing. By clicking onto the image or title of the species, you can view its dedicated page which includes another link to the fact sheet profile from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries department as well as the Alaska Fish and Game profile in PDF form.
It is also worth noting that the Alaska Center for Conservation Science, which is a part of the University of Anchorage at Alaska has a rare vascular plant field guide available for download which is detailed with illustrations, photos, and descriptions in different habitats and state ecoregions.
Arizona’s species of greatest conservation is found on the left-sidebar on desktop or appears as a hamburger menu on mobile. There are amphibians, birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, and reptiles listed on this menu. There did not seem to be a section for plants, though special habitats which contain plants of interest are mentioned, and there is a list of sensitive plant species in the latest approved document as of the time of this writing.
There is an additional webpage where the species list is available. Some rows have a page icon after the scientific name, which indicates that they have fact sheets attached to them. You can select the page icon to view the PDF in your browser.
Arkansas (?)
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has what looks like links to an endangered species list that is now missing (404 Not Found) at the time of this writing, and Internet Archive suggests that what did exist in the previous year only had a checklist without further links or information. There does not appear to be a good alternative with accessible fact sheets for “The Natural State“.
Contact us if you find a webpage with wildlife and plant fact sheets or field guides that should go here.
On the sidebar, there is a list of mammals, amphibians/reptiles, and fishes. Mammals does not have a published fact sheet list as of the time of this writing, but the remaining categories of species do. Each of the sheets are in PDF form. Interestingly, mammals do have a draft fact sheet published in 1998. According to the website, it still “[…] contains valuable information and maps, but was never finalized by the contracted writers and did not receive peer review.”
In Colorado, there are several conservation plans written for amphibians, reptiles, fish and mammals. Simply click on the tab with the category you most want to see and you can read more about each of the species in their respective fact sheets. Plant species, however, appear to be given rare plant guides by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program which is a project by Colorado State University. While many of the links will take you to NatureServe, some have pages on the natural heritage site, linked in green text.
Connecticut’s wildlife fact sheets are available on this page linked as PDFs. While they have lists of their rare and threatened wildlife species, they don’t appear to have fact sheets for flora as of the time of this writing.
Delaware’s list of species of greatest conservation need are listed in a table and their fact sheet information is linked under the Common Name section under the Species tab.
You can filter by ecological group which has everything from wildlife to invertebrates and plants, as well as their sub-categories. In the navigational tabs on the page, they also have sections for habitats and threats.
Florida has a range of fact sheet species, separated into the following: Birds, mammals, freshwater fish, saltwater fish, invertebrates, amphibians, and reptiles. They do not have fact sheets for plants as of the time of this writing. Not all species are their species of greatest conservation need. Species are separated by statuses: native, nonnative, imperiled, and invasive. On their website’s list of resources, they do link to a Florida Plant Atlas by USF Libraries, however, which is a useful database of the state flora.
Florida Natural Areas Inventory also hosts a Rare Species and Communities search which allows you to filter by category and whether there is a field guide attached.
Georgia’s species of greatest conservation need list is arranged in a table format for easy navigation. You can filter by each column if needed, and both the common and scientific names are linked to the fact sheet for the respective species. There does not seem to be a way to filter by category, you can download a CSV or Excel file from the list and create your own filters and worksheets to do additional sorting.
Additionally, for the upper savannah river basin, the US Army Corps of Engineers has a fact sheet manual for threatened and endangered species. The links on the side take you to the individual PDFs of each section, which includes plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates.
Hawai’i’s species list is rather friendly to the eyes, with a “meet the species” experience on the front page. On this page, you can also learn about state-specific conservation topics and special places such as forest reserves or take virtual field trips.
From the images listed under “Meet the species”, click on the category that you’re interested in. From there, in most cases, you can click on the sub-category and species that you want to learn more about and there is a range of information in their fact sheets.
The species available to virtually meet include native birds, native snails, invertebrates, native plants, rare plants, ōpe’ape’a (bats), and a general overview of marine and invasive species. The ōpe’ape’a is Hawai’i’s only native land mammal which is also endangered, which gives it its own category alone.
Idaho’s list of Species of Greatest Conservation Need have fact sheets linked on the page here. Simply click on any species that you want to view to find more information about within the state. There are also several drop-down filters that you can browse, including category. The list includes species from the following groups: Amphibians, Birds, Reptiles, Fish, Fungi, Invertebrate, Mammals, Plants, and Other. The ‘Other’ category does not currently return any results.
Other resources include the Field Guide to the Special Status Plants of the Bureau of Land Management Lower Snake River District (PDF) and the Threatened, Endangered, and Candidate Plant Species of Idaho (PDF).
Illinois has several “guidance” documents available on their website which is a sampling of their SWAP listed species. Click on any of the linked common name wildlife to view their fact sheet as a PDF. This list largely focuses on reptiles, mammals, and amphibians.
Additionally, there appears to be a more comprehensive list of Illinois biodiversity at this link. On this page, you must search a specific criteria to view results; categories include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, plants, fungi, protists and bacterium. As of the time of this writing, however, protists and bacterium return no results. When performing your search, you can also search by “Endangered/Threatened Status” or E/T Status. When results are found, the linked pages go to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ “Wild About!” fact sheets.
This section has a fair number of species fact sheets spread out over a few categories. This includes reptiles and amphibians, birds, mammals, as well as freshwater fish and mussels. If you click on “Species of Greatest Conservation Need” they also appear to have a SGCN dashboard where you can view checklists and explore data with ArcGIS on the web; however, no fact sheets were found linked on this section.
While Indiana’s additional “Living with Wildlife” lists are not limited to threatened or endangered, there are a couple of fact sheets linked in different categories. Their habitat fact sheets also list several benefitted species.
Iowa has a selection of fact sheets for their native birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, as well as pollinator insects. Their conservation and protection section also has links to their Threatened and Endangered page, which has checklists for animals and plants that are a part of their SWAP.
Kansas has their SGCN species arranged in a list with several filters. They have different categories listed, from amphibians, birds, chelonia, fishes, to invertebrates, mammals, plants, reptiles. The fact sheets are linked at each of the common names. Additionally, there are other resources for species that are also common, such as the Kansas mammal atlas and a Kansas herpteofaunal atlas hosted by the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Fort Hays State University.
Kentucky has a list of their SGCN species. Fact sheets are linked under the View column and you can access individual fact sheets by clicking the microscope icon. Kentucky provides the ability to search all SGCN species, or filter by Amphibians, Birds, Crustaceans, Fishes, Insects, Mammals, Mussels, Plants, and Reptiles.
Louisiana has a detailed list of plants, animals, and natural communities that are endangered or threatened. You can search by keyword, or filter by element type, global and state rank, federal or state status, parish; whether it is imperiled or critically imperiled, and even whether it has a fact sheet or not, which is rather useful for this purpose.
Maine’s inland fisheries and wildlife includes all species’ fact sheets as PDFs on this one page. A different department of Maine’s state government, the Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry hosts the fact sheets for listed plant species. For either of these lists, click on any of the linked text for the specific species you are looking to view and you can read their fact sheets.
In the last paragraph before the table on this page, there are links to pages that go to both the listed wildlife species of Maryland, as well as the listed plant species of Maryland. From each of those pages, there are species with links to their respective fact sheets. Though they are sparse, they have information available for each of the animals and plants. In the second to last paragraph, they also include a link to another state department, the Department of Natural Resources where listed fish species can be found.
Massachusetts’ listing of species of greatest conservation concern are all handled under one departmental program at the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program. This list includes wildlife and plants. All species are shown with a range of filters you can use to change the categories. Within that list, the common names are linked to each species’ fact sheet. Fun fact; several of the updated 2026 plant species were written by yours truly.
Michigan State University hosts a list of Michigan’s rare plants and rare animals separately. To get to fact sheets, click on either the plants or animals list and you will be brought to a page with a list of species with common name, scientific name, statuses, and ranks. Both common and scientific names are linked to the species fact sheets. The sheets also link a natural community to each species, which you can click on to read more about.
Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources hosts a Rare Species Guide on their website. Both the common and scientific names are linked to individual fact sheets called rare species guides. You can filter by category, status, habitat, or county, or sort by alphabetical letter. There is a toggle whether your alphabetical letter should be sorted by common name or scientific name. Species groups included are amphibians, birds, fish, fungi, insects, lichen, mammals, moss, mussels, reptiles, snails, spiders, and vascular plants.
Mississippi (?)
While Mississippi has a SWAP and lists all their endangered species on their website, they do not appear to have any kind of fact sheet or species profile available. This is surprising with how nature-forward and informative the rest of the website appears to be. NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NatureServe, and iNaturalist are likely resources to find additional information about endangered species in this state, but it might not be as locale-specific as a natural heritage program might provide.
Missouri has field guides to their state animals, plants, and mushrooms, which are all laid out wonderfully in different categories. Each month, the webpage is also updated with a section on “what to look for this month”, featuring several active species that might be common that time of year.
Clicking on one of the categories, you’ll be brought to a page with a list of everything filtered by that category. From there, click on the one that interests you, and you’ll be directed to a field guide page. At the bottom of the page linked here, you’ll also see a section where you can filter by species of conservation concern.
Montana has a report for Animal Species of Concern. There are lists available underneath the dropdowns for Species of Concern, all the way down to Species of Greatest Inventory Need. Once you’ve selected a heading, it will take a moment to retrieve the data. Then, you can select any of the blue linked scientific names to view fact sheets. All of the fact sheets selected at random to preview the available information for this writing were rather detailed and in-depth. At the top of the page, you can also select the filter that shows “All Animals” and choose between Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, Fish, and Invertebrates.
Next to the heading for Animal Species of Concern at the top of the page immediately under the filters, you will see a link to switch to the Plant Species of Concern report. Here, it is the same system, and you can filter by vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, algae, and fungi. Similarly, you can click on any of the headings (except Introduction) and the page will take a moment to retrieve data and then provide a detailed list, with fact sheets linked in the scientific name.
The Nebraska Game and Parks department has several fact sheets for threatened and endangered species. Scrolling down the page, you’ll see profiles with images of species with fact sheets attached to them. Starting with mammals and birds, then to fish, then to insects, molluscs, and reptiles, and lastly to plants. Clicking onto an image and title card of one of the species, you’ll be brought to a page for that species. There is also a list of at-risk species underneath these fact sheets.
Nevada’s division of natural heritage provides a sort of atlas for all their species, not just endangered ones. You can search by species name or select the Species Gallery. It’s worth noting that at the time of this writing, the website did not have a valid SSL certificate, so it is considered an unsecured webpage. Proceed at your own risk, and if your browser gives you a warning, you may have to go through Advanced Settings to proceed to the website anyway.
Only some of the ‘quick links’ on this page have fact sheets, such as the amphibians. There is another list on the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department’s website for general Species Occurring in NH. There is also a sheet for Habitat Types and Species which might be useful for New Hampshire naturalists. Overall, information for New Hampshire was difficult to find. No plant fact sheets have been found at the time of this writing. It appears to have existed at one point, but the website linked from a third resource has since gone defunct.
New Jersey’s species of greatest conservation need is listed in different categories including: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, plants and fungi, and finally, data-deficient species.
Data deficient species is an interesting listing to include, but it highlights opportunities for research. These species are the ones where there was not enough data to determine its risk of extinction within the state’s SWAP analysis.
For any of the other categories, simply clicking into the category. There will be sub-categories to click through until you arrive at the type of organism you are looking for, then you can click on the species you want to explore to go to its respective fact sheet page.
New Mexico has an incredible resource called the Biota Information System of New Mexico, or BISON-M. The website is a part of the New Mexico Department of Wildlife and has sections for About, Searches, State Map, Help, and additional links. There is also a Species Simple Search searchbar at the top.
In selecting Species Search from the “Searches” dropdown, we are given a lot of options to filter by. You must select or type at least one query to search. If you have a particular set of criteria, you can choose to include or exclude different options as well. Once you make a search, you can select the link in the Common Name column to view the fact sheet which is the ‘species booklet’ which contains loads of information. Categories of fauna range from birds and amphibians to specific sub-categories of insect, protazoans, bacteria, and viruses, though it does not guarantee there are results in the system yet for the criterion provided. The BISON-M system does not have plants at the time of this writing.
A Rare Plant List database by the New Mexico Rare Plant Technical Council (MNRPTC) provides conservation statuses and fact sheets. Once you filter your searches for what you are looking for, simply click on the link in the Scientific Name column to view the fact sheet for that species. On this site, you can also view information for NM Rare Plant Watch, which is a community science program.
New York’s listings of species of greatest conservation need are shown by alphabetical order rather than categorized on this page. You can click on any of them to view their fact sheets.
There are filters to sort these species into different categories, which is more visible on desktop than it is on mobile. You can filter by species type, region/county, conservation status, and – interestingly – interactions with humans.
North Carolina has a dedicated species and community search that allows you to sort by county or statewide distribution. Everything from amphibians or crustaceans and plants are included in this database.
Once you make a search, distribution information appears in the same area where the list previously was. You can use the blue buttons above the distribution map to go back and make another search.
Slightly more limited, there is also a selection of species that is filterable, with fact sheets directly linked by their common name titles. Plants don’t appear on this list.
It appears that the North Carolina Department of Agriculture once held the list of plants in need of conservation, but the link was defunct at the time of this writing and routes you to the Species/Community search above.
North Dakota has a filterable search navigation that links fact sheets in the species’ common name column. In addition to ecoregion, they also provide habitat associations with each species, which is admirable.
Habitats are also linked within each species profile, allowing you to read about habitat communities that species have been discovered in. No plant species fact sheets were found at the time of this writing.
Ohio allows you to search for a species, but as your browser loads a search, you’ll also see a range of categories. Search must use common names and will include all partial searches (for example, searching woodrat will include all species with the word rat and wood. Simply search, or click one of the categories and it will drop down with a filter with your specified search.
The species images don’t appear at the beginning automatically. If you want to search all species across all categories, you must click a category and allow the filter box to appear. Then, change your filter to include “all” of whichever category you selected. For example, if you selected “fish”, you would then modify the filter box to say “all wildlife” instead of fish. Interestingly, the state does also include a category filter for invasive wildlife and plants, which you can also filter by, by scrolling to the end of the category boxes or using the filters.
Oklahoma’s fact sheets are called field guides, and they aren’t limited to endangered or rare species. You can search by common name or filter by category, or simply browse the available profiles and click on the one you want to go to the fact sheet page. While they don’t have a category based on conservation need, you can cross-reference their SWAP list by searching for it on their website.
Oregon’s list of species of greatest conservation need is rather easy to navigate, and it has its own subdomain, meaning the navigation on this page is entirely dedicated to SWAP species. The categories listed are for amphibians, birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, invertebrates, as well as plants and algae.
On this website, you can also view other conservation resources for the state of Oregon, including key conservation issues, ecoregions, opportunity areas, key habitats, monitoring, and a conservation toolbox.
Pennsylvania’s Natural Heritage Program has a list of species and natural features which offers a range of fact sheets for each of them linked in the last colum of the list. The butterfly icons are from the natural heritage program themselves, but they also link to fact sheets from NatureServe Explorer, USFWS, and Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Rhode Island has a range of fact sheets on wildlife, as well as several atlases published on their website. It’s uncertain how it is determined which fact sheets get published, and no mention of fact sheets for listed plants was found on their website.
South Carolina has quite a few resources available, including an ArcGIS webpage that showcases county maps in a species inventory. Their fact sheets are displayed nicely on a separate place on the website but are difficult to find. It appears that there are only fact sheets for species within the ACE Basin.
In this section, there are tabs that represent the different categories, including birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, plants, and reptiles. Once you click on one of the tabs, you can see a link to all the fact sheets available on the sidebar, as well as an overview about that category. Click on any of the links in the sidebar to view the species’ fact sheet of choice.
South Dakota hosts an interactive map-based search with guides called ‘Wildlife of South Dakota’. The categories include birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. It is noted on this application that, as of the time of this writing, it is a work in progress and not a comprehensive list. By clicking Home in the top left of the webpage, you can also view conservation tools, a map of lands and waters, a range of species checklists, and grants. Notably, no plants fact sheets are listed on the website, but a few resources exist on growing or gardening with native plants.
Tennessee has a page dedicated to the biodiversity of the state which includes categories for all of the wildlife. Simply click through the images of descending categories until you get to a fact sheet. If you back out one more page to tn.gov/twra/wildlife/, you can view even more resources for state wildlife specifically.
The linked page here goes to their ‘species’ subsection which also mentions over 2,300 species of plants, but since their focus is in wildlife, there doesn’t appear to be a category on their website for fact sheets on plants even though their SWAP list (here) does include plants.
If you scroll down on the linked page, you can see a heading where the different categories of listed species are given, and in each of those categories there are linked fact sheets. As of the time of this writing, the webpages for Texas’ species were being updated. The only page linked with fact sheets is plants, though there appears to be other pages on the website in development for mammals, invertebrates, as well as amphibians and reptiles.
Utah hosts a field guide for their animals and plants, which you can browse by either searching in the search bar for your desired species or by clicking through the categories that filter down to the species you are looking for.
Vermont has two sections for their species of greatest conservation need. The first is “Vermont Critters” which includes amphibians, fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals. The second is “Vermont Plants” which has lists of the different plants as well as resources around plants and how they are conserved, but no fact sheets found at the time of this writing.
Vermont is active in plant conservation, however, and has plenty of information about natural communities and habitats, as well as published PDFs on all rare species including plants.
In Virginia, wildlife is the focus of the species of greatest conservation need, and fact sheets are easy to find on the Department of Wildlife Resources website. Plant fact sheets aren’t as easy to find, however, and appear to be handled by a different department: the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Whichever department you find yourself looking at, however, Virginia has a multitude of resources available for conservation, education, and citizen engagement.
Washington state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife has fact sheets for their wildlife species of greatest conservation need, which includes mammals, birds, and a second of amphibians and reptiles. Click on the profile you want to view. There is also a publication library listed on-page, as well as Wild Washington lesson plans for curricula development.
The Department of Natural Resources hosts the plants’ rare species lists and fact sheets. In the sidebar on the DNR site, click to “field guides” and select the category you want to view, followed by the name of the species you’re looking for. Their list and fact sheets are hosted in an embedded element on the page, so if you can’t see view it, try a different browser or clearing your cache.
West Virginia has fact sheets and checklists for several native species. Each section for mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians respectively have different “helpful resources” listed at the bottom of each section. Some only have a checklist, but others have pamphlets with further reading or additional descriptions. Notably, the page does not have plants despite being labelled as “plants and animals.” Recreational field guides are located at a different part of the website that include plants but does not focus on rare species or the typical format of a fact sheet.
Wisconsin has a page for their biodiversity, featuring animals, plants, lichens, communities, and ‘other features’. Click through to the category you want and you’ll be taken to a page with a list. Each list has links on either the scientific name or common name to that species’ fact sheet on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website.
Wyoming’s Natural Diversity Database is a program by the University of Wyoming and supported by its partners. This field guide covers a wide range of taxa, from animals and plants to ecological systems. It’s quite an incredible endeavor, though it does not focus on species of greatest conservation need in particular. You can sort by common or scientific name, search in the search bar in the top right of the list, or click through the navigation tree to find the species you are looking for.
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