States Are Sounding the Alarm: New Data Shows a Nationwide Surge in At-Risk Wildlife

A new analysis of state wildlife conservation plans reveals a striking nationwide trend: most states are identifying significantly more species at risk than they did a decade ago. Far from being a bureaucratic update, this surge signals accelerating biodiversity decline, and growing strain on outdated, underfunded state wildlife management systems at a moment of deepening effects from climate change, biodiversity loss, and political instability.

What We Analyzed

Every ten years, states are required to update their State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs),  essential documents guiding wildlife conservation efforts in each state. States are required to adopt a SWAP and revise it every 10 years in order to qualify for federal State Wildlife Grants (SWGs). They are one of the few things that every state does to comprehensively assess the status and conservation needs of all wildlife within its borders, including invertebrates, regardless of whether a species is of interest to hunters, anglers, or trappers. 

Most state wildlife funding is still heavily directed toward game species. For example, the federal Pittman-Robertson program limits funding to mammals and birds, which are most of the species of wildlife that is hunted. At the same time, state wildlife agencies typically devote only about 10% of their budget to species that are not hunted or fished, leaving the vast majority of U.S. wildlife species, including amphibians, songbirds, and pollinators, underfunded despite many being at risk of extinction.

As part of their SWAP, each state identifies species that need additional research focus or conservation action before they are listed as threatened or endangered. These species are placed on lists of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN). Wildlife for All compared SGCN lists from 2015 and 2025, examining where states added or removed species and how overall conservation needs changed.

Our analysis of states’ updated 2025 SWAPs makes clear that most are identifying significantly more species at risk, revealing a nationwide failure of prevention driven by outdated management systems, chronic underfunding, and accelerating effects of climate change and biodiversity loss.

What the Data Shows

Nearly every state with finalized data identified more species at risk in 2025 than a decade ago.  Among the 31 states and one territory with usable, finalized data:

• 27 states and one territory (Northern Mariana Islands) increased the number of species listed as SGCN
• Only 4 states decreased their numbers of SGCN 
• The median net increase was 145 additional species per state
• The typical state increased its list by roughly 50–100%, with several states doubling or tripling the number of species identified as at risk in just one decade

Note: 18 more states and regions are on a different update schedule, still finalizing plans, or lack usable data.

This is not a regional anomaly or methodological quirk. It is a nationwide pattern pointing in one direction: states are not identifying more species in need because conservation is working, but because existing systems are failing under accelerating ecological crises. These plans increasingly document a widening gap between ecological need and the tools, funding, and authority available to respond.

SCGNs Are An Early-Warning System And It’s Flashing Red

SWAPs were designed as a prevention tool. The idea is simple: identify species in trouble early, invest in proactive conservation, and keep them from ever needing emergency federal protections.

When SGCN lists grow across nearly every state, it’s a sign that prevention is failing. States are responding to:

• Accelerating habitat loss
• Climate-driven drought, fire, flooding, and temperature extremes
• Increased pollution and habitat fragmentation
• Management systems built for a different ecological era

In other words, wildlife decline is outpacing our ability—or willingness—to respond.

Why So Many Species Are Being Added

The surge in SGCN listings reflects systemic problems, not failures by state biologists or conservation staff. Across the country, wildlife agencies are grappling with:

Outdated Management Models

Many state systems remain narrowly focused on a small number of species to create harvestable surpluses of fish and wildlife for hunters, trappers and anglers, while the broader web of life continues to unravel.

Chronic Underfunding

States are expected to conserve more species with insufficient and unstable funding, often tied to political whims rather than ecological need. Most states focus limited funding on game management rather than conservation.

Habitat Loss

Wildlife agencies often lack the political courage to acknowledge when new development or extractive industries put wildlife at existential risk, facilitating the destruction of critical acres of habitat every hour.

Climate Change as a Threat Multiplier

The twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss intensify every existing pressure on wildlife and state systems, pushing already-vulnerable species closer to collapse.

Governance Captured by Special Interests

Decisions about wildlife are too often shaped by a narrow set of political and economic interests, rather than by science or public values. Agency capture means that well-monied trophy hunting, agriculture and extractive industries are able to lobby for their profit motives to the detriment of democracy, the public trust and the health of all life.

The Cost of Waiting

This data arrives at a precarious time. As more species edge closer to collapse, national conservation safeguards themselves are under threat. States are sounding the alarm just as federal leaders are dismantling the very tools meant to respond.

Across the federal policy landscape, we are seeing:

• Efforts to weaken science-informed decision-making
• Expanded access for extractive industries on public lands
• Rollbacks of protections for clean air, clean water, forests, and wildlife
• An erosion of federal backstops just as state conservation need explodes

The result is a widening gap: more species at risk, fewer tools to protect them. When species decline far enough to require emergency protections, the costs—ecological, economic, and social—rise dramatically while options narrow and recovery becomes less and less probable.

Preventive conservation is not just more ethical, it is far more effective and far less expensive. But prevention requires stable, dedicated funding, modern, science-informed governance, and a commitment to holistic ecosystem health, not just short-term political wins.

What’s Next? 

The rapid expansion of SGCN lists should be treated as a national warning, not a footnote. It underscores the urgent need for:

• Wildlife governance reform that reflects public values for the sake of democracy and because the vast majority of Americans understand what’s at risk and care for all life
• Increased and reliable conservation funding to sustain the years of work ahead
• Management systems built to meet the current ecological crises
• Policies that prioritize prevention over crisis response

States are starting to do what they are required to do: documenting risk and sounding the alarm. The question now is whether state and federal policymakers will act on this information, and whether the public will step up to amplify these calls and demand meaningful change.

At Wildlife for All, we believe this moment calls for honesty, urgency, and systemic change. The data is clear. The warning has been issued. What happens next will determine the future of wildlife across the country.