Find out how the United States is divided into regions for Endangered Species listings and learn where to get the list for your home state.
Learn about Endangered Species by State
Year after year the list of endangered species grows longer here in the United States. Many reasons attribute to the causes of including animals on the list, the main one being the affect of human population growth and dwindling natural resources needed to have animals survive in their natural habitats.
A majority of Americans are not taking a part in saving the species decline in our country because they don’t know what animals are on the list and where to get that information. Here we are going to go over national endangered species law and how to get the information for endangered species in your own state.
The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 and put into regulation throughout the United States by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. In order to have individuals states adapt the law the service created the Endangered Species Program. The national program has two sections with the main section dedicated to recording and listing species and the other section dedicated to being Recovery Champions for saving certain species. You can read the full text of the Endangered Species Act here.
There are eight endangered species regions throughout the United States. Not all regions are the same size, for example the smallest is region contains two states, while the largest region contains up to eight states. Regions are created by natural climate and landscape area. Some states can be included into two or more other regions depending on the versatility of that states landscape. To get in contact with each regions main office click the region links below.
Current state regions are as follows:
Region 1 (Pacific) – California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
Region 2 (Southwest) – Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
Region 3 (Great Lakes, Big Rivers) – Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Region 4 (Southeast) – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee and U.S. Virgin Islands.
Region 5 (Northeast) – Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, new York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.
Region 6 (Mountain-Prairie) – Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
Region 7 - Alaska
Region 8 (Pacific Southwest) – California and Nevada
If you want to check out the current national breakdown list separated by state for endangered species that includes plant life as well as animal, visit the TESS site page: Threatened & Endangered Species Listsings
