Since 2001 approximately $700,000 per year has been awarded to Utah by the federal State Wildlife Grants (SWG) Program. These SWG dollars are currently matched on a 1:1 basis with state Species Protection Account dollars, which together with SWG and diverse leveraged funds, are used throughout the state to manage species of concern and their habitats. In 2003 Congress required every state and territory to generate a 10-year Wildlife Action Plan in order to continue receipt of SWG funds, before October 2005. The second-edition, 2015 WAP was submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in August 2015 and the third UWAP iteration needs to be submitted to the FWS by October 2025. To accomplish the 2025 UWAP major revision, this project hired a consultant in FY23-FY25 to assist the UDWR with the coordination between diverse UWAP plan elements and partners. This project is for FY26 UWAP consultant needs. The purpose of Utah's Wildlife Action Plans are to manage native wildlife species and their habitats, sufficient to prevent the need for additional listings under the Endangered Species Act. This project will result in more strategic and coordinated conservation actions, ensuring long-term benefits for species of greatest conservation need and the habitats that support them.

The UWAP revision is a huge lift that will require revision of several sections and the addition of new sections to the 2015 UWAP, new analyses, and extensive coordination between UDWR and partners including facilitation of numerous workgroups that were formed and convened in FY23 and carried forward in FY24 and FY25. This proposal will continue these efforts into FY26. The objectives of this project are: 1) hire a contractor with experience in developing conservation documents like Wildlife Action Plans and work with contractor through FY26 to: 2) organize and facilitate workgroup meetings, 3) conduct new analyses needed in the 2025 UWAP, 4) assist with compiling information and 5) begin revising (writing) the UWAP 6) submit the revised UWAP in October 2025

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This project will directly assist the UDWR and partners with revising the Utah Wildlife Action Plan.

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Revising a Wildlife Action Plan is a large task and requires the focused attention of an individual skilled in facilitation and conservation planning. Therefore we intend to solicit proposals and obtain assistance by contracting some of the work. The contractor will ideally have experience developing conservation plans for other ESA-listed species and a track record of working well with diverse stakeholders. While the contractor will assist in the development of the Utah Wildlife Action Plan, it will require the time and commitment of all native species partners in Utah.

The monitoring of the contract will be through the UDWR.

An extraordinarily diverse set of partners work with the employees funded by this project. Among the federal partners are: NPS, USFWS, BLM, USFS, NRCS, USACE, and DoD. Among the state partners are DEQ, UDAF, UDOT, and several of the sister divisions within the DNR, most notably UGS. Besides executive-branch agencies, there are various universities (BYU, USU, UofU, UVU, SUU, etc) and a plethora of NGOs such as -- but not limited to -- Trout Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, HawkWatch International, Hogle Zoo, Sageland Collaborative, and Tracey Aviary.

This will be the last year for this project as the UWAP revision is due to the FWS in October 2025. Future work may entail contracting a firm to develop an interactive and user friendly UWAP website.

Appropriate implementation of the Utah WAP will maintain healthy wildlife populations on the landscape while allowing sustainable uses of natural resources in most cases.