Species Status Assessment

Decisions under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) require scientific input on the risk that the species will become extinct.  A series of critiques on the role of science in ESA decisions have called for improved consistency and transparency in species risk assessments and clear distinctions between science input and policy application. The species status assessment (SSA) process has three successive stages: 1) document the species life history and ecological relationships to provide the foundation for the assessment, 2) describe and hypothesize causes for the species current condition, and 3) forecast the species future condition.  The future condition refers to the species ability to sustain populations in the wild under plausible future scenarios.  The scenarios help explore the species response to future environmental stressors and to assess the potential for conservation to intervene to improve species status.  The SSA process incorporates modeling and scenario planning for prediction of species risk of extinction and applies the conservation biology principles of representation, resiliency, and redundancy to evaluate the current and future condition of the species. The SSA results in a scientific report distinct from policy application, which contributes to streamlined, transparent, and consistent decision making and allows for greater technical participation by experts outside of the USFWS. The SSA builds upon the past threat-focused assessment by including systematic and explicit analyses of the species future response to stressors and conservation, and as a result, we believe it provides an improved scientific analysis for ESA decisions. Researchers at Leetown Science Center are working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop an assessment process based on principles and practices of risk and decision analyses that helps guide implementation of the SSA.