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NEW! Deadline for comments on draft technical guidance for selecting surrogate species extended to March 29, 2013

Surrogate Species Draft Technical Guidance

FWS Director's Message

Shared Science

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

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My Conservation Legacy

I can still vividly recall the sunny spring day in 1968 when I heard the song of a warbler bursting forth from a nearby thicket, luring me in to investigate. Learn more.

Fish and Wildlife News Special SHC Issue

A Lasting Fish and Wildlife Legacy

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been entrusted to safeguard our Nation's fish, migratory birds, aquatic species, endangered and threatened species, and public lands. The unprecedented scale and complexity of challenges we face in the 21st century, however, require us to expand our vision for conservation and the partnerships we work with to achieve it.

To ensure a bright future for fish and wildlife in the face of widespread threats such as drought, climate change and large-scale habitat fragmentation, we can no longer base our actions solely on past experience and success. We must conserve landscapes capable of supporting self-sustaining populations of fish and wildlife, while also providing for the needs of people. Conserving these large landscapes, which are subject to multiple changing pressures and uncertainty, will require application of the best available science at every step. Learn more.

Landscape Conservation in Action

Stories and examples of applied SHC and landscape conservation can be submitted via e-mail at shc@fws.gov.

Saving Our Native Prairies: A Landscape Conservation Approach
Conservationists recognize that collaborative, science-based management is necessary to ensure a future for prairies and wetlands and the unique wildlife these habitats support. Learn more.

Uncovering the Hidden Layers of Big Muddy
Conservation partners across federal, state and non-governmental agencies and organizations are committed to uncovering layers of the lower Missouri River's past to set a course for future restoration and management of this regulated yet untamed river system. Learn more.

Applying SHC to the Pacific Lamprey Conservation Initiative
Here’s a pop quiz: What Service priority fish species boasts a 400 million-year ancestry, lacks bones, scales, and jaws, and benefits from the Strategic Habitat Conservation (SHC) framework? If you guessed Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentata), you’re right. Learn more.