ARIZONA’S STATE WILDLIFE ACTION PLAN: 2012 - 2022 Arizona Game and Fish Department 5000 West Carefree Highway Phoenix, Arizona 85086-5000 16 May 2012 CIVIL RIGHTS AND DIVERSITY COMPLIANCE The Arizona Game and Fish Commission receives federal financial assistance in Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration. Under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, or disability. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information please write to: Arizona Game and Fish Department Office of the Deputy Director, DOHQ 5000 W Carefree Hwy Phoenix, Arizona 85086 and The Office for Diversity and Civil Rights U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 4040 North Fairfax Drive, Room 300 Arlington, Virginia 22203 AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT COMPLIANCE The Arizona Game and Fish Department complies with all provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This document is available in alternative format by contacting the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Office of the Deputy Director at the address listed above or by calling (623) 236-7290 or TTY 1-800-367-8939. RECOMMENDED CITATION Arizona Game and Fish Department. 2012. Arizona’s State Wildlife Action Plan: 2012-2022. Arizona Game and Fish Department, Phoenix, Arizona. PROJECT FUNDING Funding for the development of this strategic plan was provided by a State Wildlife Grant Program Planning Grant and the Arizona Heritage Fund. ii FOREWARD Arizona’s State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) is more than just another planning document. It is the product of eight years of collaborative work conducted by the Arizona Game and Fish Department and many of our partners in the conservation community. The first two of those years occurred during the development of the first rendition of the plan, a document known as Arizona’s Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy, or CWCS. During that time, the Department, assisted by many of our key partners, undertook the daunting task of developing a comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy for the state. This was done in concert with all the other states and territories of the United States who were developing similar plans. Following the eight elements required by Congress, those involved in the development of the CWCS completed what could arguably be called the most comprehensive statewide analysis of the condition of Arizona’s wildlife and habitats. The group developed criteria for identifying Arizona’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need, or SGCN; they described the landscape of Arizona, including descriptions of the habitat types and conditions of those habitats across the state; they examined the status of the state’s SGCN, identified stressors to those species, and most importantly, they identified actions that could be taken to address those stressors. The final document came in at 564 pages, plus another 271 in appendices. The products of that effort were made available on the Department’s web page in chapters that were useful to our partners, including the State’s SGCN list, information on the habitats associated with the SGCN, a list of stressors, and actions that can be taken to address those stressors. During the six years since the plan was approved, the information contained in the CWCS was used to inform management decisions by many of our partners including but not limited to land management agencies and non-governmental conservation organizations. The Department has used the CWCS to inform development of annual work plans required to receive State Wildlife Grant funding, development of the Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Programs operational and implementation plans, and the evaluation of external grant applications. The current revision will be used even more extensively to inform strategic planning at all levels within the Department. In addition, the data behind the SWAP will now be available to a much wider audience than ever before. Since publication of the CWCS, the demand for data access and the need for decision making tools has grown. Even during the development of the CWCS, those involved knew that the plan would evolve to meet changing conditions in the state. There was a desire to make the data available to the public in as close to real time as possible. The original developers of the plan envisioned using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology in a web-based system that would allow anyone to access the data that informed the CWCS. With the current revision of the plan, the Department has developed a number of spatial products and the web-based HabiMapTM Arizona, which provides full access to the data behind the SWAP to everyone within the Department, our partners, the planning community, and to the public. Everyone can use this tool to inform decisions that could impact Arizona’s diverse wildlife and habitats. It has taken the Department over three years to make the HabiMapTM Arizona a reality, develop the spatial layers that populate it, and produce the SWAP. Many of you participated, either iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Arizona's Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy, or CWCS, was accepted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Acceptance Advisory Team in 2006. It was the culmination of a 2-year effort during which the Arizona Game and Fish Department solicited input from numerous experts, resource professionals, federal and state agencies, sportsmen groups, conservation organizations, Native American tribes, recreational groups, local governments, and private citizens and integrated those ideas and concerns into a single, comprehensive vision for managing Arizona’s fish, wildlife, and wildlife habitats over the next ten years. In the intervening five years, Arizona and its’ wildlife have seen many changes. To name just a few, the State’s human population continues to grow at a rate above average for the country, generating a need for rural and urban planning. A strengthening demand for development of renewable energy sources has created a drive to consider the impacts of such development on wildlife and habitats. We have seen the emergence of new wildlife diseases, the introduction of new invasive species, the listing of some species under the Endangered Species Act, and the delisting of others. We have even welcomed a new species, the Least Tern, to our State. At Federal, State, and local levels, there is also increased attention on climate change and how it affects our wildlife and their habitats. Perhaps more important is the ongoing work that the Department has engaged in over those years. The CWCS served as a catalyst to the Department to improve on its data collection, management, and analysis. Specifically, it became readily apparent that we needed to get the wealth of information collected for that plan in front of the people who could use it most. In light of that, we have endeavored to develop data products and analysis tools that would help ourselves and our partners inform planning and decision making with the most current and comprehensive wildlife data available. We have succeeded at that endeavor through development of HabiMapTM Arizona; a web-based planning tool that allows individuals from partnering agencies or the public to fully view and analyze the relationships among different data layers such as individual stressors or species. This document represents not only a plan, but also a guide to using the conservation products we have developed over the years. If anything, implementation of the CWCS has reinforced the Department’s commitment to and belief in the power of collaborative approaches to conservation. We believe this document, now called the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP), is a far superior product than the original CWCS because it facilitates data sharing and communication between the Department and its partners. We also believe it to be much simpler to use with each section corresponding to one of the required elements. Throughout this document, blue text indicates a live link to the section of the document. Pressing CTRL + click on any link will take the user directly to that chapter or to an external link where applicable. The first few sections of the document contain background and introductory material including a short introduction to the SWAP and conservation in Arizona. That is followed by Development of Arizona’s SWAP, which contains a quick description of the process involved in the revision and a road map to the location of information regarding the eight elements. The next chapter, v The State Wildlife Action Plan System for Arizona (SWAPSAZ) describes the data management system the Department has developed to store all information related to the SWAP. This section also describes the web-based interface, HabiMapTM Arizona that allows users of the SWAP their own window into the data. The next five sections form the core of the document and correspond to the first five of the required elements. Species of Greatest Conservation Need (Element 1) describes updates to the master species list, the revised vulnerability criteria to determine the SGCN, and outlines the process used to develop of potential habitat models for the SGCN. A complete description of Arizona’s habitat types and the condition of those habits is found in Wildlife Habitat in Arizona (Element 2). In addition, this section describes the process the Department used to develop a number of products to be used to inform conservation in Arizona. Those models, in the form of GIS layers available in the HabiMapTM Arizona, include: 1) a richness index for the SGCN, 2) an economic potential layer for species of economic and recreational importance, 3) a sport fish importance layer, 4) modeled riparian habitat, and 5) unfragmented habitats.