Endangered species management

The U.S. Congress, through the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, recognized that endangered and threatened species of wildlife and plants "are of esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people." To date, more than 100 species have been listed as Endangered or Threatened under the ESA in Tennessee. You can find the most current list for Tennessee using the following link:

ESA Listed Species in Tennessee

Notes. This report includes species only if Tennessee has been listed in a species’ current range in the Environmental Conservation Online System (ECOS). It is possible that the state total in this report is lower than the true number of species listed if the current range in ECOS is out of date.

Whooping Crane (Grus americana) is omitted from the list above because the population in Tennessee is considered a non-essential experimental population. Depending on your needs (e.g., conservation planning and implementation), you may include this species to the list above.

As the principal federal agency responsible for implementing the ESA, the Tennessee Ecological Services Field Office leads in recovering and conserving our imperiled species in Tennessee. Our responsibilities also include the following:

• Listing, reclassifying, and delisting under the ESA;
• Providing information and biological opinions (through the Project Reviews, process) to federal agencies on their activities that may affect listed species;
• Enforcing species protection under the Act;
• Overseeing recovery activities for listed species;
• Providing for the protection of important habitat; and
• Providing assistance to states and others to assist with their endangered species conservation efforts.

Below are lists of species in Tennessee that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering for listing, reclassification, or delisting under the ESA.

Species Petitioned for Listing, Under Review

For more information about the National Listing Workplan, including tentative date, please visit National Listing Workplan | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (fws.gov)

ESA Proposed Species in Tennessee

Candidate Species in Tennessee

ESA Listed Species in Tennessee with a Proposed Listing Status Change

For more information about the National Downlisting and Delisting Workplan, including tentative date, please visit National Downlisting and Delisting Workplan | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (fws.gov)

Delisted Species in Tennessee

The Tennessee Field Office is responsible for the recovery of many species. Below is a table showing our national recovery lead and our 5-Year Status Review schedule.

At-Risk Species Finder

This web application was developed to track At-risk species (ARS) – both their status and the Service’s progress on evaluating the species according to the National Listing Workplan

This finder also provides the user opportunities to explore other information on these species and to promote collaborative pro-active conservation. This finder includes species on the current and previous workplans with ranges that overlap the Southeast (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and U.S. Virgin Islands).  The finder incorporates any species overlapping the Southeast regardless of which Region leads the Species Status Assessment Report or who is the species lead within the Service.

Questions or comments on the finder? Please contact us at Southeast_At_Risk_Sp_Support@fws.gov.