Helping Southeastern States and Territories Incorporate Climate Change into State Wildlife Action Plans

State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) serve as the blueprints for conserving wildlife at the state level and are required of US States and Territories to receive funding through the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants program administered by USFWS. SWAPs go through major revisions every 10 years, with the next round being due in 2025. The last round of SWAPs in the Southeast generally lacked information on climate change stressors & their impacts to habitats & species. To help fill this gap, the Southeast CASC, partnered with the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) and the South Central CASC to provide additional capacity and technical support to SWAP coordinators across the region by providing cooperator reports that summarize climatology and future climate projections for Southeast ecoregions and synthesize potential impacts to key habitats and taxonomic groups. Working across 11 states and territories, the cooperator reports consisted of several main topics: 1) Summaries of historical and future climate thresholds by ecoregion and sea-level rise projections for coastal states/territories, 2) A summary of available vulnerability assessments and niche models for each state's/territory's species of greatest conservation need (SGCN), 3) A literature review on climate change impacts to a priority taxonomic group or habitat of their choosing.