Where Biodiversity is Most at Risk Across America

January 14, 2025
Let your eyes wander to the areas of this map that deepen into red. They are the places in the lower 48 United States most likely to have plants and animals at high risk of global extinction.
It’s the most detailed map of its kind so far. Animals like the black-footed ferret and California condor are represented, but so are groups often left out of such analyses: species of bees, butterflies, fish, mussels, crayfish and flowering plants. Not included are gray wolves, grizzly bears and other wildlife not at risk of global extinction.
Maps like these offer a valuable tool to officials and conservationists who are scrambling to protect biodiversity. That work is critical, because scientists say humans are speeding extinction at a disastrous pace.
“There are hundreds of species known to be globally critically imperiled or imperiled in this country that have no protection under federal law and often no protection under state law,” said Healy Hamilton, chief scientist at NatureServe, a nonprofit conservation research group that led the analysis behind the map.
Right now, about 13 percent of the United States is permanently protected and managed primarily for biodiversity, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Even when species are protected under federal or state laws, they are typically more vulnerable outside of lands that are managed to protect biodiversity, Dr. Hamilton said. Officials may not know where they are. Private landowners may be reluctant to report them or allow surveys for fear of the restrictions that could follow if they are found.
To identify concentrations of imperiled biodiversity, the scientists created models for more than 2,200 species based on where they are known to exist and their habitat needs. It is one of many efforts to measure biodiversity in the United States and around the world.
If you would like to learn more, you can visit this NYT Article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/03/climate/biodiversity-map.html