The California Endangered Species Act (CESA) facilitates the listing and conservation of threatened and endangered species in California. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is charged with conducting scientific reviews of species petitioned for listing, administering permitting programs to authorize impacts to listed species, and conducting periodic status reviews of listed species. While CESA provides protection for listed and candidate species, until recently CDFW has had neither the funding nor the authority to prepare recovery plans providing a conservation roadmap and delisting criteria for those species. In 2019, CDFW was given authority to produce recovery plans and in 2021 was provided funding for positions coordinating recovery planning. Future plans will provide frameworks and criteria for the recovery of the numerous CESA-listed plants and animals, many of which have no current federal recovery plan or conservation strategy. Our first steps include creating guidelines for recovery plans to ensure consistency and prioritization of species which are most likely to benefit from a recovery plan. Recovery planning will involve collaboration with multiple partners including local, state, and federal agencies, conservation organizations, landowners, and the public. We are soliciting advice from those with recovery planning experience as CDFW begins producing these plans.

Ange Darnell Baker is a Senior Environmental Scientist (Specialist) with CDFW's Wildlife Branch in the Wildlife Diversity Program where she is responsible for coordinating recovery plans for all CESA-listed terrestrial animals. Prior to working for CDFW, she was faculty in the Wildlife Department at Humboldt State University (HSU). She received her PhD from the University of Louisiana where she studied the impacts of human recreation on carnivores in protected areas of the Southwest. Her Master's, from HSU, focused on the space use of African wild dogs relative to their two main competitors, lions and hyenas in a provincial park in South Africa.