Candidate and Proposed Species Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)

Candidate species are those petitioned species that are actively being considered for listing as endangered or threatened under the ESA, as well as those species for which NMFS has initiated an ESA status review that it has announced in the Federal Register. For detailed definitions and explanations, please refer to the April 15, 2004 and October 17, 2006, Federal register notices (69 FR 19975) [pdf], (71 FR 61022) [pdf], which revised the Candidate Species definition.

Proposed species are those candidate species that were found to warrant listing as either threatened or endangered and were officially proposed as such in a Federal Register notice after the completion of a status review and consideration of other protective conservation measures. Public comment is always sought on a proposal to list species under the ESA. NMFS generally has one year after a species is proposed for listing under the ESA to make a final determination whether to list a species as threatened or endangered.

Candidates for Listing (16 candidate "species")  

Proposed for Listing (75 proposed "species")

Updated: August 21, 2013