California Essential Habitat Connectivity Project

This is a collaboration between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) that sets out to identify large remaining blocks of intact habitat or natural landscape and model linkages between them that need to be maintained, particularly as corridors for wildlife. This is done using the best available science, data sets, spatial analyses, and modeling techniques.

Under their leadership, over sixty federal, state, local, tribal and non-governmental organizations collaborated in the creation of the following;

1. A statewide wildlife habitat connectivity map using a Geographic Information System (GIS) based modeling approach;

2. An assessment of the biological value of recognized connectivity areas; and

3. A strategic plan that helps varied end-users interpret and utilize the statewide map and outlines an approach necessary for completing connectivity analyses at finer spatial scales.