Federal grant programs / Department of the Interior

Threatened and Endangered Species (15.246)

• Awarded, FY 2021 to 2025$25.3 million
• Grant awards168
• Typical award$84,170
• Awarded in FY 2025$3.7 million
• Size rank1238 of 1824
• Type of assistanceCooperative agreements (discretionary grants)

Key findings

• Annual funding fell from $4.9 million in fiscal 2021 to $3.7 million in fiscal 2025.
• It is the 1238th largest of 1,824 federal grant programs by five-year awards.
• The 20 largest recipients received 65% of the money.
• Awards went to recipients in 21 states and territories.

What the program funds

The BLM, as a federal agency, is required under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to carry out programs to protect and recover threatened and endangered (T&E) species and the ecosystems upon which they depend and implements tasks identified in T&E recovery plans developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service. The BLM also implements conservation actions for sensitive and candidate species to preclude the need for federal listing. The Threatened and Endangered Species Program works to conserve and recover federally-listed animal and plant species and their habitat on public lands and shares cooperative responsibility with other BLM programs and partners for conservation of candidate and sensitive species. The scope of the T&E Species Program spans all taxa that merit designation under the Endangered Species Act or are identified as BLM sensitive species, providing a cross section of the most imperiled species of mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, invertebrates, fish, and plants. As of 2023, there are over 330 federally threatened and endangered species and 2400 federal sensitive species occur within BLM managed lands. Public lands often provide the key habitat for species recovery and conservation. Managing more land than any other federal agency, the BLM plays a pivotal and substantive role in species recovery. Due to the commingling of federal and nonfederal lands, the BLM’s proactive commitment to conserve threatened and endangered species is essential to federal, state, and non-governmental organizations in meeting our mutual interest of species recovery. Collaboration on conservation endeavors with the ultimate goal to increase threatened and endangered species or BLM sensitive species populations and manage and restore habitat of these federal trust wildlife, fish and plants within the public domain, serves a public purpose as required in cooperative agreements.

From the federal Assistance Listing. Read the full listing on SAM.gov.

Open opportunities

No opportunity under this program is open or forecast on Grants.gov right now. Programs often post once a year, so the funding history below shows what to expect.

Rules from the program listing

What the money can and cannot pay for

Projects are primarily conducted on lands administered by the BLM but may also be conducted on other public or private lands. Most of these lands are located in the Western United States and Alaska. Assistance can be used to help protect, restore, assess and document federally-listed and rare species and the habitat upon which they depend; and to provide related public contact/education opportunities. Funding is highly variable each fiscal year.

Matching requirements

This program has no statutory formula. Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

Award range and average, in the agency's words

Past partnership projects have ranged from $5,000 to $2,000,000. Average amounts approximately $68,300 or less.

Examples of funded projects

Fiscal Year2025: The BLM T&E Program focuses on conservation and recovery of endangered, threatened and BLM sensitive species (cumulatively referred to as special status species) and their habitats to help ensure balanced and diverse uses of BLM-managed lands including the Nation’s need for domestic sources of energy, minerals, timber, recreation, and fish and wildlife habitat for future generations. The T&E Program focuses on implementing the Department of Interior’s priorities by emphasizing actions that help streamline permitting processes and reduce regulatory requirements for authorizations (e.g., minerals, energy, timber, recreation). Overall, this can be achieved by 1) conserving and recovering species and their habitats to help recover and delist or help preclude the need to list new endangered and threatened species thereby reducing future regulations and 2) improving available information and data that can be used to support approval of authorizations. To meet these goals, the T&E Program has an opportunity to work with partner organizations to increase program efficiencies and effectiveness.Fiscal Year2026: Program has not yet selected projects for funding. Program anticipates funding projects with a direct benefit to at risk species conservation, with the primary emphasis on support to delist Endangered Species Act-listed species or prevent the need to list at-risk species to promote deregulation.

Continue reading on SAM.gov

Quoted from the program's federal Assistance Listing. The notice of funding opportunity is the official source for each competition's rules.

Who usually wins

Nonprofits received 57% of the money, colleges and universities 28% and state and local governments 12%.

By state

10 states have a page for this program: those that received at least $1 million or 10 awards.

Award amounts are federal obligations reported to USAspending.gov for fiscal 2021 to 2025; see how our data works.