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State and federal agencies work together to protect West Virginia’s threatened and endangered species.
This story was originally published in the March 2025 issue of Wonderful West Virginia. To subscribe, visit wonderfulwv.com.
Written by Wendy Holdren
Offering safe haven for a broad range of endangered bat species, Greenville Saltpeter Cave in Monroe County is the second-largest bat hibernating area in all of West Virginia. Since the 1980s, biologists with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (WVDNR) have been counting the bats that hibernate there. As monitoring continued over the years, the WVDNR realized that human visitation to the cave wasn’t good for the bat population.
In coordination with the property owners, the WVDNR began plans in the late 1990s to erect gates to bar entry to the caves. With help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), funding was secured for the gates, and the WVDNR team led the installation. In the early 2020s, the WVDNR learned that the property was for sale, so the agency’s partners in the USFWS began working to ensure that the property was secure for the hibernating bats there.
Because the Greenville Saltpeter Cave was too small to be considered a state wildlife management area, the team had to determine what made the most logistical sense. With the help of an additional partner, The Conservation Fund, the West Virginia Land Trust was able to acquire the property to secure its conservation. Now, the bat species that hibernate there—the Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, tricolored bat, and others—have a much better chance of survival in the protected territory.
“The cave is now fully protected,” says WVDNR Endangered Species Coordinator Alexander Silvis. “To me, this is a comprehensive success story of our agencies and partners working together to protect and preserve our endangered species.” Together, the teams continue working on habitat restoration on the property, including replanting native vegetation to provide foraging areas for the bats, removing invasive species like autumn olive and multiflora rose, and installing bat boxes to provide roosting areas. “The cave is gated and it is permanently protected, thanks to this long-term project and partnership.”
A Shared Responsibility
As part of its mission, the WVDNR manages the state’s natural resources and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. It is closely aligned with the USFWS mission to prevent the extinction of rare species and help recover them, Silvis explains. “Both organizations have shared missions to conserve and recover rare, threatened, and endangered species,” he says. “We’re working toward the same goal, so it makes sense for us to work together.”
While the overarching missions of the partners are nearly identical, their perspectives and methods are more complementary. The WVDNR, for example, focuses specifically on the animals within the borders of West Virginia, whereas the USFWS looks for regional and national trends. “There’s a big overlap,” Silvis says, “but there are separate missions. We see the issues in our backyard. They bring a broader perspective. We work with state and regional counterparts and have an understanding of the work they’re doing, but the federal entity can work across borders.”
West Virginia is home to a field office for the USFWS. Silvis says the team there focuses on threatened and endangered species in the Mountain State, and information and insights to support that work are often provided by the WVDNR. Depending on the season or the issue at hand, representatives communicate weekly or even daily to keep one another up to date. “We work together to identify significant issues and ways we can work together most effectively,” Silvis says.
Understanding the Threat
Every 10 years, the WVDNR updates a State Wildlife Action Plan that serves as an overview of the efforts to conserve wildlife species and their habitats—the last time was in 2015. All states create similar plans, and every state in the Northeast region uses the same threat assessment scale. Each species is given a security or conservation need assessment, and then they are ranked by the threat posed. Silvis says experts in each taxon will conduct the assessment and ranking by considering the threats to the species, how significant the threat is, and how widespread the species is. For example, bats are found all across the state, but their populations are trending downward. Coupled with multiple identified threats, they are given a score to provide a quantitative scale of conservation need.
WVDNR is now updating the West Virginia State Wildlife Action Plan for 2025. It will be shared regionally and nationally with partnership organizations. Other states share their plans as well, and the USFWS uses these plans to help determine which states and regions are experiencing similar threats. Based on the greatest needs, it may consider adding species to federally threatened or endangered lists, and funding can be provided to help conservation efforts.
Essentially, progression to becoming a federally threatened or endangered species often starts with identification of risks at the state level. The USFWS sometimes asks for additional data to perform an analysis of the three Rs—Representation, Resiliency, and Redundancy—which ultimately determines whether the species warrants a federal listing. The organizations meet on an annual basis to touch base on state priorities and broader-scale projects. Representatives from the state and federal level also cross-train one another. Silvis says, “Ultimately, our goal is to work toward recovery, hand in glove.”
Adjacent Partnerships
The WVDNR and USFWS often collaborate with agencies whose missions are not as wildlife-specific. “It’s all about maintaining good working relationships to benefit wildlife,” Silvis says. “There are very few species we can work with unilaterally to conserve them.”
For example, a particular species of crayfish can only be found in two streams in the entire state of West Virginia. In trying to recover this species, work with other agencies that have different responsibilities and authority has been necessary. The bottom of the stream is technically the habitat of the crayfish, Silvis explains, which places the work in the purview of the WVDNR. However, the stream water itself and the quality of the water fall within the purview of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
The wildlife agencies also have to work regularly with the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to ensure the safety of wildlife habitats on abandoned surface mines. Other regular partners include the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, the United States Geological Survey, and others. “We all have to come together,” Silvis says. “We help marshal our state counterparts, and Fish and Wildlife help marshal their federal counterparts. These partnerships allow us to bring expertise and authority together. Agencies don’t always agree on the most effective path forward, but because of our standing relationships, we can compromise on how to proceed.”
A Lasting Legacy
While the partnership between the WVDNR and the USFWS has been ongoing for decades, an official cooperative agreement was signed in 1982. It is renewed each year, providing the state with certain capacities to work with federally threatened and endangered species. “Our relationship has been on paper since the ’80s, but it is only effective because of persistence,” Silvis says.
“It’s like the passing of a baton from one successor to the next, establishing relationships and sharing contacts,” he adds. “Agency relationships continue beyond any one person. I have every expectation that my successor will continue where I leave off. As organizations, we are effective individually, but we are even more effective when we work together. By regularly working together, our efforts have persisted throughout multiple generations and will continue to do so.”
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