The State Wildlife Grants Program was created in 2000 and provides federal money to every state and territory for cost-effective conservation aimed at preventing wildlife from becoming endangered. Congress charged each state and territory with developing a Wildlife Action Plan, or "Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy," by October 2005 in order to receive funds. Each plan had to address eight required elements covering species, habitats, threats, conservation actions, monitoring and review, inter-agency coordination, and public participation. The planning process represents the first attempt to assess wildlife conservation needs and priorities by state agencies across the nation.

The National Council for Science and the Environment’s Wildlife Habitat Policy Research Program and the USGS Gap Analysis Program funded an 18-month, multi-university distributed graduate seminar to examine early plan  implementation successes and challenges. The seminars were administered by the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California Santa Barbara. Each participating university (see names and faculty leaders on the right) was responsible for a synoptic analysis of a regional cluster of state plans and their implementation. The goal was to document how the plans have influenced conservation efforts by the state agencies and other organizations, implementation challenges, early successes, and enabling mechanisms. 

Graduate seminars were led by faculty seminar leaders at their home campuses. An advisory group of leaders in wildlife conservation helped shape the research questions. In Winter/Spring 2007, three universities conducted pilot seminars to characterize basic elements of all of the plans.  Seminar leaders from all eight campuses then convened in May 2007 to finalize research methods for a Fall 2007 seminar focused on initial progress towards plan implementation and the associated obstacles and opportunities. Graduate students interviewed wildlife agency staff and conservation partners in each state and summarized their findings in 3-6 page reports. Campuses also produced regional summaries or examined selected aspects of implementation in more detail. A final meeting was held in Santa Barbara in January 2008 to synthesize project findings.