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King’s Hairstreak
(Satyrium kingi)
Photograph by Harold L. Wierenga

The Wildlife and Heritage Service Natural Heritage Program tracks the status of over 1,100 native plants and animals that are among the rarest in Maryland and most in need of conservation efforts as elements of our State's natural diversity. Of these species, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources officially recognizes 607 species and subspecies as endangered, threatened, in need of conservation, or endangered extirpated. Only 37, or 3% of the total tracked species, are listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as nationally endangered or threatened.

The primary State law that allows and governs the listing of endangered species is the Nongame and Endangered Species Conservation Act (Annotated Code of Maryland 10-2A-01). This Act is supported by regulations (Code of Maryland Regulations 08.03.08) which contain the official State Threatened and Endangered Species list. 

Secondarily, DNR's Fisheries Service maintains an official list of game and commercial fish species that are designated as threatened or endangered in Maryland (Code of Maryland Regulations 08.02.12).

Complete listings of the Rare, Threatened & Endangered Plants of Maryland  and the Rare, Threatened, & Endangered Animals of Maryland include all species tracked by the Wildlife and Heritage Service Natural Heritage Program and indicate which species are federally listed and which are officially State listed. Compiled by Natural Heritage Program staff, these lists are the result of 20 years of data gathering from numerous sources, such as herbaria and museums, private collections, scientific literature, unpublished documents, reports from biologists and amateur naturalists, and from field work conducted by regional ecologists.

Since the time of European colonization in the 1600's, more than 500 species and subspecies of native animals and plants have become extinct in North America. Some of these had been abundant in the Chesapeake Bay region. Passenger pigeons blackened the sky during migration, Carolina parakeets roosted in coastal swamp forests, and heath hens boomed on rolling grassland hilltops.

Although Maryland harbors a rich variety of plant and animal life, the populations of many species have declined since colonization and many have been extirpated, including small-whorled pogonia, chaffseed, gray wolf, and American bison.