The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies CHAT is intended to provide coarse-scale, non-regulatory wildlife information to support project pre-planning. Users of this interactive map are encouraged to also visit state-specific CHAT sites for more detail and to remember that no online tool is a substitute for on-the-ground surveys and consultation with state wildlife experts. The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies CHAT was created by state wildlife agencies across the West, using a common framework to define "Crucial Habitat" using a suite of priority datasets. The metadata pages describe how each state compiled their Crucial Habitat data and how the regional data was aggregated.
