Georgia’s Species List Rewrite Bans Killing Diamondbacks

Georgia’s Board of Natural Resources is set to vote Oct. 27 on the first full rewrite of the state’s protected species list since 2006. The plan would grow the roster from 318 to 423 animals and plants.

It would also make killing an eastern diamondback rattlesnake a misdemeanor and let growers sell 39 listed plants raised in captivity without a permit from the Department of Natural Resources.

Georgia’s Protected List Would Grow to 423 Species

DNR posted the proposed updates to the protected species list after technical teams finished the science review and after a June nomination window closed. The rewrite would add 145 species, drop 40, change the status of 66, and update scientific names for 49 plants and animals. The net gain is 105 names.

Those figures are the August proposal, not the earlier June draft. Plants would rise from 155 to 208. Invertebrates would rise from 51 to 89. Those two groups account for 91 of the 105 extra names. Fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals would each pick up two to four listings.

PROTECTED SPECIES BY GROUP

The list sits in Subject 391-4-10 of DNR rules, under the Georgia Endangered Wildlife Act of 1973 and the Wildflower Preservation Act of 1973. Species are tagged endangered, threatened, rare, or unusual. The four labels carry the same legal bans. DNR says endangered names should get first call for voluntary work.

Twenty Years Passed Before This Rewrite

State law tells DNR to review the list from time to time. It does not set a clock. The last comprehensive rewrite was in 2006. Katrina Morris, a Wildlife Conservation Section program manager, told the public in June that biologists and species experts from across the Southeast built the new draft from the best available status and trend data.

The main data source was Georgia’s 2025 State Wildlife Action Plan, a 10-year conservation strategy the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved. That plan identifies more than 1,000 Species of Greatest Conservation Need. Only a share of those names would gain the legal shield of the protected list. Morris later told the board the department hopes to line up future list reviews with the wildlife plan’s 10-year cycle, so a 20-year freeze is not repeated.

Giving the public an opportunity to review this list and provide input on things we may have missed will help ensure that we provide protected status for the species that are in the greatest need of conservation in our state.

Katrina Morris, Wildlife Conservation Section program manager, Georgia DNR

Residents could nominate native plants and animals for addition, removal, or a status change from June 1 through June 30. Nominations after that date roll to a later revision. DNR then revised the draft, opened a formal comment window, and set a hearing in Social Circle.

THE RULEMAKING CALENDAR

1. June 1, 2026: DNR opens public nominations for the first comprehensive rewrite since 2006.
2. June 30, 2026: The nomination window closes at the end of the month.
3. August 25, 2026: Wildlife staff brief the Board of Natural Resources in Atlanta. No vote is taken.
4. August 28, 2026: Formal comment opens on amendments to Rules 391-4-10-.09 and 391-4-10-.07.
5. September 8, 2026: A public hearing is held at 7 p.m. at Wildlife Resources Division headquarters, 2067 U.S. Hwy. 278 SE, Social Circle.
6. September 20, 2026: Comments are due by 4:30 p.m. by email, phone, or mail.
7. October 27, 2026: The board considers the amendments and the comments at 9 a.m. in the DNR Board Room in Atlanta.

Staff have not posted a rewritten total since comments closed. The working proposal remains 318 to 423 unless the board changes it.

Killing a Diamondback Would Become Unlawful

The civic story in June was a nomination form. The legal change that follows is a take ban. Georgia now lets people kill animals in 14 named groups, including frogs and venomous snakes. Listing a species pulls it out of that exception, on public land and private land alike.

The eastern diamondback rattlesnake received the most public nominations, seven, Morris told the board, according to the minutes of the August 25 briefing. She cited habitat loss, intentional killing, and commercial trade as the main threats. The snake was petitioned for federal listing in 2012. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that listing may be warranted and that protections in Georgia were inadequate. Morris said a state listing would make intentional killing unlawful and give DNR a chance to work on habitat, reducing the need for a federal listing. The proposed 2026 roster tags the snake as threatened.

The Rattlesnake Conservancy filed a nomination in June. On Sept. 25, after comments closed, the Wildlife Society’s Southeastern Section announced support for adding the snake. Laurel Jobe, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, tied the state rewrite to a thinner federal role.

As the federal government dismantles protections for endangered species I’m glad to see that Georgia is stepping up to protect its wildlife.

Laurel Jobe, attorney, Center for Biological Diversity

DNR’s FAQ takes the safety objection head on. Listing the snake would not make Georgians less safe, the agency wrote, because most fatal bites in the United States happen after someone tries to catch, handle, or kill a venomous snake. Making those acts unlawful is the point.

DIAMONDBACK BITE FIGURES IN THE DNR FAQ

• Georgia bites: About 500 to 600 venomous snakebites are reported in the state each year, and about 10 of them are attributed to eastern diamondbacks.
• Deaths in a typical year: Zero deaths from those diamondback bites are reported in most years.
• Georgia fatalities: Three deaths over the last 30 years have been attributed to the eastern diamondback.
• Self-defense: DNR Law Enforcement would investigate whether a killing was needed to stop an imminent threat to a person, another animal, or property. A violation of the Endangered Wildlife Act is a misdemeanor.

The ornate chorus frog is the other example Morris used with the board. Listing it would stop intentional take and let the department focus on wetland habitat. That is the second-order move in this rewrite: Georgia is using its own list to turn killing into a crime for species that federal biologists have already flagged, without waiting for the Endangered Species Act to do it.

Does a State Listing Stop Development?

No. Georgia law says rules on state-protected species shall not affect rights in private property and shall not impede construction of any type. DNR still offers advice on how to build with less harm where listed plants and animals are known to occur. That advice is not a veto.

About 93% of Georgia is privately owned, according to DNR’s Private Lands Program. A federal endangered listing can reach habitat on that land in ways a state listing does not. DNR says a state listing is meant to keep species from sliding into that federal process. The agency’s FAQ on how listing affects landowners also says adding names to the state list will not, by itself, produce more federally listed species in Georgia. Federal listing is a separate call by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

What the state list does, it does with a short set of bans. A rule that bans killing protected animals already applies to every name now on the roster, and it would apply to every name the board adds.

WHAT STATE LISTING ACTUALLY BANS

• Animals, anywhere: It is unlawful to harass, capture, kill, or otherwise directly cause the death of a protected animal, except as the board authorizes.
• Sale and possession: Protected animals and their parts cannot be sold, bought, or possessed without a DNR permit.
• Habitat on public land: Destroying the habitat of a protected animal on public lands is prohibited. That ban does not extend to private land.
• Plants: Cutting, digging, or pulling a protected plant from state land without a permit is unlawful. Selling plants taken from private land without the landowner’s permission is also unlawful, as is moving them without a DNR tag and written consent.
• Penalty: A violation of either 1973 act is a misdemeanor.

That split is why landowners keep asking whether a new rattlesnake or frog will freeze a timber cut or a subdivision. Under current Georgia rules, it will not. It will make it a crime to kill the animal on purpose.

Nurseries Would Sell 39 Listed Plants Without Permits

The other rewrite that is not about a wild animal is a commercial exception. Proposed Rule 391-4-10-.07 would let people sell, transport, and possess 39 protected plant species, marked with asterisks in Rule 391-4-10-.09, without a DNR permit. The plants would have to come from existing horticultural stock, not from wild populations.

DNR says native plant growing is a rising slice of Georgia’s economy, and that private landowners are asking for native stock for yards. Several protected species have been in the trade for years, propagated from cultivated plants rather than dug from the woods. The exception is written to keep that trade legal as those names stay on, or join, the protected list.

Without the asterisk, a listed plant is still shielded on state land and still cannot be sold from a wild collection on private land unless the landowner agrees and DNR tags the shipment. The carve-out is narrow on purpose. It covers a defined set of 39 names, not the full jump from 155 to 208 plants.

Monarchs In, Gray Bats Out

DNR’s FAQ uses two birds and bats as the plain examples. Saltmarsh sparrows are not on the current list. They winter on the Georgia coast, where flooding and broken marsh are eating habitat, and they are proposed as threatened. Gray bats are on the state list and the federal endangered list. A recent five-year federal review found recovery goals met and recommended delisting. DNR agrees and wants them off the state list even though federal delisting is not final. Work on gray bats would continue under the wildlife plan.

Taking a name off the list is not always a comeback story. DNR says the 40 removals are a mix: species that 20 years of work helped recover, and species that newer surveys showed were not as rare as the 2006 list implied. Gray bats are the recovery case the agency is willing to put in writing. Claims that other removals mean a species has already vanished from Georgia are not in the department’s materials.

The Center for Biological Diversity’s list of proposed state protections includes monarch butterflies, rusty-patched bumblebees, tricolored bats, Atlantic sturgeon, Altamaha bass, Suwannee alligator snapping turtles, Appalachian cottontails, patch-nosed salamanders, brook floater mussels, Ocmulgee trillium, and MacGillivray’s seaside sparrows, along with the diamondback. The August roster already carries the gopher tortoise as threatened, the eastern spotted skunk as rare, and the Appalachian cottontail as threatened. Some additions are new state shields. Others align a state tag with a federal one.

Chris Harper, director of the Wildlife Resources Division, signed the official notice of the rulemaking. Final amendments still have to clear the board. The Board of Natural Resources is scheduled to take up the proposal, and the comments already filed, at 9 a.m. on Oct. 27 in the DNR Board Room at 2 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SE, Suite 1252 East, Atlanta.