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When habitat is protected and improved for N.C. wildlife species, habitat is protected and improved for N.C. human residents as well. Many of our smallest wildlife animals serve as harbingers of water quality or air quality issues. What benefts wildlife conservation benefts us all.

Wildlife Science and Management activities include • Monitoring health and status of wildlife populations • Developing and administering scientifc research

• Addressing human-wildlife interactions through technical guidance • Promoting and developing public fshing and hunting opportunities • Recommending hunting and fshing regulations

• Addressing wildlife disease issues such as chronic wasting disease in deer and white-nose syndrome in bats

• Stocking public waters with warmwater and coldwater game fsh species.

Here are three examples of our ongoing scientifc work:

Bog turtles

Every year, NCWRC wildlife diversity biologists search for the secretive bog turtle, a tiny species that is a state-listed threatened species, and a priority species in North Carolina’s Wildlife Action Plan.

Commission staff heads up the effort to survey the bog turtle at sites where populations have been documented in the past as part of a long-term monitoring program for this species. Bog turtles spend most of their time under the water, buried in mud, or hiding in thick vegetation, making them diffcult to locate. Therefore, their population numbers are often hard to estimate. Fewer than 100 bog turtle populations have been documented in North Carolina. Habitat loss is the

greatest threat to their existence. Wetlands have been drained and flled for development, and many bogs are overgrown with trees, which dry out moss and grass habitats. Another threat to the wild bog turtle population in North Carolina is illegal collection for the pet trade.

This year’s monitoring effort included surveying for bog turtles at 20 sites in four counties (Alleghany, Ashe, Henderson and Wilkes), with two sites visited twice. During these surveys, the crew captured 59 turtles that had been captured and marked previously and 28 turtles that had never been captured. The Commission has been surveying for bog turtles since the 1980s to determine the status of populations. Information such as gender, age and shell length is recorded. Biologists are also working to conserve the rare wetland habitats in the upper Piedmont and Mountains where the turtles live.

Conservation

Aquaculture Center

NCWRC has converted an old storage shed at the Marion Fish Hatchery in McDowell County into the Conservation Aquaculture Center (CAC), using federal funding from the State Wildlife and Preventing Extinction grants along with other funds. The CAC is a propagation and holding facility for native freshwater mussels and nongame fshes, used to keep these species from entirely disappearing from North Carolina waters by providing a temporary home where they can reproduce and grow big enough to release into rivers where they were once found in abundance.

Some are short-term residents, like the wavy-rayed lamp-mussels and rainbow mussels, which were propagated from

CONSERVATION PAYS OFF through Wildlife Science & Habitat

4 • North Carol ina Wi ldl i fe Resources Commi ss ion