Wildlife Action Plan 2015 Revision Process White Paper
Additionally, the Taxa Team added consideration for those species where nonbreed- ing, breeding, or both populations occurred in North Carolina by adding 6, 8, or 10 points (respectively) to the Conservation Concern cumulative total. Te Taxa Team also decided to include responsibility species as SGCN based on global and NC importance. Global responsibility species are those that occur in North Carolina in the periphery of its range, and are therefore rare in the state. Metric scores for global responsibility species would likely be M2 = 0, M3 = 0, and M5 = 9 or 10. While they may be globally secure and abundant, they may be at risk to threats that can occur elsewhere within their range, including international landscapes. An example of this type of threat is deforestation in the Amazon forests. NC global responsibility species are those species for which 8% or more of the global breeding or wintering population occurs in North Carolina and the ranking evaluation score is within the 50% percentile. • Freshwater Fish: Te threat assessment score from Metric 9 was calculated as the maxi- mum score reported from the evaluation categories, with 10 points being the maximum added to the cumulative score. Ranking Scores. Taxa Team members and peer-reviewers select the appropriate response for each metric as part of the ranking process. Responses are entered into an organized, relational database developed for the NCWRC’s Portal Access to Wildlife Systems (PAWS) website, which is available to reviewers through a secured internet portal. Each metric’s answer scale represents empirical responses that refect the best available knowledge for a species and is used to calculate numeric ranking scores. Averaged scores and cumulative totals are calculated by the PAWS database for each of the review categories. Taxa Teams will use the Conservation Concern and Knowledge Gap scores in the species prioritization process to identify SGCN. Ranking scores from all three review categories will be used to recommend priority species. Te steps involved in com- pleting the species ranking and scoring process are described below. 1. Each Taxa Team member will review the ranking criteria metrics and evaluate species for which they are knowledgeable. Responses for each metric will be entered by Team members into the PAWS database. 2. Taxa Teams will be convened to review the metric responses submitted by their Team members. Te metric responses will be compiled in a preliminary report automatically generated by the PAWS database. For each species where a metric response varies, Taxa Team members will collaboratively review the responses to determine whether calcu- lation of an average score based on the range of responses is appropriate or if a fnal response should be designated.
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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