6.3 Conservation Opportunities and Incentives
recreation industry, more than $3.3 billion is spent annually on wildlife-related recreation in our state. Figure 6.2 represents the expansive number of agencies and organizations with a land stewardship mission and depicts the location of lands managed for conservation. Te fgure illustrates a disconnect between conservation lands and nearby habitats that can pose a barrier to movement between fsh and wildlife populations. Tere is a continuing need to protect corridors between conservation lands to provide sufcient connectivity that facilitates species movement and gene fow across the landscape. It is critical to pro- vide corridors and protect connections in urban areas, especially in the Piedmont ecore- gion where development and urbanized areas continue to expand. 6.3.2.1 State-owned Public Lands North Carolina has more acreage of managed game lands than all states east of the Mississippi, with the exception of Florida and Michigan, both of which include lake and ocean frontage as managed land. Trough cooperative agreements with federal and state agencies and private landowners, NCWRC manages over 2 million acres of land for conser- vation of fsh and wildlife species and broad expanses of public recreational opportunities, especially public hunting, trapping, and fshing opportunities. NCWRC land conserva- tion objectives include expanding existing game lands to connect them better with other wildlife conservation areas. Tis will improve connectivity of priority habitats and bufer natural communities from encroaching development and land uses that could limit use of prescribed fre as a conservation tool. Other objectives are to provide public hunting and fshing access and wildlife observation opportunities that beneft all regions of the state, and to preserve wildlife migration and movement corridors. Tese state game lands are managed using science-based practices and are critical to the preservation of endangered, threatened, and rare species. Currently, there are 64 game lands representing over 812,000 acres of state-owned land. Tere are another 40 game lands representing over 1.2 million acres owned by others (e.g., national forest and park lands, conservation easements) that are managed by NCWRC. Several game lands have management plans that implement conservation actions for the endangered, threatened, and rare species that occur in the landscape. For example, in the Coastal Plain ecoregion, Holly Shelter Game Land (Pender County) is home to 13 endangered, threatened, or rare species, including the federally endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Golden Sedge, and Rough-leaf Loosestrife, and several state-listed species, including the Carolina Gopher Frog, Cooley’s Meadowrue, and Venus Flytrap. Te Sandhills Game Land (Hoke, Moore, Richmond, Scotland counties) contains one of the largest and most intact remnants of Longleaf Pine ecosystems in the state and has several state and federal listed species such as Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Michaux’s Sumac, Rough-leaf Loosestrife, and Sandhill’s
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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