7
Monitoring
Required Element 5 Proposed plans for monitoring species (as identifed in Required Element 1) and their habitats (as described in Required Element 2), for monitoring the effectiveness of the conservation actions proposed in Required Element 4, and for adapting these conservation actions to respond appropri- ately to new information or changing conditions.
7.1 Introduction Monitoring and evaluation are tools that scientists can use to measure change over time in species populations, habitat status, or the efects of activities. Tese tools also provide information for the interpretation of those measured changes. Monitoring and evaluation are especially important to examining whether there has been a response to applied con- servation actions, and are necessarily linked to conservation and management objectives. Monitoring conducted at multiple levels (e.g., species, guilds, or natural communities) and across multiple scales (e.g., local, statewide, and regional) is required to assess changes that occur in populations and habitats over time: • Species-specifc monitoring is an important component of any conservation program and allows an agency or organization to assess topics such as wildlife population trends, estimated population size, relative abundance, or shifts in distribution or range. Monitoring of individual species, when coordinated at the appropriate level, contributes to the conservation of species beyond local populations and at scales far beyond indi- vidual state boundaries. • Guild-level monitoring (e.g., ephemeral pond amphibians, colonial waterbirds) is essen- tial for tracking and assessing habitat-level impacts over time. It allows us to assess
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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