7.1 Introduction
the NC Colonial Waterbird Cooperative Agreement (with 12 state and federal agency and nonproft signatories) implement eforts at regional levels. Te North American Breeding Bird Survey (NABBS) is an example of a long-term, large-scale, international monitoring program that tracks bird populations and provides an index of avian status and trends at various geographic scales. Te conservation achieved through these programs and others demonstrates the success and importance of such collaborations. Te US Forest Service (USFS) provides technical guidance on how to monitor populations and habitats in one integrated design for multiple species (USFS 2006) . Te eforts of the various North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) programs provide models on which to build coordinated monitoring eforts for other taxa, and recommendations from NABCI plans have been incorporated into NCWRC monitoring programs. Monitoring infrastructures developed by various programs (see Table 7.2) support specifc monitoring goals for birds in North Carolina and contributes to regional, national, and even interna- tional bird conservation eforts. Tere is an ongoing need for collaborative monitoring eforts for all SGCN and for wide-ranging species (e.g., pelagic seabirds, neotropical migratory birds). Strong data standards and a centralized system for housing and managing data and analyzing results are critical to the success of monitoring programs. Standardized protocols are needed to ensure that data collected are compatible with similar programs and can be integrated with regional, national, or international data sets. Population units relevant to conser- vation planning and research must be defned and standards or protocols developed where none presently exist. Reliable and reproducible techniques should be used and new population-monitoring techniques should be evaluated as needed. Emerging technologies, research methods, and wildlife issues will require more genetics research and DNA analysis in order to better understand disease, conduct forensic analy- sis, and improve taxonomic identifcation and classifcation. Tese new opportunities for generating datasets need protocols and methods that will minimize problems with sharing data (Taberlet and Luikart 1999; Bonin et al. 2004; Waits and Paetkau 2005; Lukacs and Burnham 2005; Schwartz et al. 2007) . Participation in a clearinghouse could facilitate sharing data among partners. Regional and national coordination is needed to evaluate the capacity of existing state programs to combine and monitor populations across their range. One efort is the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) Status and Trends Program, which supports and provides col- lection and analysis of biological data for local, regional, and national assessment of biolog- ical resources and the ecosystems that support them.
830
2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online