Reference Document 3-1
Appendix 3
3. Management Concerns Category
The Wildlife Resources Commission has jurisdictional authority and stewardship responsibility for all wildlife as defined in G.S. 113-129 and other North Carolina statutes. Game animals and sport fish are known to be economically and culturally important in North Carolina, but it is also important to consider their role in wider biodiversity conservation issues (Arponent 2012) . Conservation objectives that result in opposing recommendations for game and nongame species can minimize effectiveness of the conservation measures. The Management Concerns category was developed to assist with setting priorities for managing all wildlife species in North Carolina. Ranking scores developed for this category can be used to identify and highlight population sustainability issues and areas where management action may be needed to mitigate impacts on both game and nongame species. While these ranking scores may be used to inform conservation priorities for game species, such as harvest limits, land management activities, and species management activities, consideration of the scores developed in all three categories of the ranking criteria can help set objectives and inform decisions that support diverse ecosystem services and biodiversity (Arponen 2012) . Metric 15. Disease Vector Concerns. Because of their ability to trigger sudden epidemics and their potential for rapid evolution, infectious agents, parasites, prions, and diseases (pathogens) are important concerns in conservation biology (Altizer et al. 2003, Lafferty and Gerber 2002, Daszak et al. 2000, Harvell et al. 1999) . Pathogens can influence ecosystem diversity by impacting genetic diversity and species composition within natural communities (Altizer et al. 2003) and wildlife can be an important host or transmission vector for many different pathogens. In this metric, a vector is defined as a species that transmits a pathogen whether it is among wildlife species, between wildlife and domestic animals, or between wildlife and humans. Examples of pathogens that can be transmitted through wildlife vectors include whirling disease, rabies, canine distemper virus, West Nile virus, and bovine tuberculosis. When a population is exposed to a pathogen, depending on an interaction of factors involving the host, agent, and environment, the population may be resistant to infection or may become a host. According to Rhyan and Spraker (2010) there are three types of hosts. • A dead-end host is not able to maintain the infection/disease without an external source • A spillover host is able to maintain the infection/disease for a time but requires periodic input from another source • A maintenance host is able to maintain infection without further transmission from another species.
While dead-end and spillover hosts may become disease vectors that transmit infection to other species, the most epidemiologically significant species are maintenance hosts capable of
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2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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