North Carolina 2025 State Wildlife Action Plan
FOREWORD:
Since the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission was created in 1947, our state has seen its wild turkey populations restored, the return of bald eagles to the skies, the Roanoke Logperch delisted, more than two million acres of wildlife habitat conserved, and opportunities for fishing, hunting and wildlife-watching expanded across the state. Tasked with conservation of North Carolina’s wildlife resources and their habitats in the midst of rapid human population growth, the Commission has accepted meeting this challenge in both rural and urban settings. New research, new technology, and new management principles and philosophies are being deployed to ensure the sustainability of all our state’s wildlife resources. However, conservation challenges remain, and so I am honored to introduce the Commission’s latest effort to serve as responsible stewards of our state’s wildlife resources: the 2025 revision of the North Carolina State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP, Plan). Developed in compliance with a Congressional mandate, the Plan is the Commission’s blueprint for fish and wildlife conservation statewide for the next decade and will guide our work moving forward. The updated SWAP provides agencies, organizations, industries, academics, and individuals a blueprint to help us meet our conservation mission. The Plan builds on the successes of the past and is strengthened by concurrent conservation strategies being implemented by other states across the nation. The Plan proposes a cost-effective, proactive approach to the conservation of entire communities, including those often-overlooked fish and wildlife species in critical need of conservation action.
It is an ambitious Plan, calling for the conservation of a wide array of aquatic and terrestrial species and their associated habitats.
It is a forward-looking Plan, anticipating new management strategies yet to be developed to meet new and emerging conservation challenges.
It is a comprehensive Plan for fish and wildlife, whose success will not be measured by population estimates or growth rates, but by the cultivation of lasting conservation partnerships and by the promise of fish and wildlife resources for future North Carolinians.
M. Kyle Briggs, Executive Director North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission
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