Chapter 6 Conservation Goals and Priorities
6.4 Federal Conservation Partners The NCWRC works with several federal agency partners on important conservation measures to benefit wildlife and their habitats. The information provided in this section about the federal partners and their programs is current as of early 2025. However, some agencies and programs are experiencing dynamic changes and loss of staff to the extent that some information provided in this section may be out of date before the end of 2025. 6.4.1 US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) The mission of the USFWS is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The USFWS includes National Wildlife Refuges, National Fish Hatcheries, Law Enforcement, Ecological Services offices, and Migratory Birds offices.
In North Carolina, there are two Ecological Services offices that oversee listing and recovery of federally endangered and threatened species in the state.
• The Asheville Ecological Services field office serves western North Carolina and southern Appalachia.
• The Eastern NC Ecological Services office serves the Piedmont, Sandhills, and Coastal Plain ecoregions with an office located in Raleigh and a suboffice in Manteo. They also provide fish and wildlife expertise to large-scale planning efforts in the areas of energy, transportation, and water and coastal development. The National Coastal Program is one of the USFWS’s most effective resources for restoring and protecting fish and wildlife habitat on public and privately owned lands. The North Carolina Coastal Program works with willing partners to restore and conserve coastal waters and wetlands. There are 11 wildlife refuges across the state, each with Comprehensive Conservation Plans. These refuges are Alligator River, Cedar Island, Currituck, Mackay Island, Mattamuskeet, Mountain Bogs, Pea Island, Pee Dee, Pocosin Lakes, Roanoke River, and Swanquarter. The USFWS faces the greatest challenges to fish and wildlife conservation in its history: the Earth’s climate is changing at an accelerating rate that has the potential to cause abrupt changes in ecosystems and contribute to widespread species extinctions. In response, the USFWS’s Climate Change program (https://www.fws.gov/climate-change) was developed as a blueprint for action in a time of uncertainty. It calls for the agency and the larger conservation community to employ adaptation, mitigation, and engagement to conserve our nation’s fish and wildlife resources in the years to come.
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2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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