2024 Wildlife Diversity Program Annual Report
Table of Contents Program Updates - 2024 ....................................................................................................................4 BIRDS .............................................................................................................................................8 Eastern Black Rail Surveys Begin in Spring 2024 ................................................................................ 8 Year 4 of 5 for the NC Bird Atlas! .....................................................................................................9 Motus Noise Tests by the American Bird Conservancy ....................................................................... 10 NC Bird Atlas Update ...................................................................................................................11 Spring Bioacoustics–Flying Squirrels, Owls, and Warblers! ............................................................. 12 Creative New Signs Protect Nesting Areas .....................................................................................14 Restoring Waterbird Habitat .......................................................................................................... 15 NC Bird Atlas 2024 Third Quarter Update ....................................................................................... 17 Where is Wayne’s World? Continued Efforts to Detect the Wayne’s Black-throated Green Warbler in North Carolina’s Coastal Region ................................................................................................ 18 You Are What You Eat – New Collaborative Project to Assess Tern and Skimmer Diets ........................ 19 Hurricane Recovery in the Roan Highlands ..................................................................................... 20 Growing Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, One Cluster at a Time .......................................................... 21 Resighting Bird Bands Provides Valuable Data on Black Skimmers ................................................... 22 REPTILES ......................................................................................................................................23 Response to Sea Turtle Cold-stun Events Along the North Carolina Coast in Winter 2024 .................23 Investigating Head-start Bog Turtle Movements and Habitat Use ....................................................24 Identifying Sea Turtle Crawls on NC Beaches .................................................................................25 WANTED: Softshell Turtle Sightings ...............................................................................................26 Using Predator-Exclusion Cages to Monitor and Protect Bog Turtle Eggs ........................................... 27 Alligator Marking and Data Collection in NC .................................................................................... 28 Field Days with Foresters, Rattlesnakes, and Hellbenders ................................................................ 29 A Light Bulb Moment – Successful Solutions to Impacts of Artificial Coastal Lighting on Sea Turtles .... 30 Monitoring Species of Greatest Conservation Need ......................................................................... 31 Initial Assessments of Hurricane Helene on Bog Turtle Habitat and Wetlands in Western NC ............... 32 Cold Winter Temperatures Lead to Major Cold-Stunning Season ....................................................... 33 AMPHIBIANS .................................................................................................................................34 Sandhills Winter-breeding Amphibian Monitoring ..........................................................................34 Biologists Conduct Species Status Assessment for Hellbenders ......................................................36 Pine Barrens Treefrog Surveys ......................................................................................................37 Releasing Gopher Frogs ...............................................................................................................38 Saving Hellbenders is All in a Dam Day’s Work ...............................................................................39 Wetland Restoration Partnership ..................................................................................................40 Breeding Gopher Frogs: Then and Now .........................................................................................41 Data Collection for an Eastern Hellbender Nesting Ecology Study ...................................................42
2 2024 Wildlife Diversity Program Annual Report
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