New Hampshire’s Fish and Game department is updating plans to conserve wildlife, and they want your help.
State officials are asking for people to respond to a survey about their priorities for wildlife conservation by Nov. 30.
Those responses will be used to inform a new state wildlife action plan. The plan, which was last updated in 2015, takes stock of New Hampshire’s animals and habitats and sets out a framework for protecting them.
State officials are also working on an update to a separate plan that focuses on protecting big game animals. The Fish and Game department is planning to hold public hearings over the winter to gather input.
The wildlife action plan is tied to federal grant funding for wildlife conservation projects. But it also paints a picture of local reptiles, birds, mammals, insects, amphibians and other wildlife that need protection.
The 2015 plan identified 169 “species of greatest conservation need,” including species that are threatened or endangered: the Eastern hog-nosed snake, rusty-patched bumble bee, piping plover, shortnose sturgeon, and New England cottontail, to name a few.
For Mike Marchand, the supervisor of the nongame and endangered wildlife division at New Hampshire Fish and Game, Blanding’s turtle is a standout.
“It’s just a really charismatic looking turtle, with a bright yellow chin, and kind of stares at you with big eyes,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it a completed success story because there’s still a lot of needs with the species, but we’ve had a lot of success, and success is underway.”
The Blanding’s turtle travels long distances (for a turtle) and relies on diverse habitats, so conserving them also involves conserving habitats important for lots of other species, too, Marchand said.
In the 2015 plan, officials outlined 27 habitats the state’s priority species rely on for support, like lowland spruce-fir forests, salt marshes, grasslands, and caves and mines. Threats to species, like commercial development and climate change, are also included.
Back then, the department also identified a number of conservation actions to address at-risk wildlife populations, including monitoring the populations of threatened species, expanding a network of monitoring plots to observe climate change, preventing and controlling wildlife diseases, and restoring rare habitats.
Moose, black bear, white-tailed deer and turkey are covered by the state’s big game plan, which is also getting an update this year. That plan is the framework for how many hunting permits go out each season.
Henry Jones, moose project leader for New Hampshire Fish and Game, said the latest plan laid out a conservative strategy for moose hunting – basically, reducing the number of moose hunting permits given out. That was in part so the state could study the challenges the state’s moose population is facing: winter ticks, human development, and potentially brainworm.
In the past 10 years, state officials gathered more information, Jones said. That could help inform different hunting permit availability in the coming years.
“We understand what is causing moose to die in the core of our population in northern New Hampshire,” he said. “And we're getting a better understanding through the current research about abundance levels throughout the state.”
Officials are planning to send a survey to about 2,000 Granite Staters to ask about their opinions on moose populations and management, Jones said.
