For State Wildlife Action Plans

FIGURES

Tables

Abbreviations & Acronyms

BMP – Best Management Practice

BOEM – Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

CCVI - Climate Change Vulnerability Index

CMECS - Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard

CMP – Conservation Measures Partnership

COA – Conservation Opportunity Area

DOE – Department of Energy

DOT – Department of Transportation

EBTJV - Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture

ELOHA - Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration

EPA – Environmental Protection Agency

GAP – Gap Analysis Program

GIS – geographic information system

HUC – hydrologic unit code

index of ecological integrity

IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

ITIS - Integrated Taxonomic Information System

IUCN – International Union for the Conservation of Nature

LCAD - Landscape Change, Assessment and Design

LCC – Landscape Conservation Cooperative

LCI – Landscape Context Index

NAC – Northeast Aquatic Connectivity

NALCC – North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative

NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NEAFWA - Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

NEAHCS – Northeast Aquatic Habitat Classification System

NEC – New England cottontail

NEFWDTC – Northeast Fish and Wildlife Diversity Technical Committee

NEPARC – Northeast Partners for Amphibian and Reptile Conservation

NETWHCS – Northeast Terrestrial Wildlife Habitat Classification System

NEXRAD – Next-Generation Radar

NFWF – National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

NHD - National Hydrography Dataset

NLCD – National Land Cover Dataset

NOAA – National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration

NRCS – National Resource Conservation Service

NWF - National Wildlife Federation

NWI – National Wetlands Inventory

PARCA – Priority Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Areas

PIF – Partners in Flight

RCN – Regional Conservation Needs

RSGCN – Regional Species of Greatest Conservation Need

SCI – Staying Connected Initiative

SGCN – Species of Greatest Conservation Need

SWAP – State Wildlife Action Plan

SWG – State Wildlife Grants

TNC – The Nature Conservancy

TRACS - Tracking and Reporting Actions for the Conservation of Species

USDA – U.S. Department of Agriculture

USFWS – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

USGS – U.S. Geological Survey

WMI – Wildlife Management Institute

WNS – white-nose syndrome

Citation & Acknowledgements

Citation:

Terwilliger Consulting, Inc. and the Northeast Fish and Wildlife Diversity Technical Committee. 2013. Taking Action Together: Northeast Regional Synthesis for State Wildlife Action Plans. A report submitted to the Northeast Fish and Wildlife Diversity Committee. Locustville, VA.

Acknowledgements:

This document was compiled and written by Karen Terwilliger and Jonathan Mawdsley with active participation and important contributions from the Northeast Fish and Wildlife Diversity Technical Committee, the Synthesis Steering Committee, and the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative. Synthesis Steering Committee Chair, John Kanter, deserves special acknowledgement for his leadership and guidance throughout this project. WMI and NALCC staff, notably Steve Fuller, also provided extensive technical assistance and collaboration.

Northeast Regional Conservation Synthesis for State Wildlife Action Plan Revisions (RCN2011-07) was supported by State Wildlife Grant funding awarded through the Northeast Regional Conservation Needs (RCN) Program.  The RCN Program joins thirteen northeast states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a partnership to address landscape-scale, regional wildlife conservation issues.  Progress on these regional issues is achieved through combining resources, leveraging funds, and prioritizing conservation actions identified in the State Wildlife Action Plans.  See RCNGrants.org for more information.

Introduction

Fish and Wildlife Diversity Conservation in the Northeast States

The Northeast region of the United States encompasses approximately 263,000 square miles and a wide diversity of jurisdictions, including 13 states and the District of Columbia, 17 recognized tribes, and 398 counties. This region is home to a remarkable diversity of fish and wildlife, from whales and saltwater fishes to alpine butterflies and moths, from vernal pool salamanders to cave beetles, from anadromous shad, catadromous eels and coldwater trout to an extraordinary array of forest, shrub and grassland birds.

The Northeast region is geographically and ecologically diverse, with 143 terrestrial and 259 aquatic ecological communities (Anderson and Olivero Sheldon 2011). These communities include a broad spectrum of coastal, inland and freshwater aquatic ecosystems, ranging in elevation from ocean beaches and low-lying coastal plain to mountains reaching 6,000 feet above sea level in the Appalachians. Given the region’s size, its north-south orientation, and its varied topography, the Northeast supports a high diversity of major plant community types and ecological habitats. These range from treeless arctic-alpine tundra at the highest elevations to boreal conifer forests, to various deciduous forest types at lower elevations, to freshwater wetlands, and to coastal habitats including intertidal beaches and marshes.

To conserve this rich biological heritage, conservation agencies in the Northeast have established a broad range of partnerships for fish, wildlife and habitat conservation, including Partners in Flight (PIF) for birds, the Northeast Partners for Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (NEPARC), the Joint Ventures and Atlantic Coast Fish Habitat Partnership for migratory bird and fish conservation, and, most recently, the Department of the Interior’s Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs). A driving force behind these and other wildlife conservation initiatives has been regional coordinating bodies such as the Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (NEAFWA) and its Fish and Wildlife Diversity Technical Committee (Fish and Wildlife Diversity Committee), which operate on a separate and broader level than the individual partnerships. Wildlife management agencies from the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia participate in the NEAFWA. The NEAFWA (one of four regional affiliates of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies) is tasked with promoting and coordinating conservation activities across the Northeast United States. The NEFWDTC has led wildlife diversity conservation projects for the NEAFWA and comprises the Wildlife Diversity representative from each Northeast state and District of Columbia.
Humans are also an important part of the Northeast landscape, where 72.4 million people (23.5% of the nation’s population) live on less than 7% of the nation’s land base. Much of the developed human footprint is focused along the eastern coastline between Boston and Washington, DC, but suburban and exurban areas are also expanding rapidly throughout much of the region. According to the most recent assessment by The Nature Conservancy (Anderson and Olivero Sheldon 2011), 28% of the land base in the Northeast states has already been modified significantly by humans.
Although portions of the Northeast are heavily urbanized, the Northeast also includes many rural lands and wild areas, especially along the Appalachian Mountains and other mountain chains on the western side of the region. Remarkably, some portions of the Northeast remain relatively wild, with 73 federally designated wilderness areas, 70 National Wildlife Refuges, and six National Forests. In fact, 16% of the land area in the Northeast states—over 24 million acres—has already been placed in some form of protective conservation ownership (Anderson and Olivero Sheldon 2011)
As human impacts on the Northeast landscape continue to grow, the scale, pace, and complexity of threats to biodiversity in the Northeast states increase at an alarming rate. Climate change imposes tremendous challenges for wildlife conservation and exacerbates all threats including residential and commercial development, invasive species, and wildlife diseases. To address these formidable issues comprehensively, the Northeast states have joined together in several innovative, collaborative partnerships through the NEAFWA and its Fish and Wildlife Diversity Committee. These partnerships and their outcomes are summarized in Chapters 4 and 6 of this document. This unprecedented collaboration of state, federal, and private organizations improves efficiency of limited conservation dollars and uses the best available science and expertise to identify the highest priority species and habitats in need of conservation.

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