CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department is asking people around the state for their input on a 10-year revision of its Wildlife Acton Plan that aims to protect species from becoming endangered.
The revision is required by states for them to qualify for State Wildlife Grant funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The department launched an online survey Friday to get public input on priorities, concerns and actions.
The survey can be taken through May 29.
The plan provides maps of priority habitats that agencies, towns, regional planning departments and conservation organizations can use for land protection and management. In the last decade, an additional 230,000 acres has been conserved in New Hampshire, much of which was identified in the plan.
John Kanter, supervisor of New Hampshire’s Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program, said progress has been made in the last decade toward the recovery of the state and federally endangered Karner blue butterfly, and in the restoration of habitat for the New England cottontail.
But the number of species on the department’s list of greatest concern has increased from 118 in 2005 to 177 now.
“Ten years ago, no one anticipated a fungus would decimate the state’s bat population,” Kanter said. “The revised list of Species of Greatest Conservation Need now includes three species of bats that have been all but wiped out by a disease that has spread from the Northeast through the Midwest and south and infected the caves and mines where bats hibernate all winter.”
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Online:
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https://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/wildlife/wap-input.html.
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