NH Wildlife Corridors

Wildlife corridors are critical for the conservation of wildlife in New Hampshire. The loss of wildlife corridors may impact species and populations through direct mortality, habitat fragmentation, and creating barriers to dispersal. More specifically, mortality can affect the dispersal and viability of isolated populations, and eventually cause the loss of local populations. At greatest risk are slow-moving species (e.g., reptiles and amphibians), species that depend on high adult survivorship (e.g. turtle species), species that are long range dispersers (e.g. bobcats, American martens), and species with scarce populations (e.g. timber rattlesnakes). Large mammals crossing roadways (e.g., black bear, moose, and deer), although not likely to have population level impacts, cause safety concerns for motorists. The NH Wildlife Corridors map shows potential corridors that connect core areas of wildlife habitat and can be used by conservation planners, landowners, land trusts, biologists, and others. The core areas of wildlife habitat are areas over 50 acres in size that are a priority in the New Hampshire Wildlife Action Plan (Highest Ranked Habitat in NH and/or Highest Ranked Habitat in Biological Regions). To create the map, first areas of wildlife movement and dispersal were identified using the NH Wildlife Connectivity Model (2006, 2010, 2016, 2020; see below). Then Linkage Mapper (a GIS tool developed by The Nature Conservancy for habitat connectivity analyses) was used to map connections between core wildlife habitats. Finally, the corridors where wildlife are predicted to most easily move, especially riparian corridors, were selected. This resulted in the 2021 NH Wildlife Corridors Map. Preliminary validation of the NH wildlife connectivity model utilized available data from tracking and telemetry studies. Visual assessment of these data provided a sufficient level of confidence in the model to accept the resulting cost surface for general conservation planning purposes. Land cover data is based on 10m resolution NH Wildlife Action Plan habitat dataset, based on 2016 NOAA C-CAP high res land cover. Traffic volume provided by: McGarigal K, Compton BW, Plunkett EB, DeLuca WV, and Grand J. 2018. Designing sustainable landscapes: traffic metric. Report to the North Atlantic Conservation Cooperative, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast Region. The dataset consists of three data layers: 1.) Prioritized Habitat Blocks shows core areas of wildlife habitat (areas over 50 acres in size that are a priority in the New Hampshire Wildlife Action Plan); 2.) Wildlife Corridors show top 10% scoring linkages in the state based on sum of all 16 species; and 3.) Wildlife Secondary Corridors scored as the top 10-20% linkages between large habitat blocks. Output is not actual locations of known wildlife corridors, but a display of how a model of habitat suitability and movement behavior translates into patterns of landscape connectivity. It is strongly encouraged that users incorporate best available local data sources and ground-truth results of corridor analyses, which is essential for identifying critical connectivity zones. For more information please refer to NH Fish & Game's web site URL http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/nongame/corridors.html