A Focal Species Approach to
Wildlife Planning in the Triangle

Abstract The Triangle region of North Carolina is undergoing rapid development and major shifts in land use that will alter our wildlife communities in undesirable ways. We are developing a wildlife conservation plan for the Triangle with the long-term goal of creating a regional network of habitat suitable for a broad range of wildlife. We haven chosen to apply a focal species approach that utilizes a suite of species whose needs collectively represent landscape characteristics that encompass the needs of many other species. Through a Delphi Survey method, eight species were selected as our focal group to represent the compositional and spatial requirements needed to identify habitat in the study area. So far, we have developed habitat models for two focal species, the Barred owl and the Ovenbird. The Barred owl is being used to select functional habitat within bottomland forests, and the Ovenbird to select habitat within upland forests. Habitat requirements for each species were derived from the literature and expert opinion and matched with available geographic information systems data. We used the Arc/Info and ArcView geographic information systems to analyze raster data at a spatial resolution of 30 meters. Data layers included hydrography, soils, roads, the National Wetland Inventory, and a base land cover dataset derived from the Mult-resolution Landcover Characterization (MRLC). Using these data, we have produced maps that show potential habitat of varying degrees of quality for the Ovenbird and Barred owl. In the long-term, we will develop similar maps for all of the focal species and combine them to create a regional habitat network.