Connect THE Coast LINKING WILDLIFE ACROSS NEW HAMPSHIRE’S SEACOAST AND BEYOND Final Report: 10/31/2019 Authors: Peter Steckler and Dea Brickner-Wood Connect THE Coast LINKING WILDLIFE ACROSS NEW HAMPSHIRE’S SEACOAST AND BEYOND FINAL REPORT 10/31/2019 Authors Peter Steckler GIS & Conservation Project Manager The Nature Conservancy, New Hampshire Dea Brickner-Wood Coordinator Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership Cite plan as: Steckler, P and Brickner-Wood, D. 2019. Connect The Coast final report. The Nature Conservancy and the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership. Concord, NH. Cover: Map of New Hampshire’s Coastal watershed, created by The Nature Conservancy. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ i Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................... ii 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 Project Area .............................................................................................................................. 1 Conservation Context ............................................................................................................... 3 Historic Context of Land Use in the Coastal Watershed ........................................................ 4 Current Connectivity Challenges ............................................................................................. 5 2. Methods .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Modeling Overview .................................................................................................................. 7 Focal Species ........................................................................................................................ 8 Selecting Prioritized Habitat Blocks used as Modeling Nodes for Corridor Mapping ...... 8 Cost Surface Development and Data Inputs .................................................................... 10 Combining Factors into Species Cost Surfaces ................................................................. 12 Mapping Species Corridors using Linkage Mapper .......................................................... 13 Corridor Prioritization Process .......................................................................................... 13 Quality Control and Manual Refinements ............................................................................. 13 Identifying the Intersection of Roads and Wildlife Corridors ............................................... 14 3. Results ........................................................................................................................................... 15 Prioritized Habitat Blocks ....................................................................................................... 15 Wildlife Corridors .................................................................................................................... 17 Priority Road Segments .......................................................................................................... 17 Project Data and Maps ........................................................................................................... 20 4. Next Steps ..................................................................................................................................... 23 Outreach ................................................................................................................................. 23 Implementation ...................................................................................................................... 24 Additional Planning ................................................................................................................. 25 5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 27 6. References ..................................................................................................................................... 28 Appendix A: Wildlife Connectivity Model for NH Documentation Appendix B: Links to Online Connect THE Coast Maps by State and Town Acknowledgements Funding for Connect THE Coast was provided by the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, the Fuller Foundation, Inc., the City of Portsmouth, and supporters of The Nature Conservancy. We are sincerely grateful for the critical support from these funders, which enabled us to undertake this important work. Connect THE Coast was developed and completed in partnership with many organizations. An Advisory Committee, comprised of members from the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership (GBRPP), provided high-level guidance throughout the project. A Technical Committee, comprised of GIS, wildlife, and transportation professionals, guided modeling and prioritization decisions for the project’s focal species. Both committees provided invaluable support and guidance from project start to finish. Committee members included: Advisory Committee Technical Committee Rich Cook (NHFG) Kelly Boland (US NRCS) Joanne Glode (TNC) Richard Bostwick (ME DOT) Duane Hyde (SELT) Katie Callahan (NHFG) Vanessa Johnson (NHA) Heidi Holman (NHFG) Mark Kern (US EPA) Sandi Houghton (NHFG) Sue Knight (US NRCS) Vanessa Johnson (NHA) Jan McClure (TNC) Dan Kern (BPRG) Bill Peterson (US FWS) John Litvaitis (UNH) Cory Riley (GBNERR) Mike Marchand (NHFG) Rachel Stevens (GBNERR) Rebecca Martin (NH DOT) Ryan Young (SPNHF) David Patrick (TNC) Emily Preston (NHFG) Amanda Shearin (ME IFW) Ellen Snyder (Consultant) Rachel Stevens (GBNERR) Emma Tutein (UNHCE) Key to Partner Acronyms BPRG Bear-Paw Regional Greenways SPNHF Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests GBNERR Great Bay National Estuarine Research TNC The Nature Conservancy Reserve ME DOT Maine Department of Transportation UNH University of New Hampshire ME IFW Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife UNHCE University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension NHA New Hampshire Audubon US EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency NH DOT New Hampshire Department of US FWS United States Fish and Wildlife Service Transportation NHFG New Hampshire Fish & Game US NRCS United States Natural Resource Conservation Department Service SELT Southeast Land Trust Additional thanks to David Patrick and Anna Ormiston (TNC) for report review and editing, and Anna Ormiston for cartographic support. i Executive Summary Over the last 25+ years, a concerted effort has helped protect large blocks of wildlife habitat across the seacoast region. However, a rapidly developing landscape and expanding road network is increasingly fragmenting these habitat blocks from one another. This fragmentation threatens the ability for native wildlife to move among areas of suitable and required habitats, which is vital to their survival. Many of our native species, such as turtles and amphibians, need to access multiple habitat types to complete their life history cycles. Other species maintain large home ranges that cannot be accommodated by a single patch of habitat. With climate change, we are seeing changes in the distribution of suitable habitat; places that once met the needs of a particular species are becoming unsuitable as temperature and precipitation change, whereas other locations are becoming newly suitable. Independently, the challenges to wildlife posed by habitat fragmentation and climate change are daunting enough; together these challenges command an urgent response for landscape planning and management actions. Maintaining a connected network of natural habitats is the best way to ensure our native species can move over time to adapt to these changes. Connect THE Coast used spatial models to identify connecting lands for wildlife across the 10-mile buffered portion of the Piscataqua-Salmon Falls watershed that drains through New Hampshire. As a result, identified wildlife corridors (i.e. connecting lands and waters with suitable and intact dispersal habitat) encompass just ten percent of the project area. However, only 13 percent of these wildlife corridors are conserved. Nineteen percent of the project area is prioritized as unfragmented habitat for wildlife, that is, the large unfragmented blocks of natural habitat that the corridors run between. Nearly half of these core habitats are conserved. Priority road segments were identified at the intersection of the region’s road network with Connect THE Coast wildlife corridors and prioritized habitat blocks. These are places where transportation best management practices should be deployed to facilitate safe and reliable road crossings for wildlife and motorists. Nearly 680 (7.1%) of the project area’s 9,523 miles of road network (all road classes including private) are identified as high priorities for wildlife passage. Of the 7.1%, 324 miles (3.4%) are associated with wildlife corridors, while 355 miles (3.7%) are associated with prioritized habitat blocks. Connect THE Coast priorities provide the necessary information for stakeholders, whether land trusts, town planning and conservation boards, state regulators, road managers, project funders, or landowners, to identify the