Through time, the NCWRC has initiated numerous projects designed to reverse declining populations of species such as quail and rabbits. The first began in 1948 and was called the Cooperative Farm Game Habitat Development Project.
Recent efforts include:
All of these efforts have produced important information, and some have produced success. Overall, these efforts were too limited to make any improvement in wildlife populations across large landscapes. It is important to understand that the vast majority of wildlife experts agree we are dealing with a landscape-level problem of deteriorating habitats over the last several decades.
The forces impacting small game and other wildlife are related to land management over the entire state, closely tied to the economics of farming and forestry, and very hard to change.
These forces include:
Changing forestry practices including: heavier planting rates which result in too much shade for beneficial groundcover to develop, lack of prescribed fire, and use of chemicals to control wildlife-friendly vegetation that competes with trees
Quality Early Successional Habitat: the brushy, grassy, weedy stage of plant growth.
Upland Gazette
Introduction - Declining Habitat, Declining Wildlife
Past Wildlife Commission Efforts
CURE - The Early Years
Transition from Original CURE
Today's CURE
Enhancing Traditional Quail Management to Benefit Songbirds
Conservation Reserve Program – CRP
Environmental Quality Incentives Program – EQIP
Wetlands Reserve Program – WRP
CURE Farm Map
North Carolina’s Best Early-successional Habitat
Using Fire to Improve Wildlife Habitat
Longleaf Pine Restoration
Private Lands
Tarheel Wildlife: A Guide for Managing Wildlife on Private Lands In North Carolina