Terrestrial Wildlife

Land managers often manage forests for terrestrial wildlife-- the large, primarily undomesticated (wild) vertebrate animals, the fauna, that live on the land. Wildlife includes mammals, birds, snakes, toads, frogs, salamanders, lizards, and turtles. Aquatic wildlife, notably the fishes and mussels, are usually treated separately. There are notable "game" animals in the southern Appalachians that are hunted or trapped. Longtime emphasis has made wildlife synonymous with game in some areas, but modern concepts of wildlife are considerably more broad. Fundamentally, one may ask: Why is the wildlife resource valued?

Wildlife management involves knowing the wild animals and their environments and making the many difficult decisions required to achieve desired, reasonable benefits over a stated period (typically 100 years or more). Wildlife management may also involve people management.

Increasingly, imperiled wildlife species, especially those listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as Threatened and Endangered, are the focus of much concern.

Increasingly, forest landowners have realized that annual income can be made with careful management of wildlife while the timber or pulp crop is growing toward some harvest date. Potential wood harvest plus joint annual direct or indirect gains from the faunal resource, both maintained and improved for a 200-year planning horizon, make the southern Appalachian forest an exciting managerial challenge.

To aid land managers and landowners in the South who want to manage wildlife species, the Southern Region of the Forest Service in cooperation with The Nature Conservancy has produced a set of guides:

• The Land Managers Guide to the Birds of the South (Hamel 1991).
• The Land Managers Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of the South (Wilson 1995).
• The Land Managers Guide to the Mammals of the South (in press).

Portions of these guides that relate to species found in the southern Appalachians are excerpted here:

• Birds
• Amphibians and reptiles
• Mammals

A number of wildlife management agencies are active in the southern Appalachians. Some agencies manage wildlife resources on their own lands and others assist other agencies and private landowners. For example, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF), at its Virginia Fish and Wildlife Information Service (VAFWIS) web site, provides detailed descriptions of animal species found in Virginia:

• Amphibians
• Reptiles
• Birds
• Mammals