Massive flooding in western North Carolina damaged trout streams in 16 counties; however, continuing efforts at flood control may also pose a threat to the trout populations by destroying the habitat.
In Pitt and Beaufort counties, clean up of Chicod Creek has begun with a combination of volunteers with the NCWF, NCWRC, Natural Defense Council, Soil Conservation Service, and Corps of Engineers.
Project crossing striped bass with white bass has been underway in several lakes in North Carolina. Young of year hybrids have been sampled in two of the four study lakes and growth rates have been well-established.
New federal water policies have been released which concentrate heavily on the activities of the Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Tennessee Valley authority, and the Soil Conservation Service.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is conducting a project to assess if the introduction of river herring into Lake Phelps will have an effect on other fish populations.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has begun making squirrel dens on several tracts of game land in the hopes of increasing the populations.
Hybrid bass have been stocked at Lake Higgins. These fish, a cross between striped bass and white bass, have a fast growth rate and will reach appropriate size in two years.
The Cape Fear River drainage system has received some new inhabitants when the NCWRC stocked it River and some of its tributaries with 32,000 spotted bass fingerlings.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission accepted a 965 acre tract of land from the Union Camp Corporation. In Gate County, the land will become part of the Commission’s game lands program.
N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission reports that the 1978-79 field season should be good. With good weather and increased efforts for habitat conservation, small game such as squirrel and rabbits have had good reproductive and survival seasons.