The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources this week announced 36 grants totaling more than $1.2 million to conserve Pennsylvania's rich diversity of native plants and animals through the Wild Resource Conservation Program.

The grants, administered by DCNR in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, use funds from the Environmental Stewardship Fund - Growing Greener.

Launched in 1983, the Wild Resource Conservation Program primarily finances research and protection efforts for native non-game and wild plant species. Funds from the program have supported reintroducing otters, osprey, peregrine falcons and fishers to Pennsylvania; identifying new plant and animal species; locating rare plant species within the state; researching habitat for migrating birds; and providing education materials to schools.

In addition to Growing Greener monies, the Wild Resource Conservation Fund relies on state income tax refund donations, license plate proceeds and donations to support its work to protect and identify species of special concern.

Below is a listing of the projects funded.

Plant-Related Projects

-- Academy of Natural Sciences, $3,356, to inventory lichens in Pennsylvania, including the investigation of the distribution and abundance of lichens in the eastern part of the state; and $7,598 to study the status of hawthorns in eastern Pennsylvania.

-- Carnegie Museum of Natural History, $21,000, to monitor plant diversity by verifying historical records, documenting new sites and species and conducting field surveys in Greene and Crawford counties.

-- Cleveland Museum for Rare Plant Inventory, $15,000, to continue the stewardship work at Edinboro Lake Fen, Erie National Wildlife Refuge, Bog Candle Fen, Presque Isle State Park and Pymatuning State Park.

-- Morris Arboretum, $30,000, to map the emergent and submersed plant communities of five glacial lakes in northeastern Pennsylvania.

-- Nature Conservancy, $40,150, to locate a minimum of 40 plant species with a status of endangered, threatened, rare or undetermined at sites in eastern Pennsylvania.

-- Pennsylvania American Chestnut Foundation, $14,240, to back-cross and plant regionally adapted American chestnuts in six counties.

-- Pennsylvania State University, $20,816, to gather information on the occurrence of ginseng in Pennsylvania.

-- Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, $30,000, to map invasive species and species of special concern for eight glacial lakes in western Pennsylvania.

Bird and Mammal-related Projects

-- Carnegie Museum of Natural History, $40,540, to begin the process of updating the Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania.

-- Bushkill Stream Conservancy, $8,525, to develop a Birding and Natural History Trail Map to connect the community with the Bushkill Creek Watershed's resources in Northampton County.

-- Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, $10,950, to produce the "Kestral Storybook," a children's book; and $20,000, to fund an eight-page comprehensive brochure on the value and placement of kestral nestboxes.

-- Penn State University at Altoona, $22,493, to study nest boxes of the declining flying squirrel.

-- Penn State University, $29,520, to assess whether and how acidic deposition affects terrestrial forest birds in Centre County; and $28,483, to test existing GAP habitat models - a computer program developed at Penn State that helps to predict where species are most likely to be found - for 12 bird species of special concern nesting in Pennsylvania.

-- University of Scranton, $24,916, to study and record data on migratory land birds.

-- Wilkes University, $42,000, to produce a community-based habitat analysis for small mammal species at three Hawk Mountain sites.

-- Wildlife Habitat Council, $12,360, to acoustically sample bats at more than 30 created wetlands in western Pennsylvania to investigate their suitability as a habitat.

Fish, Reptile, Amphibian and Aquatic Inverterbrae-related Projects

-- Arcadia University, $16,311, to collect and analyze tissue samples from timber rattlesnakes in Pike, Carbon, Clearfield and Adams counties.

-- California University of Pa., $25,469, to inventory the Monongahela River's large-bodied fish and record species diversity and distribution.

-- Carnegie Museum of Natural History, $11,648, to produce a pictorial field guide and web site to improve the regional information on crane flies of Pennsylvania.

-- Penn State University, $20,000, to study exotic trout in Centre and Monroe counties; and $25,004, to determine the current distribution, estimate the population size and investigate the life history of the channel darter in the Pennsylvania waters of Lake Erie.

-- Nature Conservancy, $20,796, to log information into a database for dragonflies and damselflies of Pennsylvania with emphasis on those species of the most critical concern.

-- Shippensburg University, $33,355, to collect information on at-risk herptiles' abundance, distribution and population trends statewide.

-- Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, $39,000, to use radio-telemetry to learn more about the natural history of this secretive Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake in Butler, Mercer and Venango counties; and $25,000, to inventory aquatic snails in lakes, reservoirs and larger rivers to determine relationships with ecological factors and produce species lists and distribution maps.

Multi-Purpose Projects

-- Carnegie Museum, $29,000, to study land snails of limestone communities in Bedford, Butler, Centre, Fayette, Greene, Huntingdon and Westmoreland counties; $19,552, to provide an overview of the ground beetles that are present in Pennsylvania; and $11,271, to create a web site on land snails.

-- Messiah College, $31,000, to study the vernal pools in the forest of South Mountain in Franklin, Cumberland and Adams counties.

-- Oley Valley Ag. Science for Fence Row Habitat, $7,310, to educate Oley Valley High School about modern advances in agriculture to head off the loss of farmland fence row habitats.

-- Pennsylvania Game Commission, $10,000, to fund Wild Action grants that improve wildlife habitat on school grounds.

-- The Nature Conservancy, $187,179, to lead the completion of Natural Heritage Inventories for Bradford, Montour, Carbon, Tioga and Susquehanna counties.

-- Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, $280,000, to lead the effort toward completing Natural Heritage Inventories for all counties in western Pennsylvania.

12/3/2004