Six State Wildlife Grants Approved By Game Commission

The Board of Game Commissioners this week approved six projects that will study or help species of concern in Pennsylvania funded from an allocation provided by the State Wildlife Grants Program, administered through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Federal Aid Program.

 

To be eligible for SWG appropriations from the federal government, Pennsylvania developed a "Wildlife Action Plan" that focuses on species with low and declining populations and species that are in great need of proactive conservation, by monitoring more abundant species for which Pennsylvania bears a special responsibility in their long-term conservation, and by incorporating habitat-level management rather than case-by-case, species-specific intervention.

 

"The SWG program has made Pennsylvania a better place for many species of concern and provided managers with important background to improve resource management programs," said Carl G. Roe, Game Commission executive director. "This work, conducted largely by both local and national partners to our agency, has accomplished great good for wildlife and the environment. But there's much more work to do, and the cost of doing that research and intervening usually becomes more expensive with each passing year. That's why the SWG program is critical to Pennsylvania. It makes an important difference for some species before it's too late."

 

Pennsylvania's Wildlife Action Plan is available online.The projects approved by the Board include:

Eastern Woodrat Management Workshops: Classroom and on-site instruction (at four, two-day regional workshops), will provide 90 or more resource managers with a foundation for the adaptive management of insular, surface rock communities, emphasizing the delineation of N. magister habitat sites and the avoidance, reversal or mitigation of factors potentially contributing to the decline of this species and ultimately federal listing as a threatened species. Concurrently, a workshop steering committee will form the nucleus of a N. magister recovery team (Jerry Hassinger - $30,000).

Pymatuning Wetland Restoration: This work will restore and enhance 113 acres of emergent and scrub-shrub wetlands for WAP species of high concern (Kurt Dyroff, Ducks Unlimited - $63,000).

Testing Solutions To Bat Fatalities By Wind Turbines: This is the first time a wind power facility is participating in a program designed to test deterrence and curtailment options to reduce the threat of wind turbines to bats. This work will ensure substantial and measurable progress in understanding patterns of activity and fatalities and implementing deterrence and curtailment options to reduce fatalities (Ed Arnett, Bat Conservation International - $45,000).

Fort Indiantown Gap Grassland Habitat: Improve high quality native warm-season grassland habitat by implementing an ecosystem based restoration plan to benefit 19 WAP priority species. Rehabilitating former grasslands and expanding current grasslands at FIG will have a tremendous impact on the cohesiveness and connectivity of this segmented habitat (Todd Bacastow, Pennsylvania State University - $41,549).

Piney Tract Important Bird Area Grasslands Management: This project will improve habitat at the Piney Tract IBA, a site of global significance to several grassland-obligate bird species of conservation concern. Invasive trees and shrubs will be removed and bird populations will be monitored in response to the removals. The results will help inform additional restoration efforts on similar habitats (Sarah Sargent, National Audubon Society - $30,000).

Final Analysis of Breeding Bird Atlas Data: This effort will compile and analyze data resulting from 5 years of the successful 2nd PA Breeding Bird Atlas that resulted in an average of over 68 birds in nearly all 5,937 blocks. The result is a new comprehensive assessment of all breeding birds, summary of broad distribution and abundance patterns, and thousands of point-specific locations for priority species. The resulting report will focus on new conservation guidance and tools for conservation and management of breeding birds and new evaluation of habitat associations. (Bob Mulvihill, Carnegie Museum of Natural Science at a cost of $120,000).