Alaska Landowners Receive More Than $300,000 to Preserve Imperiled Species

1. 1 Private landowners and conservation groups in 39 states will receive a total of more than $7 million to undertake conservation projects on their lands for endangered, threatened and other at-risk species under the Department of the Interior's 2004 cost-share Private Stewardship Grants Program. Here in Alaska, projects from the remote Pribilofs to downtown Anchorage will receive more than $300,000 to further the conservation of such species.

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1. 1 Administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, these grants require at least a 10 percent match in non-federal dollars or in-kind contributions. The Private Stewardship Grants Program provides federal grants on a competitive basis to individuals and groups engaged in voluntary conservation efforts on private lands for the benefit of federally listed endangered or threatened species, candidate species, or other at-risk species. Both private landowners and groups working with such landowners are eligible to submit grant proposals directly to the Service.

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1. 1 "The protection of species at risk is everybody's business," said the Service's Alaska Regional Director Rowan Gould. "When the Fish and Wildlife Service can help private individuals and organizations work for the benefit of such species on their own lands, we become more efficient and effective as a conservation agency.?

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1. 1 For further information about Service grants programs, visit: http://www.grants.fws.gov. To learn about the 93 grants awarded in other states, visit the Service's national news release database at: . More on Private Stewardship Grants can be found in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (# 15.632). The following is a list of Alaska's 2004 Private Stewardship Grants:

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1. 1 ; l0 level1 lfo1 Preventing and Monitoring Avian Collisions with Towers and Wires ? (application by Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association) ? Alaska ? ($62,424) ? To install bird deterrent devices and predator-proof fences at wind turbine sites in three remote communities in Southwest Alaska. The goal of the project is to reduce mortality of a variety of Endangered Species Act listed (Steller's and spectacled eiders) and at-risk (emperor goose, marbled godwit) avian species. The project will include an experimental component to examine pre-and post- installation mortality levels, and a continuing ?citizen science? monitoring effort.

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1. 1 ; l0 level1 lfo1 Afognak Motorized Access Denial Phase II ? (application by Wildlife Forever) ? Alaska ? ($67,500) - Continuing an effort initiated under a fiscal year 2003 Private Stewardship Grant, this project will use physical barriers and forest road reclamation techniques to deny all-terrain vehicle access to approximately 10 miles of forest roads. The project's goal is to provide approximately 1,000 acres of security habitat for brown bears, thus reducing human-caused mortality. The project will also reduce sedimentation into anadromous fish streams. These road reclamation activities are additive to post-harvest actions required under Alaska's forest practices act.

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1. 1 ; l0 level1 lfo1 Chester Creek Rehabilitation Project ? (application by Cook Inlet Housing Authority; Venture Development Group, LLC) ? Alaska ? ($96,124) ? To recreate approximately 2000 feet of channel of the South Fork of Chester Creek, a channelized urban stream in Anchorage. The project will recreate pools and meanders and use bioengineering techniques to create a vegetated riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian zone. The project will benefit coho salmon, which historically reared on this stream reach and are greatly reduced throughout the highly-degraded watershed, and will complement several other on-going or anticipated riparian and fish passage fish passage
Fish passage is the ability of fish or other aquatic species to move freely throughout their life to find food, reproduce, and complete their natural migration cycles. Millions of barriers to fish passage across the country are fragmenting habitat and leading to species declines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program is working to reconnect watersheds to benefit both wildlife and people.

Learn more about fish passage restoration projects along the creek.

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1. 1 ; l0 level1 lfo1 Stabilization of Degraded Wetlands Trails Project ? (application by Cook Inlet Tribal Council) ? Alaska ? ($75,000) ? To construct approximately 800 feet of porous pavement all-terrain vehicle trail across highly degraded wetlands providing rearing habitat for 2 species of Pacific salmon and also benefiting at least 5 species of regionally-rare, wetland-dependant plants.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 542 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices, and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.