U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Regional Director, Tom Melius, and Northeast Regional Director, Wendi Weber, jointly announced today the approval of more than $850,000 for grants aimed at protecting, restoring, and/or enhancing 621 acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat in Michigan, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), Joint Venture Habitat Protection and Restoration Program.
Pennsylvania
The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy was granted $289,275 for the Roderick Wildlife Reserve Expansion: Protection of Lake Erie Shoreline, Coastal Wetlands and Priority Migratory Bird Habitat (PHASE III) Project. For this Phase III project, WPC will partner with the Pennsylvania Game Commission to acquire and protect approximately 100 acres of land for inclusion in the Roderick Wildlife Reserve/State Game Lands #314 located in Springfield Township, Erie County. With this additional grant funding, WPC is building on their highly successful Phases I and II projects, funded previously by the GLRI-Joint Venture Habitat Protection and Restoration Program, that protected more than 277 acres of critical habitat along the Lake Erie Shoreline. Once this third phase is completed, the project will have permanently protected 377 acres of important breeding, roosting and migration stopover habitat for coastal-dependent and migratory birds along the Lake Erie shoreline. The project site falls within a Pennsylvania Important Bird Area designated by the National Audubon Society and the Lower Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Plain Bird Conservation Region (BCR 13) designated by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative. Acquisition of an additional 100 acres will connect and expand already protected areas and add substantial habitat value for waterfowl, waterbirds, shorebirds and land birds alike.
The grants were awarded under the Great Lakes Watershed Habitat and Species Restoration Initiative Grants Programs administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a Department of the Interior agency. The grants were funded by the President
