Feds, Partners Put $23 Million Into Migratory Bird Conservation

The federal grant is part of more than $4.8 million in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grants for 36 projects supporting neotropical migratory bird conservation throughout the Western Hemisphere, said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last week to celebrate International Migratory Bird Day.

Indigo buntings like this one are among the neotropical migrants found in the grasslands near Chicago. (Photo by Narender Pal Singh)

Partners will match the federal funds with more than $18 million that will support habitat restoration, environmental education, population monitoring, and other priority activities within the ranges of neotropical birds in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries.

"As we mark the observance of International Migratory Bird Day and celebrate the incredible journeys these birds make between their summer and winter homes. I'm honored to be able to support partnerships that are making a real difference for neotropical migrants," said Salazar.

"These grants will support important multi-national partnership projects throughout the hemisphere so future generations of people in North, Central and South America can enjoy and appreciate these remarkable birds," he said.

Neotropical describes one of the world's eight terrestrial ecozones. This ecozone includes South and Central America, the Mexican lowlands, the Caribbean islands, and southern Florida, which all share a large number of plant, bird and animal groups.

Plovers, terns, hawks, cranes, warblers and sparrows - nearly 350 species of neotropical migratory birds breed in the United States and Canada and winter in Latin America.

Many of these birds are in decline and several species are currently protected as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 2000 established the matching grants program to fund projects promoting the conservation of neotropical migratory birds in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Funds may be used to protect, research, monitor and manage bird populations and habitat, as well as to conduct law enforcement and community outreach and education. By law, at least 75 percent of the money goes to projects in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada, while the remaining 25 percent can go to projects in the United States.

As one of this year's grants, the Institute for Bird Populations, a California nonprofit organization, will receive a of $196,216, which will be matched by partner funds of $957,600, to help operate 40 long-running neotropical migrant monitoring stations and establish and operate 10 new stations to fill geographic information gaps, increase sample sizes and provide baseline data for newly protected areas in California, Mexico, Central and South America.

Projects in the United States and its Territories:

• Minnesota: The Nature Conservancy will receive $100,000 to protect industrial forestland in northern Minnesota through the purchase of conservation easements from landowners to protect habitat, jobs, and public access. The grant will be matched with $400,000 in partner funds.


• New Mexico and Texas: The Nature Conservancy will use a grant of $250,000, matched by $752,280, to expand protection of habitat critical to declining grassland bird species of the shortgrass and shinnery oak habitat of New Mexico.


• Puerto Rico: The Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico will receive $250,000 and match this grant with $750,000 to acquire, manage, protect and restore critical migratory bird habitat and establish a Rio Encantado Natural Reserve to protect in perpetuity a portion of the habitat of wintering migratory birds in important karst ecosystems.


• Wisconsin: The Golden Sand Resource and Conservation Development Council will use a grant of $250,000, matched by $750,000 in partner funds, to help the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources enhance conservation of 130 neotropical migratory bird species by preserving 750 acres, providing breeding, nesting, migratory and stopover habitat.

• Alaska-Canada, Chile: The Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology will use a grant of $12,033, matched by $36,100, to continue a rangewide study of Hudsonian godwit migration ecology and breeding biology. Funding will enable the project to encompass two additional field sites in Alaska and Canada and enable Chilean colleagues to undertake research on the non-breeding ecology of this large shorebird.


• Colorado, Nebraska, Mexico: The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory will use a grant of $244,351 and a partner match of $888,625 to conserve habitat for high priority and declining grassland bird species in western North America through monitoring, research and protection.


• Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Canada: The Wildlife Conservation Society will receive $40,345, to be matched with $121,900 in partner funds, to develop a multi-scale method, using grassland bird species as indicators, to evaluate the impact of bison on bird habitat and biodiversity.

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