Current Projects

The following Projects were supported by State Wildlife Grant Funding awarded through the Northeast Regional Conservation Needs (RCN) Program. Active Projects from the most recently funded year are shown below, but all Projects can be found using the Advanced Search.

Laboratory and Field Testing of Treatments for White Nose Syndrome: Immediate Funding Need for the Northeast
RCN Topic: Factors in Regional Decline of SGCN
Geomyces destructans

Hibernating bats in the NE USA have experienced sudden and dramatic declines over the past three winters due to an emerging infectious disease dubbed “White Nose Syndrome” (WNS). An estimated one million bats have died thus far, and the causative agent has now been definitively shown to be the newly described cold-loving fungus Geomyces destructans (Gd). This proposal aims to address these declines by developing and implementing methodologies to combat WNS, which was...

Instream Flow Recommendations for the Great Lakes Basin of New York and Pennsylvania
RCN Topic: Instream Flow

We will employ the Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA) framework in the Great Lakes drainage of New York and Pennsylvania to develop an objective, spatially explicit process for evaluating the ecological impacts of new withdrawals of water from the tributaries of Lakes Erie, Ontario, and the upper St. Lawrence River.  This will provide the information necessary to develop and implement instream flow...

Identification of Tidal Marsh Bird Focal Areas in Bird Conservation Region 30
RCN Topic: Regional Focal Areas
Ammodramus caudacutus

This project will determine state level responsibility for the conservation of tidal marsh bird species and provide the baseline for long-term monitoring of the entire tidal marsh bird community along the Atlantic coastline from Virginia to Maine (Bird Conservation Region 30). This unique biological community is important on a global scale, is under imminent threat of loss or severe degradation, and its unique characteristics present management challenges necessitating large-scale,...

Northeast State of the Frogs: Development of Regional Analysis for Frog Call Survey Data from the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program
RCN Topic: Regional Indicators and Measures
frog calls, toad calls, Patuxent wildlife research center

This project will produce the first regional analysis of frog call survey data from the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP).  Eleven years (2001-2011) of survey data from the NAAMP will be used to provide a regional trend assessment and associated analytical methods for amphibians in the northeast.  NAAMP is a collaborative effort among USGS, State Agencies, and other partners, to monitor calling...