U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Announces Endangered Species Recovery Champion Awards
 |
| Red-cockaded Woodpecker , Picoides borealis, photograph (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
the 2011 Recovery Champion award, which honors Service employees and
partners for outstanding efforts to conserve and protect endangered and
threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants. A total of 56 teams and
nine individuals were honored as Recovery Champions for work to conserve
species ranging from the polar bear in Alaska to the Appalachian elktoe
mussel and spotfin chub in North Carolina.
“Recovery Champions are helping listed species get to the point at which
they are secure in the wild and no longer need Endangered Species Act
protection,” said Service Director Dan Ashe. “These groups and individuals
have done amazing work in helping to bring dozens of species back from the
brink of extinction, while improving habitat that benefits many other
species and local communities.”
From the bull trout in Washington, Oregon, and Montana to the red-cockaded
woodpecker in Florida, Alabama and Texas, Recovery Champions are taking
action to benefit these species. Service employees and partners, including
federal and state conservation agencies, tribes, universities,
conservation organizations, private landowners, and zoos and botanic
gardens, are making a difference through activities such as removing dams
so that anadromous fish can reach their spawning grounds, restoring
longleaf pine forests in the Southeast, and reintroducing an endangered
bird species into its historical range.
For example, the Turner Endangered Species Fund (TESF) is being recognized
for its work in endangered species recovery programs over several decades.
Numerous species across multiple states have greatly benefitted from
TESF’s continued support over the years and are on the road to recovery
thanks in large part to these efforts, such as the black-footed ferret,
red-cockaded woodpecker, Chiricahua leopard frog and Northern Aplomado
falcon.
Notably, the TESF has been active and supportive in gray wolf recovery in
the United States, both in the Northern Rocky Mountains and in the
Southwest. Since 1997, the Ladder Ranch Wolf Management Facility, located
on R.E. Turner’s Ladder Ranch in south-central New Mexico and operated by
TESF is one of the program’s three primary captive pre-release facilities
and has been instrumental in housing and selectively breeding Mexican
wolves for release to the wild.
Also this year, National Wildlife Refuges from Maine through Virginia are
being honored for conserving more than 250 breeding pairs of piping
plovers on refuge, state, municipal and private lands.
In the West, the Colorado Rare Plant Conservation Initiative, comprised of
more than 22 organizations, after creating a strategy for needed actions
such as best management practices for oil and gas development, is working
with the industry to implement the practices.
And in an unusual accomplishment, a team of biologists, avian husbandry
experts and veterinarians captured wild Nihoa millerbirds, insect-eating
songbirds on the Hawaiian island of Nihoa, and translocated them to Laysan
Island, restoring Millerbirds to the island after an absence of 100 years.
Restoring streams, releasing listed species into their historical ranges,
and conducting field surveys and monitoring programs are among the
diversity of initiatives by this year’s Recovery Champions. What began in
Fiscal Year 2002 as a one-time award for Service staff members for
achievements in conserving listed species was reactivated in 2007 and
expanded to honor Service partners as well, recognizing their essential
role in the recovery of threatened and endangered species.
For information about the 2011 Recovery Champions, please visit:
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/
Comments
Post a Comment