2003 Power of Flight Grants

The Power of Flight program is the largest public/private funding effort for bird conservation in the South. Grants in the Power of Flight program were awarded to:

• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service to accelerate translocation efforts for the red-cockaded woodpecker. Funds will be used to support a biologist on the Apalachicola National Forest in Florida to monitor potential donor clusters for increasing the number of woodpecker offspring available for translocation each year.
• Alabama Wildlife Rehabilitation Center for research on a new technique that uses audio tapes to lure parent raptors back to young that have been displaced from the nest.
• Quail Unlimited for 10 habitat restoration projects across the Southeast. The grant is helping to implement the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative by improving habitat on more than 17,000 acres.
• Georgia Wildlife Federation to expand the group's Schoolyard Habitats Program to 55 urban counties in Georgia. The program instructs students, parents, teachers and community leaders about the value of schoolyards as green space and wildlife habitat.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in recognition of the National Wildlife Refuge Centennial being celebrated in 2003. Funding is being given to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia and to help restore about 350 acres of tidal freshwater wetlands.
• The Nature Conservancy to restore 500 acres of wet pine savanna in the Mississippi Sandhill Crane/Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuges.
• Georgia Department of Natural Resources for pilot projects to refine techniques to economically convert pine plantations to functioning longleaf pine ecosystems on state lands.
• Audubon Mississippi for help in developing the Mississippi Coastal Birding and Wildlife Trail, linking 50 sites between the Alabama and Mississippi borders.
• Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Foundation to support implementation of the Great Florida Birding Trail in the state’s panhandle region.
• American Forest Foundation - to encourage bird conservation practices to Georgia’s 3,600 members of the American Tree Farm Society, who collectively manage more than 2.3 million acres.