2004 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:

• Quail Unlimited - To improve northern bobwhite and grassland/shrubland habitat associated with the species in AL, GA, and MS through integrated habitat management and public education programs. Funds will be used to increase the amount and enhance the quality of the agricultural lands for nesting, brood rearing, and roosting, enhance management practices, and preserve and enhance the quality of rangelands.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – To translocate subadult red-cockaded woodpeckers from the Apalachicola National Forest to small, at-risk populations on private state and federal lands in FL, GA, MS, and AL. 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.
• GA Wildlife Federation – To continue the current Georgia Wildlife Federation (GWF) Power of Flight grant that evaluated outdoor classrooms in urban areas of Georgia in order to develop general best management practices for outdoor classrooms on school grounds. Continuation of the first project is necessary to extend and adapt the general best management practices into a more specific local context for a pilot group of schools within the fastest growing urban counties in Georgia. The program instructs students, parents, teachers and community leaders about the value of schoolyards as green space and wildlife habitat. Wildlife habitat in schools provides homes and resting stopovers for migrating songbirds while also providing an outdoor classroom for students to learn about birds and other topics.
• Friends of St. Andrews St. Park – To fund professional, educational exhibits on shorebirds, migrating birds, and turtles to preserve the dune habitat, the woodlands, marshes and sea grass beds in St. Andrews St. Park and other areas located in Bay County, Florida.
• Ecosystem Restoration Support Organization – To support Project GreenShores which is a high profile, well-publicized, ecosystem restoration project located along the northern shoreline of Pensacola Bay, FL, in Escambia County. The project involves the restoration and creation of oyster reefs, sea grass beds, emergent marsh habitat, and shoreline buffer for Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) as identified by NOAA Fisheries. Funds will also support the construction of a bird watching platform, including telescopes, free for public use. The objective of this funding is to encourage nature tourism development and environmental education involving birds. Educational signage installed on the birding platform will stress the importance of the emergent marsh habitat to the health and welfare of the various bird species.
• MS Museum of Natural Science Foundation – To support the travel of educators to 37 underserved counties in Mississippi to teach wildlife programs, focusing on environmental knowledge and sustainability of resources. Students will be reached directly through hands on experiences which actively engage them in the learning process.
• Georgia Department of Natural Resources/State Parks – To create a 50-acre wetland area for birds and other wetland species at Panola Mountain State Park, near Atlanta.
• Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge – To create a 1,500-foot walking trail with boardwalks and educational exhibits.
• Alabama Wildlife Rehabilitation Center – To expand dissemination of tools and a new technique that uses audio tapes to reunite parent raptors with their young that have been displaced from the nest, thereby reducing long-term caseloads for rehabilitation centers.
• Mississippi Wildlife Federation – To train 20 volunteers that will teach citizens the importance of habitat in the Pascagoula River Watershed by using educational materials, such as a traveling Pascagoula River exhibit.
• Tall Timbers Research Station – To assist with on-the-ground recovery and management of red-cockaded woodpecker populations.
• Wildlife Management Institute – To launch an East Gulf Joint Venture partnership consisting of 19 organizations that will develop science-based, landscape-scale, mapping and decision support tools to improve longleaf pine ecosystems for birds throughout the East Gulf Coastal Plain.
• National Audubon Society – To enhance or establish long-term bird conservation efforts for the region's threatened and declining beach-nesting birds on the Gulf Coast from western Florida to coastal Mississippi.