Preserving Streams and Their Wild Trout Populations:
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
Created by congress in 1984, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) directs public conservation dollars to pressing environmental needs, matching those investments with private funds. A $500,000 Foundation grant to NFWF in 2016 is supporting ongoing efforts to survey coldwater streams in Pennsylvania to determine if they contain trout or other important or threatened species. The funding also supports developing plans for future conservation and monitoring in 11 key western Pennsylvania landscapes that, with assistance from NFWF, the trustees identified as priorities for the Foundation.
A premier example of a public-private partnership, this grant helps continue work that began in 2011 and has been significantly enhanced by involvement of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC). The PFBC trains college and university students studying biology, as well as volunteers with qualified nonprofit organizations, to conduct stream assessments, beginning with watersheds whose headwater streams are the most at-risk and likely to contain trout. Of the nearly 5,000 streams assessed to date, 48 percent support wild trout populations, qualifying them for a higher level of protection under Pennsylvania’s Clean Stream Law and adding 1,741 miles of flowing water to the state’s Class A stream category.
(Above)NFWF assisted the Foundation in identifying 11 key
landscapes in western Pennsylvania for future conservation
investments. That led to a broad set of metrics to be
accomplished over the next five years—increasing Eastern
Brook Trout habitat in 10 watersheds, opening 170 miles of
upstream habitat now blocked by dams or culverts, restoring
3,700 acres of riparian habitat, 5,000 acres of Cerulean
Warbler habitat, 2,500 acres of Golden-winged Warbler
habitat, 2,500 acres of American Woodcock habitat, and
reducing sediment pollution by four million pounds annually.
Featured Grants
$500,000
Toward two-year support to survey unassessed coldwater streams in Pennsylvania to determine if they house trout or other important or threatened species, and toward developing conservation plans for each of the eleven landscapes in western Pennsylvania that are conservation priority areas for the Richard King Mellon Foundation
$315,000
to monitor the population response to implementation of the Western Pennsylvania Restoration Plan among priority forest bird species
$850,000
toward three-year support of restoration projects in the eleven focal geographies to achieve the forest and freshwater habitat and species goals detailed in the Western Pennsylvania Restoration/Business Plan
$250,000
toward three-year support of programs
$100,000
toward support of matching funds to enable small, community-based conservation projects to qualify for federal dollars
$88,266
toward support in acquiring land for the expansion of the Visitor Center at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge on the Scuppernong River in Columbia, North Carolina
$75,000
toward three-year support of private wetland initiatives under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and for wetland-related policy analysis and development under the Fish and Wildlife Assessment project
$50,000
toward support of operations
