The USFWS S partners for fish and wildlife program pfwis partnering with pheasants forever INC

This $100,000 Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the Partners for Fish and Wildlife (CFDA 15.631) program provides funding to Pheasants Forever, Inc. to deliver conservation services in priority areas of South Carolina. The award supports the restoration and enhancement of natural communities, such as piedmont prairie, shortleaf pine-oak savanna, and longleaf pine woodland habitats, that benefit imperiled wildlife species including the northern bobwhite, Georgia leadplant, red-cockaded woodpecker, and others. Key activities to be funded include prescribed burning, invasive species control, native vegetation planting, and other habitat management practices. The award aims to improve biodiversity, restore degraded natural areas, and enhance private landowner knowledge and participation in conservation efforts.

Quail forever QF to deliver costshare to private landowners in restoration priority areas in south carolina. The funding will be used to restore and enhance natural communities that support imperiled species including federally listed and atrisk species and where populations and habitat corridors overlap the range of the states atrisk northern bobwhite. Pheasant forevers goal is to enhance natural open grassland and savanna habitats that support speciesrich early successional habitats comprised of grasses herbs and low shrubs. These habitats provide required natural resources for northern bobwhite where they coexist with other rare imperiled federally listed and atrisk species with similar resource needs. Prescribed burning will be included for most projects. Target ecosystems and natural communities include but are not limited to piedmont prairie shortleaf pine OAK savanna sandhills sand ridge uplands longleaf pine savanna woodland and carolina BAY complexes. Potential project sites support imperiled species including georgia leadplant tenlobed false foxglove ravine sedge redcockaded woodpecker and spotted turtle with potential to benefit american chaffseed southern hognose snake eastern diamondback rattlesnake northern longeared BAT gopher frog frosted flatwoods salamander and others.funded conservation practices will restore degraded natural communities increase biodiversity enhance habitat on private lands for the benefit of migratory birds pollinators and listed atrisk and other endemic species that reside in south carolina characteristic landscapes. Landowners will be more knowledgeable about beneficial management and better connected to partners and contractors enabling the work on the ground to persist. Conservation activities to be funded include but are not limited to prescribed burning firebreak construction firebreak preparation removal of dense loblolly pine thinning of pine stands chemical or mechanical reduction of woody midstory competition in longleaf stands mulching sweetgum or pocosin shrub growth in fire suppressed longleaf communities invasive exotic plant control and planting native vegetation.