The funding provided through notice of funding opportunity number F23AS00229 will enable the arizona department of agriculture to fund subcontractors to conduct research, surveys, monitoring and…

The U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service has awarded a $136,454.31 Project Grant under the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund (CFDA 15.615) to the Arizona Department of Agriculture. This funding will enable the Arizona Department of Agriculture to sub-award grants to conduct research, surveys, monitoring, and restoration of Arizona's federally-listed and other rare plant species of concern.

The sub-awards include activities such as seed collection for Sentry milk-vetch, population surveys and monitoring for Nichols Turk's head cactus and Cochise pincushion cactus, habitat modeling for Arizona hedgehog cactus, continued monitoring of Goodding's onion populations, and a long-term community science project for rare plants on the Tonto National Forest. This work will help inform the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision-making on endangered species listings, critical habitat designations, recovery actions, and delisting criteria. The total Project Grant award is $223,968.57 and the period of performance is Sep 1, 2023 to Aug 31, 2026.

The funding provided through notice of funding opportunity number F23AS00229 will enable the arizona department of agriculture to fund subcontractors to conduct research, surveys, monitoring and restoration of arizona s federally-listed and other rare plants of concern. This year we received 11 section 6 grant proposals totaling 180,843.29. We will able to fund 7 proposals in full and one proposal in part with the 136,454.31 available to distribute. These proposals are summarized here: 1) save seeds from new populations of sentry milk-vetch (astragalus cremnophylax VAR. Cremnophylax), 2) quantify abundance, phenology, and key species interactions for nichols turks head cactus, 3) use trained dogs to detect three pediocactus taxa in northern arizona, 4) habitat description and habitat suitability model update for arizona hedgehog cactus (echinocereus arizonicus SSP. Arizonicus), 5) continued monitoring of gooddings onion (allium gooddingii) transects in the apache sitgreaves national forests, 6) coordinate seed banking efforts across multiple national forests for gooddings onion (allium gooddingii), 7) survey for coryphantha robbinsorum (cochise pincushion cactus) in areas of mexico near to the only known location (in arizona), and 8) new hope for a large-scale, long-term rare plant community science project on the tonto national forest (tonto rare plant project). This work will enable recovery actions to commence and increase our knowledge about species current conditions, vulnerabilities, and management and recovery needs. The resulting reports will enable the fish and wildlife service to better make informed decisions on listing, designating critical habitat, recovery actions, and down and DE-listing criteria, as well as inform species status assessments and 5-year reviews.