Building on the success of past great lakes AIS landing blitz events and award F22AP00473, a team of regional partners proposes to continue to support the expanded scope and scale of the program and…

This two-year, $369,325.67 Project Grant award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (CFDA 15.662) will enable the Great Lakes Commission (GLC) to continue expanding the regional Great Lakes Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Landing Blitz program. Key objectives include:

1. Providing at least 15 subawards to increase capacity for boat inspections and in-person outreach to prevent the spread of AIS through the recreational boating pathway. This will include training for subrecipients and providing event starter kits.

2. Expanding coordinated outreach efforts across the Great Lakes region, including a regional digital marketing strategy to generate 2.5 million impressions and a social media advertising campaign.

3. Piloting a virtual, winter Great Lakes AIS Landing Blitz event targeting ice anglers, including developing social media content and an event strategy.

The GLC will serve as the lead administrator and project manager, overseeing subaward agreements, coordinating the project team, and implementing key activities. This project aims to strengthen regional pathway prevention efforts and build capacity across jurisdictions to address AIS through the recreational boating and ice fishing sectors.

Building on the success of past great lakes AIS landing blitz events and award F22AP00473, a team of regional partners proposes to continue to support the expanded scope and scale of the program and while further developing the program activities. This two-year effort will continue to address the current imbalance of capacity that exists across jurisdictions and results from a lack of funding and dedicated staff. Specifically, the three primary objectives of the proposed project are to (1) continue to support additional capacity for boat inspections through creative partnerships at boat launches in jurisdictions without an established inspection program, (2) expand coordinated outreach efforts across the great lakes region targeting digital media marketing and social media advertising, and (3) pilot a virtual, winter great lakes AIS landing blitz event targeting ICE anglers.project goals and objectivesthe goal of this collaborative project is to strengthen regional pathway prevention efforts for the recreational boating pathway through the regional great lakes AIS landing blitz. IT will address the following objectives:1. Improve capacity for boat inspections and in-person outreachoutputs: at least fifteen subawards for boat inspections and in-person outreach to prevent the spread of AIS through the recreational boating pathway training for subrecipients to follow existing voluntary boat inspection protocols currently in use by great lakes jurisdictions event starter kits including relevant outreach materials, safety vests, etc.2. Expand outreach efforts through mass and social media outputs: regional digital marketing strategy targeting relevant audiences generating 2.5 million impressions (views of the ADS) social media ADS posts advertising the event, specific to each social media platform regional social marketing strategy targeting relevant audiences generating 2.5 million impressions (views of the ADS)3. Pilot a virtual, winter event targeting ICE anglersoutputs: develop social media posts and templates for a winter great lakes AIS landing blitz virtual event, targeting ICE anglers develop an event strategy for in-person outreach events, if there is significant interest in hosting such events in the WINTER4. Great lakes AIS coordinationoutcomes: strengthened engagement between the GLP and other regional entitiesproject activities and methodsproject team roles and responsibilitiesa project team comprised of representatives from great lakes states and tribes will oversee the project. The project team will have the following responsibilities: make decisions and guide implementation of project activities participate in subrecipient selection under objective 1 and provide input on and consent to project outputs. The GLC will administer the project, manage the award agreement with FWS, manage subaward agreements under objective 1, serve as secretariat to the project team, and implement activities under objectives 2 and 3.