{"id":228566,"date":"2016-05-26T06:06:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T20:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=228566"},"modified":"2016-05-26T06:06:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T20:06:04","slug":"dfw-awarded-238k-conserve-imperiled-snails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/dfw-awarded-238k-conserve-imperiled-snails\/","title":{"rendered":"DFW awarded $238K to conserve imperiled snails"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-228566 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/dfw-awarded-238k-conserve-imperiled-snails\/dfw-pix-1\/'>DFW-pix-1<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-228568'>\n\t\t\t\tA Fragile Tree Snail (Samoana fragilis). Seen by DLNR-DFW biologists in 2015, the first detection of this species on Rota since the 1990s. (LAINIE ZARONES)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/dfw-awarded-238k-conserve-imperiled-snails\/dfw-pix-2\/'>DFW-pix-2<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-228567'>\n\t\t\t\tRota Partula snail. The other tree snail species on Rota, recently found to be a \u201cnew\u201d undescribed species of the genus Partula based on genetic analyses. (LAINIE ZARONES)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>The Department of Land and Natural Resources-Division of Fish and Wildlife was awarded grant funding from the Competitive State Wildlife Grant program administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n<p>The CNMI grant is the first-ever awarded to a U.S. territory in the eight-year history of the national Competitive SWG program. According to DFW director Manny Pangelinan, the $238,000 grant will enable DFW to hire a new Rota-based biologist to focus full-time on snail conservation issues. Many of the CNMI\u2019s rare snail species can be found on Rota.<\/p>\n<p>Pangelinan also recognized Conservation Planner Jill Liske-Clark\u2019s work that led to the grant award, \u201cMany states apply for these competitive grants but Liske-Clark\u2019s work on the grant application as well as her outstanding work on the 2015 CNMI Wildlife Action Plan gave us the edge we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, the Service listed three tree snail species in the CNMI as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Tree snails are threatened by invasive predators including rats, habitat loss, and impacts from climate change. To maintain and potentially increase the current distribution of the snails, DFW will develop a habitat model to improve management effectiveness, while locating new and managing existing tree snail colonies. This work will lay the foundation for a regional, collaborative conservation strategy for partulid tree snails across the Mariana Islands.<\/p>\n<p>The State Wildlife Grant program targets conservation and protection of \u201cSpecies of Greatest Conservation Need\u201d as identified in State Wildlife Action Plans. The CNMI Wildlife Action Plan, which describes CNMI Species of Greatest Conservation Need, is available for download from the DFW website at http:\/\/www.cnmidfw.com\/2015wap\/. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Land and Natural Resources-Division of Fish and Wildlife was awarded grant funding&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":228567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,1584,7933,377],"class_list":["post-228566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-dfw","tag-manny-pangelinan","tag-mariana-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}