The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released application procedures for the first round of funding through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), according to the Wildlife Management Institute. The RCPP is a new program created in the 2014 Farm Bill that is administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

State apportionments of federal aid through the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration (WSFR) program have increased monumentally over the last several years, largely due to the increased collection of excise taxes under the Pittman Robertson (PR) Act. This year, state apportionments for the WSFR Program exceeded $1.3 billion. As a result, states now have access to more PR funds than ever before.

Sea level has risen at an average rate of 4.6 mm/year since 1948 at Rockport, Texas. The rate is increasing and models predict sea level will be from .46 to .87 meters higher along the Texas coast by the end of the century. That may not sound like much, but given the nature of the landscape, that rise will shift the coastline inland by an average of 1 to 2 kilometers and significantly affect bays, estuaries, marshes and current upland habitats.

Conservation Briefs is a compilation of short news stories of interest to Outdoor News Bulletin readers. The stories cover a number of issues that have developed in the past month or provide updates on issues that were featured in previous ONB editions. Each story includes links to online resources for more details on each topic.

This month:

The 2010 Northeast Regional Conservation Need funded project, Development of Noninvasive Monitoring Tools for New England Cottontail Populations assessed new noninvasive tools for monitoring the status and effectiveness of conservation actions for the New England cottontail Sylvilagus transitionalis.

The Rio Grande cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii virginalis) is the southern-most subspecies of cutthroat trout in the Western United States. Historically, the subspecies occupied over 10,000 km of streams in the Rio Grande, Pecos, and Canadian River basins of Colorado and New Mexico. Introductions of non-native fishes and habitat loss have reduced this subspecies to 120 conservation populations occupying less than 12 percent of its historical range (1,500 km). In 2008, the subspecies was added to the Endangered Species Act Candidate List.