Like most state fish and wildlife agencies, Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MFWP) derives the bulk of its budget from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and matching federal dollars from the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program. And like many other state agencies, MFWP is searching for ways to broaden and increase funding to support the ever growing demands for conservation.

On Election Day this year, a number of state and local conservation funding initiatives will be on the ballot for voters to consider with the potential of over $25 billion being dedicated for conservation and restoration. The largest initiatives in Florida, New Jersey, North Dakota, California and Maine bring a variety of opportunities for funding land conservation, water quality and outdoor recreation. But support for these initiatives also vary with opponents like state chambers of commerce actively working against some of the efforts, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources recently announced the recipients of their 2015 Wildlife Habitat Grants. A total of $1,062,807 was awarded to various conservation organizations, units of government, landowners and nonprofit organizations including the Wildlife Management Institute for a project to enhance young forest habitat in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The Northeast Fish and Wildlife Diversity Technical Committee (NEFWDTC) met this fall in Blue Mountain Lake, New York for their annual meeting. The NEFWDTC is composed of State Wildlife Diversity Program Managers or their designees from 13 northeastern states and D.C. The NEFWDTC provides leadership for fish and wildlife diversity for the northeast states. The NEFWDTC provides technical oversight of the Regional Conservation Needs (RCN) grant program that is administered by the Wildlife Management Institute.

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:

Black bass (genus Micropterus) is the number one group of fish pursued by anglers in the United States since recreational fishing statistics have been gathered, but their true diversity has yet to be fully documented. Because of their status as sport-fish, their conservation receives priority attention by many state natural resource agencies. However, even among biologists there is disagreement about how many species of black bass exist; conservatively there are eight species, but possibly up to 17.