Conserving Georgia's nongame wildlife 2017 fiscal year report

Conserving Georgia's Nongame Wildlife
2017
FISCAL YEAR SUMMARY

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A s part of Georgia DNR's Wildlife Resources Division, our mission at the Nongame Conservation Section is conserving the more than 95 percent of native species in the state not fished for or hunted, as well as rare plants and natural habitats. These animals and plants vary from uncommon such as gopher tortoises and many other species that use their burrows to common, like the ruby-throated hummingbirds and northern cardinals that visit your bird feeders. All help make our state unique. And as Georgians, all of us share in the responsibility of protecting them and the wild places they need, now and for the next generation. This report tells our agency's story as a leader in that effort. I hope it not only informs you, but that it also encourages you to join us in working to restore and conserve wildlife across our state. Thank you,
Jon Ambrose Chief, Nongame Conservation Section

Tortoise burrow (Rick Lavender/DNR)

GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES | WILDLIFE RESOURCES DIVISION | NONGAME CONSERVATION SECTION

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C

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CONSERVATION

n BIRDS
n Waterbirds............................ 3 n Red-cockaded Woodpeckers....5 n Surveys and Habitat
Restoration........................... 7
Marshbirds Grassland Birds Mountain Birds Wood Stork Nests Swallow-tailed Kite Nests and Roosts Bald Eagle Nests Golden Eagles
n AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES
n Sea Turtles.......................... 11 n Sea Turtle Stranding Network
and At-sea Recovery........... 12 n Bog Turtles......................... 13 n Gopher Tortoise
Conservation Initiative........ 13 n Gopher Tortoises and
Eastern Indigo Snakes........ 14 n Gopher Frogs....................... 15 n Eastern Hellbenders............ 15
n MAMMALS
n North Atlantic Right Whales...................... 16
n Georgia Marine Mammal Stranding Network.............. 17
n Florida Manatees................ 18 n Small Mammals.................. 19

n FRESHWATER AQUATIC SPECIES
n Aquatic Conservation Initiative..............................21 n Robust Redhorse...................................................23
n PLANTS AND NATURAL HABITATS
n Sandhills................................................................25 n Rare Plant Conservation........................................26 n Coastal Habitat and Plant Conservation...............28 n Vegetation Monitoring...........................................29 n Restoring Mountain and Coastal Plain Bogs........30 n Habitat Improvement on State Lands and the
Interagency Burn Team..........................................31 n Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance.....................35 n Ginseng Management...........................................36 n Biotics Database....................................................36
n PRIVATE LANDS
n Private Land Activities...........................................37 n Forestry for Wildlife Partnership...........................38 n Army Compatible Use Buffer Conservation...........39 n Community Wildlife Project...................................40
n INVASIVE SPECIES
n LAW ENFORCEMENT

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

n Regional Education Centers.............45 n Youth Birding Competition................50 n Camp TALON....................................51

n Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest.................................51
n Social Media....................................52 n Other Outreach.................................53

LAND ACQUISITION AND CONSERVATION EASEMENTS
n Sprewell Bluff ....................................... 57 n Panola Mountain State Park:
GDOT Tract............................................. 57 n Alligator Creek WMA:
Alligator Creek Tract.............................. 57 n Sansavilla WMA:
Sansavilla Phase 2 Tract....................... 57 n Paulding Forest WMA............................ 57 n Sandhills WMA:
Coleman Tract........................................ 58 n Musgrove Plantation:
St. Simons Land Trust Phase 2 Tract.... 58 n Georgia Conservation
Tax Credit Program................................ 58
CONSERVATION PLANNING
n State Wildlife Action Plan Revision....... 59 n Regional Conservation Partnerships..... 59
FINANCIAL AND ADMINISTRATION
n Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund... 60 n Nongame License Plates....................... 61 n Weekend for Wildlife............................. 61 n Georgia Wildlife Conservation
Fund State Income Tax Checkoff........... 62 n The Environmental
Resources Network............................... 62 n Federal and Other Funding.................... 62 n Administration and Personnel............... 63

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CO N S E RVAT I O N
Birds

Waterbirds
Georgia's barrier island beaches, coastal salt marshes and freshwater wetlands support 86 species of seabirds, shorebirds and wading birds, collectively known as waterbirds. The Waterbird Conservation Initiative includes:
n Protecting important colonial waterbird nesting habitats.
n Conducting surveys to determine the status and habitat needs of resident, migratory and wintering waterbirds.
n Creating partnerships for long-term conservation of wetland-dependent bird species.
Conservation efforts include protecting and managing five sand islands for beach-nesting and migratory birds. While this is especially valuable for seabirds, resident and migratory shorebirds also benefit from protected critical nesting and resting areas free from disturbances. One of the areas, a dredge-spoil island near Brunswick, supports one of the largest colonies of nesting seabirds on the South Atlantic Coast.
Highlights and challenges in fiscal year 2017 included the following:
For the second consecutive year, DNR supported a Beach Stewards Program, a volunteer group committed to helping protect a least tern colony on St. Simons Island. The efforts of these volunteers helped more than 100 least tern pairs fledge many chicks at one of the state's most

heavily visited beaches. Also, a number of Wilson's plovers nested in this area and benefited from the Beach Stewards' protection. The program made significant strides in educating area residents and visiting beach-goers about the plight of beachnesting birds.
Hurricane Matthew, which hit the Georgia coast in October 2016, significantly altered many nesting areas. The storm wiped out St. Catherines Island Bar, a once-reliable breeding site for seabirds and shorebirds. Ogeechee Bar was diminished to the point that regular tidal flooding kept birds

from fledging young there. Satilla Marsh Island was damaged enough that brown pelicans did not nest there in 2017. Many beaches and shell rakes also suffered sediment loss, leading to decreased quality of the nesting habitat. Hopefully in time these island, shell rake and offshore bar habitats will recover.
Glynn County saw two large and successful seabird colonies in 2017. At Pelican Spit, there were an estimated 1,200 royal tern nests, 357 black skimmer nests and 123 sandwich tern nests. The Brunswick dredge-spoil island had 5,962 royal

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Bald eagle (Jerry Turner) Banding American oystercartcher (DNR)

tern, 291 sandwich tern, 230 black skimmer, 46 gull-billed tern and 82 brown pelican nests. Scores of chicks hatched and fledged at both sites.
For nesting American oystercatchers, a combination of flooding tides and high rates of depredation at several key nesting sites (Little Egg Island Bar, Little St. Simons Island and Cumberland Island) led to low statewide productivity. Of 120 pairs documented, eight chicks fledged, a productivity rate of less than 6 percent.
Nongame Conservation Section staff and partners also tracked seabird colonies on Ogeechee Bar, Pelican Spit, St. Simons' East Beach, the Brunswick dredge island, Satilla Marsh Island and several rooftop colonies in the St. Marys area. Significant productivity was noted on Pelican Spit and the Brunswick dredge island. These two sites are free from mammalian predators, a factor that often leads to high productivity.
In other fiscal 2017 updates, Nongame Conservation also:
n Conducted American oystercatcher trapping projects. Two trappings were done using cannon nets. In November, staff captured and banded 30 birds on shell rakes behind Jekyll Island. In mid-February, 45 birds were captured at Fort Pulaski on the Savannah River. The tagged birds have since been resighted in Maine, New York and New Jersey. During the breeding season, an adult and nine chicks were banded
n Monitored beach-nesting and wading birds on St. Catherines and Cumberland islands with two seasonal bird technicians, funded by a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant.
n Continued coordinating spring and fall International Shorebird Surveys across the coast. These repeat surveys of key migratory stopover sites provide the best trend data for most shorebird species across the Western Hemisphere.
n Supported, through a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant secured by staff, the second and final year for a graduate student experimenting with using predator exclosures on Wilson's plover nests at Little St. Simons. This project follows work that Nongame Conservation has supported involving this species at several sites.

USFWS' Adam Smith fits saltmarsh sparrow with a nanotag (Rick Lavender/DNR)

n Funded through a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant a repeated band-resight survey for American oystercatchers in the Altamaha Delta and St. Simons and St. Andrews sounds from August 2016 through April 2017. The effort documented more than 1,100 birds using these three sounds over the course of the project. Staff also assessed the birds' response to Hurricane Matthew, documenting a slowing of southbound migrants and birds temporarily leaving the study area. Virginia Tech staff will do the final data analysis.
n Installed two Motus Wildlife Tracking System towers, antennas that detect nanotags, a new generation of tiny transmitters that can be placed on animals as small as dragonflies. Working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, staff caught, fitted with nanotags and released 27 saltmarsh sparrows this winter to help track them to their breeding grounds. If sea-level rise projections prove accurate, saltmarsh sparrows are considered at risk of extinction over the next 50 years. The towers, funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, also detected several other birds, most notably the passage of 11 endangered Kirtland's Warblers tagged that winter in the Bahamas.
n Continued with partners a sharp-tailed sparrow banding project that is providing data on the winter distribution of two species

Saltmarsh sparrow (Tim Keyes/DNR)

Nelson's and saltmarsh sparrows and five subspecies of these little-known birds.
n Led the Georgia Shorebird Alliance with several coastal partners. Involving state, federal and private groups, this organization is making significant progress in management, monitoring, research and education regarding shorebirds on the Georgia coast.

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New red-cockaded woodpecker cluster at Silver Lake WMA (Joe Burnam/DNR)

Red-cockaded Woodpeckers
The red-cockaded woodpecker is the only woodpecker in the U.S. that excavates cavities in living pines. The drastic loss of mature pine forests over the past 200 years has been the primary cause of this species' decline. Suitable habitat now occurs primarily on some military bases, national forests and other public lands, although red-cockaded woodpeckers still live on many private properties.
In 1999, DNR developed the nation's first statewide red-cockaded woodpecker Habitat Conservation Plan to provide management options for private landowners. The plan includes options for mitigated incidental take and for Safe Harbor.

Safe Harbor focuses on landowners in southwest Georgia, where plantations managed for the northern bobwhite also support a significant population of red-cockaded woodpeckers. Safe Harbor involves a landowner's commitment to manage habitat beneficially for the site's "baseline" number of woodpecker families, or those on the site when the agreement is made. A family group refers to red-cockaded woodpeckers occupying a cluster of cavity trees. The group can vary from a single bird to a breeding pair plus one to three helpers typically male offspring from previous years that help feed younger siblings. In exchange for maintaining this baseline number of family groups, the landowner's responsibility does not increase if the woodpecker population increases.

In Georgia, two new properties totaling 10,038 acres were enrolled in Safe Harbor during fiscal year 2017. Statewide, 175,397 acres are enrolled in Safe Harbor management agreements covering 105 baseline groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers and supporting 38 surplus groups, or additions to those woodpecker populations. Most of these properties are in the Red Hills region near Thomasville. The Red Hills region supports the largest population of red-cockaded woodpeckers on private lands. Since the inception of Safe Harbor in 2000, this population has stabilized at about 180 groups.
The Nongame Conservation Section worked with Safe Harbor participants and conservation partners in fiscal 2017 to monitor nesting and

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population status, band woodpeckers and install artificial nest cavities. Staff surveyed multiple Safe Harbor properties to locate new cavity trees and update property maps.
Staff also worked with the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center to restore the redcockaded woodpecker population at Ichauway Plantation in Baker County. These 29,000 acres supported a single male in 1999. In part through the translocation of 71 young birds, Ichauway Plantation now has 36 family groups.
In 2008, DNR acquired 8,400 acres near Bainbridge to create Silver Lake Wildlife Management Area, the first state-owned property with red-cockaded woodpeckers. Silver Lake has extensive stands of mature longleaf pine habitat with intact native groundcover.

The red-cockaded woodpecker population at Silver Lake continues to grow, with 34 family groups (30 potential breeding groups and four single-bird groups) documented in fiscal 2017, an increase of three groups from the previous year. Attaining 30 potential breeding groups is a population milestone. The Silver Lake population is now considered stable enough that it is no longer eligible to receive translocated birds. DNR banded 37 young at Silver Lake produced by these groups, and installed one new recruitment cluster, or recipient site (typically four artificial nest cavities). Through continued prescribed fire, installation of additional recruitment clusters and careful forest management, Silver Lake WMA eventually will sustain about 50 family groups.
In 2013, DNR entered an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to manage the red-

Ft. Stewart red-cockaded woodpecker translocated to Moody Forest (Charlie Muise)

cockaded woodpeckers on corps land that DNR leases for Lake Seminole Wildlife Management Area. This property is adjacent to the Silver Lake population and features quality longleaf and wiregrass habitat, some of which red-cockaded woodpeckers already use as foraging habitat. In fiscal 2017, Nongame Conservation biologists installed a recruitment cluster on Corps of Engineers land adjacent to Silver Lake. The cluster immediately attracted a new breeding pair, and those birds successfully nested. In the coming year, more recruitment clusters will be installed at Lake Seminole WMA to encourage the further expansion of red-cockaded woodpeckers.
At Moody Forest Wildlife Management Area near Baxley, staff installed two recruitment clusters and refurbished cavity inserts in three others. DNR also conducted two separate translocations to Moody Forest in fiscal 2017. The first involved pairing a female from Silver Lake with a newly discovered single male at Moody Forest. This marked the first red-cockaded woodpecker translocation between state-owned properties in Georgia. The second translocation involved moving two woodpecker pairs from Fort Stewart. At least three of the five translocated birds remained on Moody Forest into the nesting season, with all three becoming breeders. As of spring 2017, the WMA had three potential breeding groups, two more than the previous year. All three groups attempted nesting, with one group successfully fledging two young. Habitat management, including timber thins and prescribed fire, is helping improve and create more woodpecker habitat. Staff will install an additional woodpecker cluster at Moody Forest in the coming year.
Nongame Conservation also consulted with U.S. Forest Service personnel to evaluate the potential for red-cocked woodpecker restoration at Sprewell Bluff Wildlife Management Area and to prioritize restoration efforts on the area near Manchester. As a result of that meeting, Nongame Conservation biologists are delineating focal areas for redcockaded woodpecker habitat restoration and preparing to draft a reintroduction plan. Biologists are also working with State Parks and Historic Sites Division personnel at Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site to plan habitat restoration work, with the goal of establishing red-cockaded woodpecker groups on the Juliette property and expanding the woodpecker population at the adjacent Oconee National Forest.

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Surveys and Habitat Restoration
n Marshbirds
Secretive marshbird surveys in fiscal 2017 focused on black rail, king rail and least bittern, species that are difficult to survey due to their secretive nature and use of wetland habitats that are hard to access. Surveys in late March and April at Altamaha Waterfowl Management Area near Darien detected several least bitterns and king rails, as well as a few purple gallinules, another rare marshbird. No black rails were detected during these surveys.
As part of an assessment following a petition for federal listing of the species, special nocturnal black rail surveys were conducted at more than 400 points in the coastal area. Each point was surveyed at least three times between April and mid-July. Unfortunately, there were no confirmed detections of black rails during these surveys. This effort will continue in 2018.
Little is known about the population status of the Florida sandhill crane, a resident subspecies that occurs only in peninsular Florida and the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia. Over the past six years, helicopter surveys have been conducted annually in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge from March-April to count nesting pairs of Florida sandhill cranes. Starting in 2014, a standardized grid of transects has been flown to conduct the counts. Using this approach, statistically valid population estimates can be developed.
A single survey flight was flown in fiscal 2017, on April 12. That flight documented 11 active or recently active nests (egg shells were present in the latter nests). This is about the same as the average number of nests per flight during the three flights in 2015, although nearly 50 percent less than that found during the single survey flight in 2016. Nongame Conservation staff intended to make two additional survey flights in fiscal 2017 to increase the sample size for statistical reasons, but could not because of the rapid growth of the West Mims wildfire in the Okefenokee and a subsequent flight ban. However, just before the ban, staff conducted an April 13 reconnaissance flight over four areas of potential nesting habitat not surveyed in the

DNR's Ashley Harrington surveys for kestrels along transmission lines (Rick Lavender/DNR)

past and spotted three adult Florida sandhill cranes in one area, Honey Prairie. The adults behaved like they had young hidden nearby.
n Grassland Birds
Surveys started seven years ago for Henslow's sparrow continued in 2017. This species is a small songbird that nests in grasslands of the Midwest and Northeast and winters in grassy areas of pine flatwoods, pitcherplant bogs and powerline corridors in the Southeast's Coastal Plain. Henslow's sparrow numbers have declined precipitously over the last several decades due to habitat loss at breeding and wintering grounds.
This sparrow is a species of high conservation concern because of its small population size, greatly reduced habitats and other factors. Its secretive nature and small numbers make it difficult to survey and monitor. Little is known about its distribution and populations across most of its range, including Georgia.

Standardized transects at Paulks Pasture Wildlife Management Area in Glynn County, Townsend Wildlife Management Area near Ludowici and Moody Forest Wildlife Management Area near Baxley were surveyed three times from January through March using the same techniques (flush netting) as the previous six years. Numbers captured were low, with only 30 previously unbanded birds caught. This is less than half the average of 65 birds per year that have been captured and banded since this effort began and only one-third the 90 birds banded in 2016, an all-time high. In addition, 11 birds banded at these sites from one to three years earlier were recaptured during 2017. Two additional sites, Alapaha River Wildlife Management Area, a newly acquired property near Ocilla, and a powerline associated with the Canoochee Bogs complex were also surveyed, but no Henslow's sparrows were found.
The significant fluctuation in the number of sparrows captured this year highlights the fact

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that there can be a great deal of inter-annual variation in populations of this species, as well as shifts in use of wintering sites.
Surveys will continue at Paulks Pasture, Townsend and Moody Forest to track long-term population trends. Other sites with suitable habitat will be surveyed for new populations.
The nest box program for southeastern American kestrels finally had a good year in fiscal 2017 after experiencing many years of declines. Nest box use was up substantially in all regions. In Tifton, eight of 32 boxes were occupied as a new research partnership with Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College students began that may shed light on the habitat needs of this species. In the western Fall Line sandhills, 41 boxes were occupied, up from 31 in 2016. More good news: Only one nest was lost to predation, compared to five early in 2016.
The Nongame Conservation Section partnered with a regional power distribution company to erect 22 boxes high on the company's transmission line towers in 2016. These boxes are placed about 100 feet above the ground, compared to about 15-20 feet for boxes on the wooden power poles. In 2017, kestrels nested in at least 15 of these high boxes, a 66 percent occupancy rate that is far beyond what the agency has observed in many years of checking boxes placed lower. This dramatically added to the number of active nest boxes in the program and inspires hope that the new approach may rescue Georgia's smallest falcon from extinction in the state.
In addition to trying to install more boxes high on power lines, upcoming work will include an effort to estimate population sizes and trends for this species in Georgia. With eight years of survey data, Nongame Conservation's dataset should be robust enough to estimate detection probability and provide a close estimate of the total population.
Native grass plantings done in 2016 at Panola Mountain State Park had to be redone after extreme drought caused a failure. The now 11-year effort has restored more than 100 acres of Indian grass at the park near Stockbridge. While this aspect of the project is done, other work remains. For at least a few more years, exotic weeds will need to be controlled on the site while the grasses thicken and become more firmly established. Planting of native forbs

important for pollinators and other wildlife will continue in the restored area.
Two adjoining habitats important for conservation, canebrakes along the South River and a woodland beside the native grass restoration site, are also being restored. Both communities are grassdominated and will complement Panola Mountain's restored grassland, with many species using two or even all three habitats to complete different parts of their life cycle. As a first step, invasive exotic species (primarily Chinese privet and thorny olive) must be eradicated. In fiscal 2017, 110 acres were treated either mechanically or chemically to eliminate these and other invasive plants.
Native grass restoration is being completed at several other sites as well. In spring 2017 this included planting about 40 more acres on Joe Kurz Wildlife Management Area near Woodbury in coordination with a new dove field and other habitat work on adjoining land, about 30 acres on Chattahoochee Bend State Park near Newnan and about 70 acres on Flat Creek Public Fishing Area in Houston County, all in coordination with DNR Wildlife Resources Division's Fisheries Management and Game Management sections. About 120 acres of old fields heavily invaded by Bradford pear were cleared at Sweetwater Creek State Park near Lithia Springs. The area will be planted with native grasses in spring 2018.
n Mountain Birds
On Brawley Mountain in northeast Georgia's Fannin County, habitat restoration has been completed for the only remaining population of goldenwinged warblers in the state. Brawley Mountain was burned with the help of Nongame Conservation's west-central Georgia fire crew in spring 2016 to enhance the habitat. (An adjoining unit was burned in spring 2015.) However, Georgia's golden-winged warbler population has faltered. Biologists detected a lone male in 2013, no birds in 2014, one male in 2015 and two males in 2016. However, no birds were detected in 2017.
Other states also have lost populations of this species. The golden-winged warbler is in steep decline throughout almost its historic range. Despite the gloomy outlook, the Brawley Mountain project has yielded some promising results. The area has been restored to a montane oak woodland featuring especially high bird

diversity, including many woodland and early successional bird species. The project site also has been invaluable as an outdoor classroom. Many field trips led by DNR and U.S. Forest Service staff have touted Brawley Mountain as a successful example of woodland restoration in the Southern Blue Ridge.
n Wood Stork Nests
Wood storks were listed as endangered in 1984 following dramatic declines in breeding colonies in southern Florida. Wood stork nests were first documented in Georgia in 1965. By the 1980s, the birds were nesting here in increasing numbers.
Georgia now supports more than 20 percent of the U.S. nesting population, about 9,500 breeding pairs. The recovery plan for the wood stork in Georgia includes monitoring reproductive success of nesting colonies, identifying potential threats and working with landowners and site managers to promote colony survival and longevity.
The Nongame Conservation Section conducts aerial surveys each spring to find and monitor nesting colonies. Stork nesting effort the number of pairs that attempt to reproduce fluctuates annually. Calendar year 2014 set the nesting season record for wood storks in Georgia, with 2,932 nests in 22 colonies. Water levels were favorable for both nesting and foraging, and the colonies monitored for productivity had high nest success.
In 2017, roughly 1,900 stork nests were documented in 23 colonies across the Coastal Plain. While lower than the record counts, the 2017 totals fit within the trend of increasing nesting in Georgia. Productivity monitoring showed that almost all active colonies fledged young.
More than 75 percent of all wood stork rookeries in Georgia are on private land. Continuing the success of conservation efforts for this species depends on landowners' willingness to ensure the protection of viable freshwater-wetland nesting sites.
n Swallow-tailed Kite Nests and Roosts
The swallow-tailed kite has suffered a significant range reduction since the 1880s when it bred in 21 states. These elegant raptors are now found in seven Southeastern states, where they nest in bottomland forests along some

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large rivers. Most nests in Georgia are on private land, particularly industrial timberlands.
Nongame Conservation efforts include finding and monitoring nests, advising the public about reporting sightings, protecting nests from predators where possible, working with private landowners to ensure habitat viability, supporting habitat management on protected lands where kites nest and searching for previously radio-tagged kites.
An estimated 150-200 pairs of swallow-tailed kites nest in Georgia each year. Most nests are on the lower stretches of the Satilla and Altamaha rivers, but nests are also scattered throughout other south Georgia river drainages that feed into the Atlantic such as the Savannah, Ogeechee and St. Marys and almost all rivers that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, including the Suwannee, Alapaha, Aucilla, Flint, Little Ochlockonee and Withlacoochee. While densities are highest in the lower stretches of these rivers, kites nest well into the upper Coastal Plain on the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers.
During the 2017 nesting season, fieldwork focused on better defining the limits of the kites' breeding range statewide and continued surveys of the core area in southeast Georgia for monitoring long-term population trends. DNR also emphasized surveying sites considered for possible land acquisition or protection.
Because the Altamaha and Satilla river systems have been heavily surveyed, aerial surveys were conducted on the Savannah, Ogeechee, Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers. Ground and boat surveys were done on the lower Altamaha and Satilla as well.
The surveys documented 33 nests, 17 in the Altamaha drainage, eight in the Satilla and three in the Okefenokee Swamp. Thirteen nests were documented on wildlife management areas, including first records for Paulks Pasture and Tuckahoe (near Sylvania). Nesting was considered probable at another nine sites.
Kite numbers appear stable in Georgia, yet little recolonization of the species' historic range has been observed. About two-thirds of confirmed and probable kite breeding areas are on private land. The remaining third are on protected lands such as wildlife management areas, national wildlife refuges and military bases.

n Bald Eagle Nests
Once common in Georgia, the bald eagle declined in abundance during the mid-20th century and no longer was nesting in the state by the early 1970s. Yet populations rebounded here and elsewhere, helped by a 1972 ban on the use of DDT in the U.S., habitat improvements following enactment of the federal Clean Water and Clean Air acts, protection through the Endangered Species Act, increased public awareness and the restoration of local populations through release programs known as hacking.
Following federal delisting in 2007, primary legal protection for eagles comes under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Nest trees and associated primary and secondary buffer zones are conserved via recommendations of federally established bald eagle management guidelines. Georgia's ongoing conservation efforts include monitoring all known eagle nests in January and in March, working with landowners to protect nest sites, public education programs about eagle conservation and ecology, and rehabilitation of injured eagles.
During the 2017 nesting season, the Nongame Conservation Section documented 218 occupied nesting territories, a state record. Of these, 142 were successful, fledging 218 eaglets. Active nests were found in 68 counties, which was also a record. This marked the third straight year the number of occupied nesting territories in Georgia exceeded 200. There were 210 in 2015 and 201 in 2016. The trend is encouraging, especially considering only nine nests were known in the state in 1990, 55 in 2000 and 139 in 2010. Biologists continued to work closely with landowners to conserve nesting habitats, minimize disturbances near nest trees during the nesting season, help acquire federal take permits to support development projects and capture injured eagles and deliver them to veterinary and rehabilitation facilities. Public assistance has been invaluable. For example, in fiscal 2017, private citizens helped biologists by monitoring 11 nests from the ground and proved instrumental in discovering 17 more nests.
Biologists were curious to see how coastal nests, which comprise more than one-third of the state's total, fared in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. Only five nest trees appeared to have fallen because

Bald eagle nest near Rome (Gena Flanigen)

of the October 2016 storm, despite swaths of devastated forest on Little Tybee, Ossabaw, Blackbeard and St. Catherines islands. On the flipside, five new nests were found on the coast.
Analysis of data collected in fiscal 2017 indicates that 95 percent of 263 eagle nests observed were in pine trees, mostly dominant and co-dominant specimens. Most nests are found in mature, flat-crowned loblolly pine, but the birds also used other pine species, such as longleaf, white and Virginia. Of the remaining 5 percent, nearly all were built in cypress trees. Eagles in Georgia rarely build nests in dead trees, and none have been recorded on man-made structures such as electrical and cell phone towers or bridge structures.
Nongame Conservation continued working with partners at the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to study avian vacuolar myelinopathy. Once referred to as AVM, scientists now call the disease simply VM because it has been detected in fish, mammals and other taxa, in addition to birds. This mysterious disease has

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caused significant mortality in American coots and bald eagles, and was implicated in the deaths of at least seven and perhaps 10 or more eagles at Clarks Hill Lake north of Augusta during the winter of 2016-2017. Although VM-associated mortality in birds has historically been detected at other lakes in Georgia, such as Varner and Juliette, Clarks Hill, also called J. Strom Thurmond Reservoir, has been plagued with the disease since at least the late 1990s. The first VM-killed eagle was found at this reservoir in 1998. There has been a dramatic decline in eagle nesting territories there, from a high of eight or nine in the 1990s to two or three in recent years. However, five occupied nest territories were recorded at the reservoir this season despite low-water conditions and the VM mortalities. Hopefully, this marks the start of an upward trend.
As of fiscal 2017, satellite telemetry devices have been placed on five eaglets from three nests on the northern part of Clarks Hill. In fall 2015, one of the males was shot in Pennsylvania and the other shed its transmitter. The two males outfitted with transmitters in April 2016 migrated north in June. One of them flew to the Hudson Bay area; the other spent the summer in Pennsylvania and Ohio feeding along the Great Lakes and rivers. One of the three remaining birds in this study died from VM early in 2017. As for the other two birds, one spent the late spring and early summer of 2017 near Lake Erie, and the other has remained near the Savannah River, occasionally taking short dispersal flights to South and North Carolina.
n Golden Eagles
The Nongame Conservation Section is part of a regional project exploring migration routes and habitat use of golden eagles in the eastern U.S. Started in 2006 and first aimed at investigating how wind turbines pose a threat to golden eagles, the research by Appalachian Eagles has expanded from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to as far south as Alabama as scientists learned that the eagles do not always migrate to and from Canada along Appalachian Mountain ridges. Some fly through the Midwest, according to project leader Dr. Tricia Miller of West Virginia University.
To fill in details about the pathways and the population's distribution, scores of camera stations are used to document golden eagles. Researchers also track eagles fitted with transmitters that post almost real-time updates to cell towers.

In fiscal 2017, grant funding from The Environmental Resources Network (TERN), friends group of Nongame Conservation, was again used to buy two transmitters. Two previous transmitters bought with TERN funds had been fitted on golden eagles trapped and released at Devil's Backbone Hunting Club, a project partner near Sprewell Bluff Wildlife Management Area in middle Georgia. The first bird was trapped in February 2015, the second in February 2016. One migrated to and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence area in Quebec, while the other was tracked to the upper Midwest and Lake Superior. Interestingly, both returned briefly to Sprewell Bluff in early 2017.
One of the transmitters bought this year was fitted on a golden eagle captured at John's Mountain by Miller with the aid of the U.S. Forest Service's Ruth Stokes. As of July 2017, the start of the next fiscal year, this eagle was in the Northwest Territories, an unexpected and remarkable migration distance and location. Shortly after this capture, a second golden eagle was observed at the same site but was not caught. The perception in the ornithological and birding communities is that when sighted, which is a rare occurrence, golden eagles in Georgia usually appear in the northern one-third of the state, primarily in remote, mountainous terrain. However, records show that the species is not restricted to one geographical area and can occur in the Coastal Plain, which is what happened when a sick golden eagle was found near the Okefenokee Swamp in January 2017. This bird died, apparently from lead poisoning after swallowing a fishing sinker.

Forest Service's Ruth Stokes with golden eagle (USFS)

n Peregrine Falcons
For the third consecutive year, a pair of peregrine falcons nested on a cliff face at Tallulah Gorge State Park, the state's only known peregrine nest in a natural setting. The first nest recorded at this site, near Tallulah Falls, was in 2015, then the only "wild" nest documented in the state in 80 years. That nesting effort resulted in two fledglings. A peregrine pair again nested on the cliff in 2016, below the nest found in 2015 and in a site that was much more difficult to observe. One eyas was seen at the site that spring, but it was not clear if it fledged.
In 2017 a peregrine falcon pair again was observed exhibiting nesting activity on the cliff face, though in a new location. This time the site was easier to observe from an observation platform on the opposite side of the gorge. The public watched as the parents reared and fledged four young in May.
Elsewhere in the state, an agitated peregrine falcon was encountered during a botanical field trip in Rabun County in May 2017, but an intensive search did not locate a nest site. A pair of falcons was observed visiting a drumlike structure on a communications tower in DeKalb County that month, but nesting was not confirmed. Falcons were observed mating at the well-known nesting site on the SunTrust Plaza building in Atlanta, but for the second consecutive year apparently they did not nest there. A search of buildings in the city where falcons have been observed before resulted in sightings at two buildings involving separate pairs, but no nests were found. In June, a juvenile falcon in the company of an adult was reported from downtown Atlanta, indicating that at least one pair did nest in the city this year.
As in years past, a biologist with Rock City at Lookout Mountain banded and hacked two eyasses acquired from a breeder in Minnesota. The birds were "soft-released" on June 12, 2017.
In 2018, biologists will work with state parks staff to monitor nesting at Tallulah Gorge, as well as coordinate with volunteers in Atlanta to find and monitor nests in the city. Staff also plan to conduct a search of potentially suitable nest sites on cliffs in north and west Georgia, and will step up efforts to inspect tower structures that might serve as nesting strata.

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Sea Turtles
Loggerhead sea turtles are found in Georgia's coastal waters year-round and nest on all barrier island beaches. In accordance with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recovery plan for this species, DNR management efforts focus on surveying and protecting loggerhead nests and managing nesting beach habitat. The Nongame Conservation Section coordinates the Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative, a group of volunteers, researchers and government employees that conduct nest protection and management activities on Georgia beaches. In addition, Nongame Conservation is responsible for managing the nesting projects on the state-owned islands of Sapelo and Ossabaw, including hiring and supervising seasonal technicians.
Nest management strategies such as relocating nests, installing protective screens and removing predators help ensure high nesting success. Since comprehensive surveys began in 1989, loggerhead nesting has been highly variable, with an average of 1,300 nests per year. In 2017, more than 2,140 loggerhead nests were documented on Georgia beaches. This year's loggerhead nest total was lower than the record high set in 2016 (3,289 nests); however, the overall statistical trend in nesting (covering 28 years) shows an increase of approximately 3 percent annually. The nesting data indicates that the loggerhead sea turtle population in Georgia continues to progress toward recovery and delisting.
Other conservation activities conducted by Nongame Conservation in fiscal year 2017 included reviewing proposed regulations to require turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, in skimmer trawl fisheries, reviewing

LOGGERHEAD NESTING IN GEORGIA Annual nest totals since comprehensive surveys began in 1989.
3,400 3,200 3,000 2,800 2,600 2,400 2,200 2,000 1,800 1,600 1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400
200 0 '89 '90 '91 '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 '11 '12 '13 '14 '15 '16 '17

Amphibians and Reptiles

Loggerhead hatchling on Little St. Simons (Sarah Martin/DNR)

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lighting plans for beachfront hotel construction and conducting lighting surveys on developed nesting beaches, and monitoring the effects of harbor dredging projects on sea turtles.
To develop a comprehensive understanding of the number and relatedness of loggerheads nesting on Georgia beaches, DNR and the University of Georgia have developed a catalog of unique genetic profiles for Georgia's nesting female turtles. Drs. Joe Nairn and Brian Shamblin, working with DNR staff, have identified an average of 600 loggerhead females using the Georgia coast annually from 2008-2016, with a range of 347 to 977 turtles per year.
One of the significant findings of this study is that at least 100 mother/daughter pairs nest on Georgia's barrier beaches. Because it takes at least 30 years for a loggerhead to become sexually mature and begin nesting, the mothers are at least 60 years old, nesting alongside their 30-year-old daughters.

Necropsy of a dead loggerhead at St. Catherines (DNR) Sea turtle tech Shelby Walker with morning nesting loggerhead (Shelby Walker/DNR)

Sea Turtle Stranding Network and At-sea Recovery
The Nongame Conservation Section monitors sea turtle mortality through the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network. Systematic patrols of barrier island beaches provide information on the number and species of dead turtles that wash up on the Georgia coast. When possible, necropsies of stranded turtles are done to evaluate causes of mortality. Sea turtle strandings are the primary index of threats to sea turtles in Georgia's coastal waters.
In fiscal year 2017, 126 dead or injured turtles were documented on Georgia beaches. The 2017 stranding total is slightly lower than the 28-year average of 188 strandings per year. Recent patterns in strandings strongly correlate with the shrimp trawling effort off Georgia's coast, suggesting that commercial fishing activity is a significant source of mortality for sea turtles.
Results from necropsy examinations indicate that boat collisions and commercial fishery mortality are significant sources of mortality. They accounted for, respectively, 29 and 24 percent of strandings in fiscal 2017.

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Bog turtle (Thomas Floyd/DNR) Gopher tortoise (Dirk J. Stevenson)

Bog Turtles
The fiscal 2017 field season brought new challenges to conservation efforts involving bog turtles and eastern hellbenders (updates on the latter are in the hellbender section). During much of the 2017 calendar year, no State Wildlife Grant funding was available to hire seasonal wildlife technicians. Instead, the Nongame Conservation Section sought assistance from longtime conservation partners to continue surveying and monitoring efforts, avoiding a disruption in long-term data sets.
The federally threatened bog turtle, North America's smallest turtle species, inhabits Georgia mountain bogs generally found along slow-flowing spring creeks and seepages in low mountain valleys. During the spring and summer of 2017, Nongame Conservation Section staff, with help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery and Rabun Gap-

Nacoochee School, continued surveys monitoring three bog turtle populations discovered during the 2014 and 2015 field seasons. Sixty-seven traps were deployed and checked, totaling 2,880 trap days. While efforts did not include searching for additional populations at sites that had not been surveyed, 15 capture-and-releases of 10 different turtles were recorded at the three sites with known populations. The releases included two turtles that had not been caught before.
Gopher Tortoise Conservation Initiative
The Gopher Tortoise Conservation Initiative is a Georgia-based effort to conserve the gopher tortoise in hopes of making its listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act unnecessary. Members include DNR, the Georgia Forestry Commission; the U.S. Department of Defense, Fish and Wildlife Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service; The Nature Conservancy; The Conservation Fund; Georgia Conservancy; the Knobloch Family Foundation; the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation; the Bobolink Foundation; Georgia Chamber of Commerce; and The Orianne Society.
Gopher tortoises are found in the Coastal Plain from eastern Louisiana to western South Carolina and southern Florida. The species is federally listed as threatened in Louisiana, Mississippi and western Alabama. Within the rest of its range, the gopher tortoise is classified by the Fish and Wildlife Service as a candidate species, meaning it warrants being listed but has not been because of other issues.

Ecologically, the gopher is a keystone species: Georgia's state reptile digs deep, long burrows that are used by more than 300 different animal species. One, the eastern indigo snake, is federally listed as threatened. Others are being considered for federal listing, including the gopher frog, Florida pine snake and eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake.
Gopher Tortoise Initiative partners know they can be proactive and work to avoid listing gopher tortoises, or they can be reactive and face the consequences of increased federal regulation that will affect key parts of the state's economy, including commercial growth, agriculture, forestry and military base activities. To help preclude the need for listing a decision that members know will not rest solely on efforts in Georgia the initiative is focused on permanently protecting many of the state's gopher tortoise populations. Georgia has at least 122 known viable populations. (The Fish and Wildlife Service considers 250 adult tortoises a minimum viable population.)
Permanent protection of populations is being achieved through a combination of fee-simple land acquisitions and conservation easements. When the effort started Georgia had 36 permanently protected gopher tortoise populations. At the close of fiscal year 2017, the total was 43. The initiative is trying to protect 65 populations, work that will require raising an estimated $150 million. The funding is expected to come equally from three sources: state, federal and private donations. As of early fiscal 2018, the Gopher Tortoise Initiative was completing projects that will increase the tortoise habitat conserved in Georgia to more than 38,000 acres and the number of permanently protected populations to at least 47.

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Eastern indigo snake at tortoise burrow (Dirk J. Stevenson)

Gopher Tortoises and Eastern Indigo Snakes
Both the gopher tortoise and the eastern indigo snake, which is federally listed as threatened, are priority species in Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan.
During fiscal 2017, the Nongame Conservation Section tortoise survey crew completed line-transect distance surveys on 12 sites, sampling aimed at estimating tortoise density and abundance. Sites included Alapaha River Wildlife Management Area in Irwin County, Alligator Creek Wildlife Management Area in Wheeler County, Bullard Creek Wildlife Management Area in Jeff Davis and Appling counties, Flint River Wildlife Management Area in Macon County, Ohoopee Dunes Wildlife Management Area in Emanuel County, George

L. Smith State Park in Emanuel County, General Coffee State Park in Coffee County, The Nature Conservancy's R.G. Daniels Preserve in Candler County, and two large private tracts in Atkinson and Wayne counties. Highlights included four newly surveyed populations that have more than the 250 adult gopher tortoises needed for a minimally viable population and an estimated population at Alapaha River WMA of nearly 2,400 tortoises, by far the largest population on state lands and 21 percent more than when the site was last surveyed in 2012.
Nongame Conservation began doing linetransect distance sampling for gopher tortoises in 2007. Surveys have been completed on 92 sites, public and private, statewide. Survey results are incorporated into conservation strategies aimed at precluding the need to federally list the tortoise under the Endangered Species Act.

In another study funded and supported by Nongame Conservation, The Orianne Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving rare reptiles and amphibians, continued occupancy monitoring of imperiled eastern indigo snake habitat to determine population trends. In southern Georgia, indigos overwinter in xeric sandhill habitats, where they den in the burrows of gopher tortoises. The study's initial focus is the Altamaha River basin, considered a population stronghold for eastern indigos. That focus will expand to include the Satilla and Alapaha River basins in 2018.
Orianne staff surveyed 19 sandhill sites on public and private lands, detecting indigos at 26 percent. The degree of detections in 2017 increased significantly from the previous year; however, nine of the sites sampled in 2017 had not been surveyed in previous years and likely are not comparable.

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Gopher Frogs
State listed as rare, gopher frogs depend on intact sandhill habitats, where adults survive within the burrows of their namesake host, the gopher tortoise. However, these frogs also require nearby fishless wetlands where they breed and their tadpoles develop. Because of widespread upland and wetland habitat alteration throughout their range, gopher frogs are now limited to fewer than 10 sites in Georgia.
In 2007, the Nongame Conservation Section began a project that involved collecting gopher frog eggs from healthy populations, rearing them to latestage tadpoles or post-metamorphic froglets and releasing them at an unoccupied but high-quality protected site at Williams Bluffs Preserve in Early County, which is within the species' historical range. The goal: Establish a self-sustaining breeding population of gopher frogs, a rangewide first for this imperiled amphibian.
In fiscal 2017, portions from five egg masses were collected and raised, resulting in the release of 810 froglets at Williams Bluffs and 785 at the source pond on Sandhills Wildlife Management Area near Butler. Because of reduced recruitment at the source pond over the last few years, staff decided to offset any potential impact from removing eggs by returning nearly half of the head-started metamorphs. Fortyfive metamorphs were moved to The Blue Heron Nature Preserve in Atlanta where they will be used for an experimental captive breeding effort conducted by The Amphibian Foundation. If successful, the captive colony will provide a reliable source of eggs and lessen dependency on wild populations to support reintroductions.

Eastern Hellbenders
The state-protected eastern hellbender, North America's largest salamander, inhabits clear coldwater streams in the mountains of north Georgia.
During summer 2017, the Nongame Conservation Section staff, working with multiple cooperators, surveyed for hellbenders in nine streams using conventional techniques snorkeling and flipping rocks. Researchers caught and released 89 hellbenders. Each was weighed, measured, photographed and marked with a Passive Integrated Transponder, or PIT, tag for future identification. Cooperators included Georgia Department of Transportation ecologists, Zoo Atlanta, the University of Georgia, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery,
All of the stream stretches had been surveyed in 2011 and 2014. They were re-surveyed in 2017 as part of the project's three-year cycle. This sampling schedule is building a long-term dataset, providing data for estimating hellbender numbers and allowing for periodic assessment of stream habitat conditions and the health of hellbender populations. A healthy hellbender population indicates good water quality and a healthy environment. PIT tag scans showed that eight hellbenders caught in 2017 also had been caught and marked in the 2011 and 2014 surveys.

Genetic tissue samples were collected from 78 hellbenders for the Georgia Museum of Natural History genetic archive collection and for use in other genetics research. Tissue samples also will be examined for evidence of Chytrid fungus (Bd), salamander chytrid disease (Bsal) and Ranavirus. Results from the analysis are contributing to a rangewide assessment of the species' health. Abundance, size and mass data are used to determine the health of hellbender populations.
Also in fiscal year 2017, Georgia was one of six states in the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies awarded a Competitive State Wildlife Grant for conserving hellbenders. This national program encourages cooperative partnerships that result in large-scale landscape conservation. The other states in the project included Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
In Georgia, proposed activities over the next two years will augment ongoing survey and population monitoring efforts started in 2011 through the State Wildlife Grants program. These include hellbender surveys through environmental DNA, or eDNA; pathogen monitoring and testing for three amphibian diseases; larval hellbender habitat characterization; larval hellbender diet analysis and an assessment of prey availability through stream macroinvertebrate sampling; and artificial nest box installation.

Gopher frog for release at Williams Bluffs Preserve (Jessica McGuire/DNR) Eastern hellbender (Thomas Floyd/DNR)

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DNR's Mark Dodd readies to cut rope from Ruffian (DNR/NOAA Permit 18786)

North Atlantic Right Whales
The North Atlantic right whale is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. Commercial whaling in the late 1800s nearly drove the species to extinction. Since whaling was banned in 1935, the population's recovery has been slowed by human impacts, including ship collisions and entanglement in commercial fishing gear.
Each winter, pregnant right whales and small numbers of nonbreeding whales migrate from feeding grounds in the northeastern U.S. and Canada to calving grounds along the coast of Georgia and northeastern Florida.
Mammals

Surveying bats for white-nose syndrome in a Georgia cave (Katrina Morris/DNR)

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The DNR collaborates with National Oceanic Atmospheric and Administration Fisheries, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Sea to Shore Alliance and others to conserve North Atlantic right whales in the Southeast United States. Management actions focus on reducing human-related mortality, monitoring the whale population and protecting right whale habitat. From December through March, aerial surveys are flown along the Georgia and northeast Florida coast to document calf production, collect photo-identification data and warn ships about whale locations. At the same time, boat surveys are conducted to collect photoidentification data and genetics samples and to document injured and entangled right whales.
During the 2017 calving season, survey teams documented only three mother/calf pairs and one adult male right whale (the latter was entangled in commercial fishing gear). This marked the fewest right whales sighted in the Southeast since surveys began in the 1980s. Below-average calving has been documented since 2012, which, along with high rates of mortality, is causing the species to decline. An analysis by NOAA found that the species has decreased from a peak of 483 whales in 2010 to 458 whales in 2015 (the most recent year for which estimates are available). Scientists suspect that low calving rates might have been caused by changes in the whales' plankton food resources, as evidenced by visible declines in the health of the animals and changes in their distribution in the northeastern U.S. and Canada in recent years.
Biologists successfully disentangled the one non-calving right whale that was seen off Georgia during 2017. The adult male, nicknamed "Ruffian," was already covered in scars from an entanglement the whale survived in the 2000s. It took biologist two days to remove more than 150 yards of heavy rope and a 135-pound metal crab trap from the whale gear it had apparently dragged more than 1,500 miles from Canada. More than 80 percent of North Atlantic right whales bear scars from previous fishing rope entanglements.
In January 2015, the Nongame Conservation Section began a four-year project to develop and deploy minimally invasive, implantable satellite tags on North Atlantic right whales. The work is led by researchers from Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research, with help from DNR, Florida

Disentangling Ruffian (IFWC/NOAA permit 15488)

Fish and Wildlife, Sea to Shore Alliance and the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center. The primary goal is to identify the route that whales use to migrate between the calving grounds in the southeastern U.S. and the northeastern U.S. feeding grounds. Field work was suspended for the 2017 calving season because of the low number of whales. However, development work has continued in the lab, and field work hopefully will resume in fiscal 2018 if the number of whales improves. Seven tags have been deployed. The longest deployment lasted 50 days and tracked one juvenile whale's migration more than 1,000 miles from Florida to Massachusetts.
Nongame Conservation also works to protect right whales and their habitat through involvement in the Right Whale Southeast Implementation Team, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team and the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. The agency receives considerable support from DNR's Coastal Resources and Law Enforcement divisions in education and outreach, policy efforts, and enforcement of federal right whale protections (also see: Law Enforcement for Nongame). Most funding for DNR right whale conservation efforts is provided through NOAA Fisheries grants. The Environmental Resources Network (TERN), the friends group of Nongame Conservation, is helping fund part of the satellite tagging project.

Georgia Marine Mammal Stranding Network
The Georgia Marine Mammal Stranding Network was created in 1989 to coordinate marine mammal stranding responses in the state. The Nongame Conservation Section coordinates the Georgia Marine Mammal Stranding Network with funding from NOAA Fisheries and help from other agencies and private organizations.
Network goals include investigating human impacts on marine mammals, monitoring population health, providing rapid and humane response to live stranded marine mammals, contributing to marine mammal research, and educating the public about marine mammal conservation.
From 2000 to 2016, the network documented an average of 36 stranded dolphins and whales a year. Bottlenose dolphins were the most commonly stranded species, making up 79 percent of strandings, followed by pygmy and dwarf sperm whales (13 percent combined). Other species that have stranded in Georgia historically include Atlantic spotted dolphins, rough-toothed dolphins, Atlantic white-sided dolphins, Risso's dolphins, pygmy killer whales, false killer whales, short-finned pilot whales, humpback whales, Bryde's whales, North Atlantic right whales and beaked whales.

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The network documented 32 strandings in calendar year 2016-2017 bottlenose dolphins, three pygmy sperm whales and two beaked whales. Six strandings were the result of human causes. One beaked whale apparently died from ingesting plastic. Three bottlenose dolphins were incidentally captured in research nets; two were released unharmed. One bottlenose dolphin was found dead entangled in rope of unknown origin. One bottlenose dolphin was reported alive entangled in a rope attached to a commercial crab pot. DNR staff disentangled that dolphin and released it unharmed.
Florida Manatees
Florida manatees inhabit tidal rivers, estuaries and near-shore ocean waters throughout coastal Georgia during the warm months of the year. The Florida manatee population numbers at least 6,000, with approximately half of the population found along Florida's Gulf Coast and the remainder along the Atlantic Coast and the St. Johns River. Each spring and summer an unknown number migrate into Georgia, returning to Florida in fall as water temperatures cool.
Formerly listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, manatees were down-

listed in March 2017 to threatened thanks to sustained population growth throughout their U.S. range. The Nongame Conservation Section cooperates with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Navy and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to conserve manatees in Georgia. Management focuses on reducing human-related mortality and protecting habitat. Recovery tasks include documenting causes of mortality and injury, rescuing injured and out-of-habitat manatees, monitoring distribution and habitat use, educating boaters about watercraft impacts, and reviewing permits and policies that may impact manatees and their habitat.
Sixty-two manatee mortalities were documented in Georgia waters from 2000 to 2016. Of those, 27 percent were due to watercraft collisions and 19 percent were from cold stress. Less common causes of mortality included drowning in shrimp nets, gunshot and entrapment. Two manatee carcasses were found in Georgia during calendar year 2016. Cause of death could not be determined in either case.
Nongame Conservation conducted the second year of a four-year manatee satellite-tagging

project in 2016 in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, Sea to Shore Alliance, Georgia Aquarium and others. The primary objective is studying fine-scale movement of manatees around Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay to assess watercraft collision risks. Other objectives include investigating migratory behavior and identifying travel corridors.
Eight male manatees were captured near Cumberland Island in May and July 2016. Each was fitted with high-accuracy, GPS-linked satellite transmitters. A ninth manatee that was tagged in 2015 remained tagged through 2016. Four of those manatees remained tagged as they migrated back to Florida and were still tagged as of Dec. 1, 2016. The other five manatees shed their tags in an average of 22 days, with the durations ranging from three to 44 days. Tagged manatees ranged as far north as Hilton Head Island, S.C., and as far south as Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Preliminary project results indicate that manatees rely heavily on the Intracoastal Waterway to migrate north and south between estuaries. They also appear to travel along the marsh edge more often than in the middle of river channels, a behavior that could place them at lower risk of watercraft strikes.

Assessing and releasing manatee for tracking (Sea to Shore Alliance/USFWS permit MA37808A)

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Small Mammals
A grant for bat and small mammal conservation originally secured by the Nongame Conservation Section in 2012 continued to support work on these species in Georgia.
DNR, the Georgia Department of Transportation and the University of Georgia started a cooperative project in fiscal year 2014 designed to learn more about the range of cavedwelling bats in Georgia, with a focus on Indiana and northern long-eared bats. Since the Department of Transportation, or DOT, is required under the Endangered Species Act to ensure projects do not jeopardize the existence of bat species such as Indiana and northern long-eared bats, determining the accurate range and habitat specifics of myotis bats can assist DOT with project predictability, balancing federal funding by congressional district and possibly lowering project planning and construction costs.
In 2017, a UGA graduate student and technicians continued capturing and tracking the target species across the potential range as defined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (The northern long-eared bats were trapped using mist nets,

fitted with temporary radio transmitters and tracked to roost trees, with roost and surrounding habitat characteristics documented at each site.) Simultaneously, Nongame Conservation biologists and DOT contractors completed project-based surveys in the same area.
This marked the final season of fieldwork for this project, and capture rates of target species have declined significantly. Results from plots around these roost trees and landscape-level analysis are expected to yield information about roost-site preferences that can better define potential habitat. If sufficient netting efforts and call analysis across an area do not yield targeted species, those areas might be removed from range maps the Fish and Wildlife Service maintains, reducing DOT's burden to survey bats for projects in those areas. These results also help measure trends in northern bat populations since the discovery of white-nose syndrome in Georgia in 2013.
Nongame Conservation, the Fish and Wildlife Service and DOT staff also continued surveying for bats at bridges in fiscal 2017. Nongame Conservation refined a survey form and completed a contract to begin developing a

DNR's Laci Coleman trains consultants on inspecting bridges for bats (Leanne Burns/DNR)

version of the data form for mobile devices. The surveys of occupied bridges, continued through the winter, revealed a surprising number of bridges used by bats year-round. DOT is working with DNR and the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect these populations during bridge maintenance, repair and replacement projects. DNR worked on plans with DOT to move forward with repair and replacement of bridges that have significant bat roosts outside.
Also in 2017, Nongame Conservation biologists completed a project with UGA to inventory bats at several National Park Service sites. Biologists and technicians compiled a report on Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in metro Atlanta and Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield near Kennesaw. During the inventory, bats were captured in mist net surveys, acoustic surveys were done and North American bat sampling grids were established at Ocmulgee National Monument and Cumberland Island National Seashore. Overall, more than 300 bats of six species were captured and released during the inventories. Thousands of acoustic files were collected, and, based on call analysis, several additional species were documented as likely using the areas. This inventory is the most extensive completed at the parks and will provide a baseline for future bat work.
Nongame Conservation biologists remained active in the Georgia Bat Working Group and helped plan and hold the fourth annual Georgia Bat Blitz. For this event at Vogel State Park near Blairsville, teams spent three nights netting in and around the park on several DNR wildlife management areas and the Chattahoochee National Forest. Nearly 50 people participated, representing several agencies and organizations. Despite rain and cold temperatures, a total of 62 bats were captured: 25 eastern red bats, 24 big brown bats, 10 silver-haired bats, one Seminole bat and two small-footed bats. On May 13, the Saturday during the blitz, the group held an education event at Vogel with daytime and evening activities. It is estimated that hundreds of people attended. Overall, the fourth annual Georgia Bat Blitz was rated a success.
The statewide Anabat survey continued in 2017. The project used volunteers to drive more than 30 transects across the state, collecting bat

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DNR's Emily Ferrall with eastern red bat (DNR) Eastern spotted skunk in Rabun County (DNR)

calls. Most routes were completed once or twice. Nongame Conservation also continued the North American Bat Monitoring Project, which includes stationary and mobile acoustic sampling in pre-selected grid cells across the continent. Biologists in Georgia have selected sites and plan to add to them.
Researchers used software and visual identification to analyze Anabat survey calls collected through 2013. Through such analysis, biologists can determine most bat species and numbers per route. The routes will be run over multiple years to build a long-term set of call data for determining bat population trends across the state. An interactive map of identified bat calls was completed for 2014 and 2015 and posted online.
A citizen-scientist program launched in 2014 to monitor summer bat maternity roosts in the state also was continued. This outreach encourages the public to count bats at bat houses, barns and other roosts twice each summer. The effort mirrors programs in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and allows the public to help with long-term monitoring of wildlife populations.
A federal grant initiated in 2016 helped fund white-nose syndrome work in Georgia. As of winter 2017, Nongame Conservation had confirmed white-nose syndrome, or WNS, in 14 Georgia counties. Biologists also documented a 94 percent decline in populations at known hibernacula in north Georgia. In the northeastern

U.S., caves infected with white-nose syndrome have suffered mortality rates as high as 95-99 percent after a few years of infection. After several years of post-WNS surveys, it appears that sites in Georgia are following those trends.
According to Fish and Wildlife Service estimates, this devastating disease has killed more than 5.7 million bats and been documented in 31 states and five Canadian provinces as of the close of fiscal 2017. Nongame Conservation will continue to monitor sites in winter to document the disease's spread and related mortality. Biologists also are working with the public and the caving community to promote awareness of white-nose and support for bat conservation. The agency's annual report on WNS was promoted through social media and the Georgia Wild enewsletter. The report included a story map that provides an online, multimedia presentation that can be updated each year.
In fiscal 2017, the Nongame Conservation and Game Management sections funded an additional season of spotted-skunk camera trapping through the Georgia Museum of Natural History at UGA. The university hired former Nongame Conservation employee Emily Ferrall to run the survey. Based on protocols developed through

a multistate working group, Ferrall placed 21 motion-activated cameras at randomly selected sites, using a can of sardines and a strongsmelling lure as bait at each site to attract the skunks. This season, one new spotted-skunk site was detected in northwest Georgia, and survey efforts were expanded to include sites in the west-central part of the state.
Supported by a multistate State Wildlife Grant initiated in 2015, a UGA doctoral student continued research focused on the southeastern pocket gopher. Overall, the goal is to conserve and restore southeastern pine savanna in Georgia, Alabama and Florida. One way to accomplish this is by better understanding, as well as recommending and restoring, conditions to promote southeastern pocket gophers, a critical species in this habitat and one that has suffered significant population declines across its historic range. In summer 2016, the student conducted transect walking surveys on several wildlife management areas and state parks. Unfortunately, evidence of pocket gopher activity was found only at Georgia Veterans State Park near Cordele and Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center at Ichauway in southwest Georgia's Baker County. During the season, 25 gophers were trapped at Ichauway and six at Georgia Veterans State Park.

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Freshwater Aquatic Species

Aquatic Conservation Initiative
Georgia is one of the richest states in freshwater aquatic biodiversity, ranking among the top five in the number of native species of mussels (127 species), fishes (265), crayfishes (70) and aquatic snails (84). Unfortunately, Georgia also ranks among the top states in imperiled freshwater aquatic species. A recent assessment recognized 152 imperiled freshwater aquatic species in Georgia, more than half of which have a significant portion of their global range within the state's boundaries. Approximately 22 percent of Georgia's freshwater fishes, 28 percent of mollusks and 36 percent of crayfishes are ranked as imperiled or critically imperiled in the state. Yet even these numbers understate the problem because they don't include an additional 48 species, most of them mollusks, considered historic or extirpated from Georgia.
The Nongame Conservation Section launched the Aquatic Conservation Initiative in 1998 to determine the status of Georgia's aquatic fauna and develop conservation plans for declining species. This effort is aimed primarily at identifying important populations of rare aquatic species through surveys

and research, incorporating species location and status information into the DNR database, and assisting with conservation planning for rare aquatic species.
Nongame Conservation conducts hundreds of aquatic surveys around the state each year, documenting or monitoring important populations of high-priority species. In fiscal 2017, surveying and monitoring efforts focused on robust redhorse, sicklefin redhorse, blackbanded sunfish, rare darters and mussel communities in the lower Flint and Coosa river systems.
Staff continued to assist The Nature Conservancy and Kennesaw State University with annual monitoring of Etowah and Cherokee darters at three sites in Raccoon Creek. The purpose is to assess the effectiveness of stream channel and riparian restoration in part of the creek affected by a powerline right of way and to monitor long-term population dynamics of these two federally protected species. During sampling this fiscal year, 35 Etowah darters and 127 Cherokee darters were collected. These numbers are fewer than the record high 83 Etowah darters and 242 Cherokee darters captured in 2015. However, monitoring from 2009-2016 has documented large annual fluctuations in catch rates for both

species, fluctuations that likely correspond to observed variation in stream flow levels.
The sicklefin redhorse is a state-endangered species, and until fall 2016 it was a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Along with other partners, DNR entered a Candidate Conservation Agreement to conserve this species in February 2016. Paving the way for expanded monitoring and conservation efforts over the next 10 years, the agreement was cited as a factor in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision not to list sicklefin redhorse under the Endangered Species Act.
In fiscal 2017, Nongame Conservation continued working with partners to conduct fyke net sampling for the species in Brasstown Creek and the Nottely River. The fyke uses wing nets to direct migrating fish into a central net chamber. Captured fish are weighed, measured, marked with a uniquely numbered tag and released in their direction of travel. Sampling was done during the spring spawning season and yielded more than 100 adult sicklefin redhorse, including recaptures from the previous year. DNR also installed a Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) detection array (i.e., an antenna buried in the stream and connected to a tag reader on

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Bridled darter (Peter Dimmick/DNR)

Setting up PIT array to detect sicklefin in Brasstown Creek (DNR) Holiday darter (Brett Albanese/DNR)

the bank) just downstream of the fyke net in Brasstown Creek. The PIT array recorded each time previously tagged sicklefin redhorse passed over the antenna. The array registered 372 detections of 112 unique individuals, including 42 that had been tagged the previous year.

Nongame Conservation continued surveys for the state-endangered blackbanded sunfish. This effort is part of an ongoing State Wildlife Grants project in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Environmental DNA, also called eDNA, water samples were

collected at 31 sites in 2015. Of those, only five tested positive for the presence of blackbanded sunfish. In fiscal 2017, the two agencies teamed up to try traditional sampling methods at those sites. Despite extensive efforts using multiple collection techniques, no blackbanded sunfish were encountered. Additional sampling is planned for fall 2017.
Nongame Conservation also contracts with the University of Georgia for long-term monitoring of Etowah and Conasauga river fishes. These river systems are among the most diverse in the southeastern U.S., supporting important populations of rare fishes such as blue shiner, frecklebelly madtom, Etowah darter and Conasauga logperch. Monitoring has been ongoing since 1998. Information from these studies has been invaluable for conservation planning, species status assessments and documenting relationships between fish populations and environmental stressors. One current objective is using eDNA technology to survey for the frecklebelly madtom in areas it has not been observed for more than a decade.
Nongame Conservation began a multiyear collaborative effort to assess the conservation status of the bridled darter, frecklebelly madtom, holiday darter and trispot darter. All four fishes had been petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The project's goal is to make sure the decision of whether to list these species is based on recent data

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and to identify important actions for recovery. Work in fiscal 2017 included compiling and summarizing existing distribution data for each species, conducting surveys for bridled and holiday darters and developing range maps that show the status of each population. Snorkeling surveys documented important populations of bridled and holiday darters in the upper Etowah River, Amicalola Creek and the upper Conasauga River. (In October 2017, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that bridled and holiday darters did not require federal listing, but proposed listing trispot darter as threatened. Bridled and holiday darters will remain a conservation focus in Georgia.)
Mussel sampling continued in lower Flint River tributaries in fiscal 2017, marking the 10th year of monitoring these populations. Summer stream flows from 2013-2016 are believed to have spurred several rare species to reproduce successfully, resulting in some outstanding increases in local populations.
Staff also continued a comprehensive mussel survey of the upper Coosa River basin in Georgia. The project was initiated in tributary streams in 2015 but focused on the mainstem rivers

as well as tributaries to the upper Etowah and Coosawattee rivers in 2016 and 2017. The upper Coosa basin historically harbored more than 40 freshwater mussel species, including several protected under the Endangered Species Act. Thus far, the project has led to the discovery of several previously unknown populations of rare mussels, including the first records of the federally threatened finelined pocketbook from the

DNR's Peter Dimmick and Deb Weiler sampling mussels on the Conasauga (Jason Wisniewski/DNR)

Endangered rayed kidneyshell filtering (Peter Dimmick/DNR)

upper Etowah River basin. Sampling is expected to conclude by fall 2017, with distributional modeling following the sampling. Nongame Conservation staff presented research results at regional and national symposia and published study results in several peer-reviewed journals. Staff also contributed to multistate and national efforts to assess the taxonomy, status and distribution of aquatic species in North America.
Staff expanded their survey expertise and began sampling for the beaverpond marstonia, a diminutive snail petitioned for federal listing. This snail, discovered in 1973, occurred in spring-fed tributaries to the lower Flint River in Crisp County. Although not collected live since 2000, the beaverpond marstonia was petitioned for listing in 2010. Additional survey efforts are planned for fall 2017, at which time the species is presumably mature and at its maximum size of approximately 2 millimeters in length.
Data from surveying and monitoring efforts, including data submitted through the agency's scientific collecting permit program, are entered into the NatureServe Biotics database. Partnerships also are maintained with the Georgia Museum of Natural History and the Stream Survey Team of DNR Wildlife Resources Division's Fisheries Section. These partnerships boost the amount of data available for environmental review and conservation planning.
Robust Redhorse
The robust redhorse is a rare sucker with wild populations occurring in limited reaches of the Altamaha, Ogeechee and Savannah rivers in Georgia and the Pee Dee River in North and South Carolina. The fish is state listed as endangered in Georgia. Prior to its collection and identification in 1991 by DNR Wildlife Resources Division fisheries biologists, this species had not been observed in more than 100 years. A team of state, federal and industry biologists organized under the Robust Redhorse Conservation Committee has done intensive work since the early 1990s to recover the species in Georgia and the Carolinas.
A significant part of this effort has been capturing and spawning wild fish from the Oconee and Savannah rivers and producing young in hatcheries to restore populations in rivers across the native range. In partnership with the

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Georgia Power and the University of Georgia, the Wildlife Resources Division helped develop a hatchery program in 1993. A Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances, the first of its kind for an aquatic species, also was developed by the Wildlife Resources Division, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Georgia Power to help reintroduce robust redhorse into the Ocmulgee River in Georgia.
From 1993-2008, about 115,700 hatcheryreared robust redhorse were stocked in the Broad, Ocmulgee, Oconee and Ogeechee rivers in Georgia. Regionally, South Carolina stocked 71,934 fingerlings in the Broad and Wateree rivers before that state's hatchery program ended in 2013. North Carolina began a project to augment its Pee Dee River population in calendar year 2014.
Biologists have documented growth and survival rates in all stocked rivers in Georgia and South Carolina. They also have observed spawning behavior in fish stocked in the Broad, Ocmulgee and Ogeechee rivers. Researchers are trying to document survival of wild-spawned fish in stocked populations and their recruitment into juvenile and adult populations. Establishment of selfsustaining populations will represent a significant step toward recovery. Other recovery activities included evaluations of recruitment success and a major gravel augmentation project on the Oconee, as well as telemetry studies on the Ogeechee, Ocmulgee, Broad, Savannah and Pee Dee rivers and a population-dynamics study on the Ocmulgee.
In 2014, an intensive electrofishing survey of the Oconee River from Sinclair Dam to Dublin was completed. This study was designed to assess the status of the Oconee population. Staff spent 65 hours electrofishing April-May, collecting two adult Robust Redhorse and spotting a third. As anticipated, this effort provided substantial evidence that the Oconee River population has experienced a major decline since the 1990s. Causes appear to be the long-term effects of a combination of degraded spawning habitat, unsuitable spawning and rearing flows, increased sedimentation, and the introduction of non-native fishes.
Remnant populations have been searched for above Sinclair Dam (Little River and the Wallace Dam tailrace) and Wallace Dam (the Apalachee and Oconee rivers). A single adult robust

redhorse was collected from the lower portion of Little River above Lake Sinclair in 2012, the product of an accidental escape of fingerlings from the Walton Hatchery in 1995. Potential spawning shoals were surveyed in Little River during 2013-2014, but no robust redhorse were observed. Additional surveys are needed in the Little and Apalachee rivers.
While adult robust redhorse are known to have survived and found spawning habitat in the Ocmulgee, Ogeechee and Broad rivers, additional monitoring is needed to ensure recruitment. In cooperation with partners, Nongame Conservation helped develop a visual monitoring protocol that estimates the number and size distribution of adult fish observed at spawning sites each year. If sufficient recruitment is occurring, the number of small fish and the total number of fish observed at spawning sites should remain stable or increase from year to year. This protocol was implemented on the Ocmulgee and Savannah rivers in 2015, documenting about 14 and 100 adult fish, respectively.
Unfortunately, a flood in winter 2015 deposited large amounts of sand over the Ocmulgee River's only known spawning site, and consequently, researchers did not document any spawning activity in 2016. Fewer than 10 fish were documented at a Savannah River spawning site, but stream flow levels prevented staff from carrying out an adequate number of sampling events.
DNR staff conducted electrofishing surveys of the Ogeechee River population as part of the Fisheries Management Section's standardized sampling program. These surveys have not documented robust redhorse since three adults were collected in 2014. The only known spawning site on the Ogeechee has been visited from 2015-2017, but each year high flows precluded visual observations during the spawning season. Robust redhorse have not been observed spawning in the Ogeechee since 2012, raising significant concerns about the long-term viability of this stocked population.
Juvenile robust redhorse have proved almost impossible to detect since the onset of sampling by the Robust Redhorse Conservation Committee and its partners. From 2012-2014, three juveniles were documented in the lower Savannah River's intertidal zone, more than 130 miles downstream from the nearest known spawning site. DNR's

Stream Survey Team collected the first juvenile from the lower Ocmulgee River near Hawkinsville in 2014, an occurrence consistent with long-distance dispersal from an upstream spawning site. While low detection of juveniles probably precludes their use for recruitment monitoring, these captures are helping researchers better understand the life history and habitat needs of robust redhorse.
Georgia and South and North Carolina were awarded a competitive State Wildlife Grant in 2016 for a three-year project to identify and implement critical management actions needed to ensure survival of robust redhorse across its range. Funds are being used to increase capacity for robust redhorse conservation within DNR and to support contracts for research and monitoring. Partners include Georgia Power, Georgia Southern University, the Georgia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Georgia and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Objectives include determining if known populations are self-sustaining, improving adaptive management for populations and, according to the results of those first two objectives, implementing management actions and monitoring. DNR will work with partners to accomplish these goals and conserve the robust redhorse, hopefully resulting in there being no need to list it under the Endangered Species Act.
Through funding under this grant, the Wildlife Resources Division and partners increased monitoring in fiscal 2017. These efforts included spawning season visual surveys on the Broad, Ocmulgee, Oconee, Ogeechee and Savannah rivers, electrofishing surveys on the Ocmulgee, and habitat surveys on the Broad, Ocmulgee and Oconee. Visual and electrofishing surveys during the spawning season included 11 surveys on the Ocmulgee, three on the Oconee, one on the Ogeechee, 15 on the Broad and seven on the Savannah. These surveys yielded no robust redhorse in the Ocmulgee, Oconee and Ogeechee rivers. As noted above, the maximum number of individuals observed spawning in the Broad and Savannah rivers were 14 and 204, respectively. Nongame Conservation staff conducted surveys to document potential spawning habitat availability on the Ocmulgee, Oconee and Broad rivers. Locations rated as having high potential will be revisited in fiscal 2018 in hopes of seeing spawning robust redhorse.

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Sandhills
Two competitive State Wildlife Grants in Georgia and other states have benefited sandhill and upland longleaf pine habitats that support gopher tortoises. A third grant, awarded in calendar year 2015, continued that progress in fiscal year 2017.
DNR received the first grant, for $1 million, in 2009 to work with Alabama, Florida and South Carolina on restoring high-priority sandhills. DNR and state wildlife agencies in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana were awarded a $981,000 State Wildlife Grant in 2011 for additional habitat restoration on the targeted

habitats, referred to as phase 2 of the original project. In fall 2015, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana began phase 3, powered by a competitive $500,000 grant awarded earlier that year.
In phase 1, completed at the end of fiscal 2013, all states exceeded their project goals and nearly tripled the original goal for overall acreage treated (95,000 acres treated vs. the 38,600 acres proposed). In phase 2, completed in fiscal 2015, restoration goals were exceeded again, with 76,666 acres treated versus an original goal of 51,575. This work is expected to yield significant habitat benefits largely through improvements in herbaceous understory

coverage for priority species throughout the sandhills, such as the gopher tortoise and northern bobwhite. Goals for phase 3, a two-year part of the project, include restoring or enhancing more than 33,000 acres of sandhill or upland longleaf habitat across the six states in the gopher tortoise's range.
Georgia has thus far used funds from phase 3 to hire a seasonal fire crew in southeast Georgia, plant longleaf pine seedlings at Townsend Wildlife Management Area near Ludowici and the new Alligator Creek Wildlife Management Area in Wheeler County, and contract with The Nature Conservancy for additional prescribed burning on priority lands in southeast Georgia.

Plants and Natural Habitats

Pitcherplants in Coastal Plain bog (Rebecca Byrd/DNR)

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Canby's dropwort in savanna (Alan Cressler)

Rare Plant Conservation
Surveys are conducted throughout Georgia to identify and inventory locations of rare plants and provide guidance on appropriate management activities. This work is done by state botanists, sometimes with consultants, private landowners, photographers and members of botanical organizations.
During the 2017 fiscal year, preliminary results of a federal grant to survey high-quality hardwood ravines in central Georgia included significant new sites for relict trillium and fringed campion, both federally endangered species. Other state-rare plants found included yellow milkvine, an unusual trillium soon to be described, yellow corydalis, Ocmulgee skullcap, Florida horsebalm, Vasey's trillium (rare south of the mountains) and northern prickly-ash.

Nongame Conservation Section staff also conducted a second year of monitoring the status of large-flowered skullcap at five sites in northwest Georgia and continued work with Atlanta Botanical Garden on the recovery of monkeyface orchid, or white fringeless orchid. Both taxa are federally listed as threatened. The large-flowered skullcap is locally frequent and likely will be delisted when a few more sites are protected. However, the orchid remains threatened due to continued site degradation, excessive deer browsing, wild hog impacts and the lengthy time needed to propagate material for enhancement. After four years, a population of white fringeless orchid is now established in a secluded bog site on Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Coweta County. In addition, at least two natural sites for the orchid are now wellprotected and can be augmented with propagules and ongoing management agreements.

Georgia aster remains a high-priority species for surveys and monitoring since it is part of a Candidate Conservation Plan. This showy, deep purple aster is now reported from nearly 125 sites in 35 Georgia counties. Management and permanent protection are afforded on several public properties, including the Chattahoochee National Forest, Chattahoochee River National Recreational Area, Pickett's Mill Battlefield State Historic Site, Paulding Forest Wildlife Management Area, James H. Sloppy Floyd State Park and Red Top Mountain State Park. Partners in the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance continue work to protect and monitor additional sites, especially along powerline right of way.
New state land acquisitions were found to harbor several significant plants of conservation concern. For example, Ohoopee Dunes Wildlife Management Area near Swainsboro and Flat

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Tub Wildlife Management Area near Douglas contain pitcherplant bogs and hardwood bluffs of interest with parrot pitcherplant, wiregrass dropseed and Mellichamp's skullcap. Surveys of other public and private sites also yielded many rare-species discoveries. These included Ashe's calamint in southern Tattnall County, goldenseal in Walker County, purple milkweed in Cobb County, Stokes aster in Evans County, spotted Joe-pye weed in Towns County, sweet pitcherplant in Wheeler County and tidal marsh obedient plant on the lower Savannah River.
Relocation and safeguarding of rare plants continued in 2017. Safeguarding involves propagation by cuttings, seed or plants to ensure Georgia material is available later to enhance natural populations or establish new ones. Examples during fiscal 2017 are Carolina

windflower from Elbert County, Thorne's bumelia from Pulaski County and a strange primitive fern from Tift County known as rush quillwort.
Coordination with partners and private landowners is critical for plant conservation. Nongame Conservation botanists work closely with DNR Wildlife Resources Division Private Lands biologists to provide outreach to landowners about partner programs that can support rare-plant habitat protection and restoration. Nongame Conservation's Steve Raper helped staff with outreach for protection of cypress savanna wetlands, granite outcrops and pitcherplant bogs.
Fiscal 2017 saw significant progress for cypress savanna wetlands and their federally endangered inhabitant, Canby's dropwort. Recovery and

Large-flowered skullcap (Alan Cressler)

delisting of Canby's dropwort, a lacy member of the carrot family, is a priority for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and DNR. Since 18 of 21 of the species' occurrences in Georgia are on privately owned agricultural lands, working with private landowners is essential. This year, the Fish and Wildlife Service awarded DNR a grant for permanent legal protection of one of the largest Canby's dropwort populations, in Dooly County. The landowners have been working with DNR since 2008 and are excited about protecting their wetland. In addition, in early fiscal 2018 the U.S. Agriculture Department's National Resource Conservation Service awarded $1.19 million to a partnership project with DNR for permanent protection and restoration of 850 acres of cypress savanna wetlands in Lee County that contain Canby's dropwort. The project also will protect an important source of clean water for priority freshwater mussel populations.
On other fronts, Coastal Plain pitcherplant bogs remain a special conservation concern. Additional rare plants were documented on private tracts in Brooks and Evans counties. These included snowy orchid, small-flowered grass-pink and scale-leaf purple foxglove. Well-managed pitcherplant bogs and nearby intact wiregrass uplands are especially rich in species of milkweed. In collaboration with the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance, staff helped collect the seed of several milkweeds. Making propagated native milkweeds available in the nursery trade will promote the use of native plants for pollinator gardens and as host plants for numerous insects, including monarch butterflies.
Botanists working with Georgia plants continue to discover and describe plants new to science. A mint named Monarda austroappalachiana, southern Appalachian beebalm, was newly described from the Cumberland Plateau and is now recorded from the western slope of Pigeon Mountain in Walker County. Intensive studies of primitive ferns known as quillworts revealed Georgia as home to at least one new entity, not yet formally named, and found only on Altamaha grit outcrops at Flat Tub WMA and The Nature Conservancy's Broxton Rocks Preserve in Coffee County. This makes at least four new species of quillwort found in Georgia in the last decade.

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Coastal Habitat and Plant Conservation
The Nongame Conservation Section's focus on plant and habitat conservation and restoration along the Georgia coast ranged far and wide in fiscal year 2017. Staff led coastal land protection efforts during this period, including applying for land acquisition grants through the North American Waterfowl Conservation Act and National Coastal Wetland Conservation Grant programs. These two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant programs have been critical in conserving fish and wildlife habitats on Georgia's coast in recent years.
This year, Nongame Conservation was awarded a North American Waterfowl Conservation Act grant for the acquisition of Sansavilla Wildlife Management Area Stage phase 3 and National Coastal Wetland Conservation grants for the acquisition of Sansavilla phase 4, Musgrove Plantation phase 3 and Satilla Blackwater phase 1. Each grant is worth $1 million and is matched with funds from the state and other partners.

Staff initiated fine-scale natural community mapping on state lands along the Altamaha River, where significant longleaf pine restoration work is taking place. Field surveys have turned up several new rare plant and community occurrences. The resulting landcover maps will be useful for future restoration and management planning for wildlife management areas in the Altamaha corridor.
A wildlife technician was hired for Altama Plantation Wildlife Management Area, near Brunswick. This position is focused on conducting longleaf restoration using prescribed fire and other management techniques, work critical to restoring habitat for the gopher tortoise and other rare species on Altama.
Nongame Conservation biologists also worked in an advisory role to give input on management and research on high-priority coastal lands. As part of the Little St. Simons Island Ecological Advisory Council, staff helped make decisions concerning management and potential research projects on Little St. Simons. Nongame staff also served on the Cannon's Point Preserve Conservation Task Force and provided technical

support to Cannon's Point, The Nature Conservancy and St. Simons Land Trust staff. This participation included reviewing potential research projects and evaluating threats to Cannon's Point conservation values.
Nongame Conservation started working with Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay to update habitat maps and survey known rare-plant occurrences on the base in St. Marys. In fall 2017, staff will establish vegetation monitoring transects in fire-maintained habitats and areas that may be impacted by rising sea levels.
Staff also worked with NatureServe and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources on a Coastal Resilience Assessment project for the Savannah River watershed. The goal is to improve resilience by reducing communities' vulnerability to coastal storms, rising sea levels and flooding by strengthening natural ecosystems and the fish and wildlife habitat they provide. Nongame Conservation is supporting the project by participating in stakeholder workshops and providing landcover and rare species data that are integral to the assessment.

Sandhills lily (Alan Cressler)

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The agency collaborated with the State Botanical Garden of Georgia and Atlanta Botanical Garden on conserving and promoting native milkweeds in southeast Georgia. Staff found several new populations of milkweed species and collected seeds for propagation. Finding local seed sources is critical to promoting planting of native milkweeds in the coastal region.
A rangewide survey project for the federally endangered hairy rattleweed was initiated. This plant species is known to exist only in two southeast Georgia counties, Brantley and Wayne. Staff are working with Weyerhaeuser and other landowners to survey for hairy rattleweed throughout its known range. Biologists hope that data from this project will be useful for planning future conservation efforts.
Staff surveyed roadside habitats for rare plants in Camden and Charlton counties. Nongame worked with biologists from the engineering firm WSP, consultants for the Georgia Department of Transportation, to conduct the surveys, part of a highway widening project. Four populations of the federally petitioned floodplain tickseed were discovered. When assessing these populations later, staff found a new population of state-threatened corkwood, which also could be affected by the road widening. Seeds from the tickseed populations were collected for safeguarding. Two large populations of floodplain tickseed were also discovered on Sansavilla WMA near Brunswick in fall 2016.
This recent fiscal year, staff worked to safeguard sandhills lily in a powerline right of way east of Flat Tub Wildlife Management Area near Douglas. Previously, only two populations of this imperiled lily were known to exist in Georgia. The new population found in the powerline right of way was threatened by mowing. Nongame Conservation worked with the local electric membership corporation, which agreed not to mow when the plant is flowering and maturing fruit. Bulb scales were collected from some of the lilies, which will be used by Chattahoochee Nature Center to attempt propagation. On Flat Tub, more plants were found (part of a population discovered last year) and staff caged some to help protect them from being eaten by deer. Sandhills lily is a high-priority species in the State Wildlife Action Plan and for the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance.

Pending garden studies at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, the plant may be an undescribed Georgia endemic more reason to safeguard all extant occurrences.
Vegetation Monitoring
Because of its importance in informing sound conservation and management, monitoring is essential to implementing Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan. To meet plan goals, the Nongame Conservation Section has incorporated habitat and vegetation monitoring in several ongoing projects. Monitoring is key to tracking changes in wildlife habitat and measuring biological diversity and habitat suitability for rare wildlife species. Quantifying the changes resulting from the agency's rare-species and habitat-restoration efforts will help gauge the success or failure of conservation actions.
Nongame Conservation's habitat monitoring in fiscal 2017 included monitoring restoration efforts, sea-level rise monitoring in coastal marsh habitats and monitoring that emphasizes, in part, gopher tortoise habitat at Altama Plantation Wildlife Management Area in Glynn County.
Habitat monitoring targeted a diversity of rare-plant restoration projects. One example is at Oaky Woods Wildlife Management Area near Perry. Oaky Woods has one of Georgia's most unique plant habitats, Black Belt prairie. These prairies existed in small patches for decades within privately owned timber plantations. Under state ownership, timber is being harvested in some areas to restore the open prairies. Nongame Conservation's monitoring samples the richness of plant species in the original prairie patches and in timber-harvested areas to determine whether management is successful in bringing back the prairie plant composition. This work also provides insight into the original prairies.
Other similar examples of habitat restoration monitoring conducted during the fiscal year included open oak savanna restoration at Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area near Dawsonville, cypress savanna restoration at Big Dukes Pond Wildlife Management Area near Millen and pitcherplant bog restoration at Doerun Pitcherplant Bog Wildlife Management Area near Doerun.

Nongame Conservation continued a collaborative project with DNR Coastal Resources Division to monitor salt-marsh transects along the Georgia coast. Initiated in 2012, this project is designed to examine long-term change in salt-marsh communities and determine the effects of sea-level rise on coastal habitats. Staff monitored vegetation plots along transects at nine study sites. Transects start at an upland anchor point and continue into the salt marsh until reaching Spartina alterniflora-dominated marsh. In fiscal 2017, besides collecting vegetation and salinity data, monitoring included measuring horizontal and vertical location data using a Real Time Kinematic GPS receiver. This accurate GPS data will aid in determining accretion and erosion rates along the transects.
Staff worked with St. Simons Land Trust to complete this year's vegetation monitoring for a maritime forest restoration project on Cannon's Point Preserve. The research, a collaboration between the St. Simons Island preserve and researchers from Purdue University and New Mexico State University, is exploring the effects of weed control and deer exclusion on live oak plantings in research plots on Cannon's Point. The goal: Develop plans to restore live oak maritime forests along the coast.
The agency also helped with vegetation monitoring at Cay Creek Wetlands Interpretive Center. This work is associated with a wetland restoration and native planting project along a public boardwalk at the center in Midway. Staff collaborated with the Coastal Resources Division to monitor the site and identify plant species. The boardwalk at Cay Creek is one of the best publicly accessible sites on the Georgia coast to see the relationship between estuarine and freshwater tidal wetlands.
Nongame Conservation continued a vegetation monitoring project in fire-maintained uplands at Altama Plantation WMA. The focus is determining the effects of different types of management on longleaf pine restoration sites at the WMA. Restoration will include prescribed fire, tree thinning and planting longleaf pine. Gopher tortoises are present at Altama and are a major focus of restoration efforts. Monitoring will help determine if management is improving habitat for gopher tortoises and other priority species.

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Restoring Mountain and Coastal Plain Bogs
Mountain bogs are one of the most critically endangered habitats of the Southern Appalachians. The bogs are typically small, from a half-acre to 5 acres, and usually associated with seeps, springs and small creeks. These early successional habitats support a variety of unique and imperiled flora and fauna, including the federally threatened bog turtle and swamp pink, possibly the state's rarest reptile and plant species, respectively. Other rare and state-protected mountain bog plants include the montane purple pitcherplant (which is petitioned for federal listing), broadleaf white meadowsweet, Carolina bog laurel, Canada burnet, Cuthbert's turtlehead and marsh bellflower.
For 25 years, the Nongame Conservation Section has worked to restore mountain bogs independently and as a member of the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance, or GPCA. In fiscal

year 2017, work focused primarily on controlling woody competition and responding to feral hog damage. In doing so, the GPCA broke last year's record number of mountain bog workdays, setting a new high of 25.
Encroachment by woody trees and shrubs were removed from existing bog openings, boundaries of bog openings were expanded and several ecotones were "daylighted" exposed to sunlight. Some bogs had not received such thorough woody control in seven to eight years. Extensive clearing was helped by the U.S. Forest Service through use of western Hotshot fire crews, as well as crews contracted by The Nature Conservancy. One bog that received extensive clearing was Brasstown Seeps, a rare mafic system in a powerline right of way supporting multiple rare-plant species and bog turtles.
Damage from feral hogs occurred at levels unprecedented in the 22 years of GPCA's mountain bog restoration and safeguarding program. While the damage was seen

throughout the bogs, it was most severe in microsites supporting the rare purple mountain pitcherplant. It is suspected that hogs are attracted to the scent of insect-broth fermenting in the pitchers. Two-thirds of all restored bogs suffered damage from hogs, and pitcherplants were almost eliminated in one of the state's most prominent bogs. In addition to stepped-up trapping by the Forest Service and DNR, the GPCA began installing hog tents and organic fences to deter hogs. A hog tent is a flat section of hog-wire fence laid on top of rare plants, with the sides staked down and the middle propped up. (Corral-type exclosures using hog-wire have proven ineffective.) An organic fence is a barrier of woody debris (limbs and logs cut during woody control) stacked and woven in such a way as to surround rare-plant microsites.
Nongame Conservation continued its participation in the Bog Learning Network, a consortium of scientists and land managers working to advance the restoration and management of Southern

Work day at mountain bog (Rebecca Byrd/DNR)

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Appalachian bogs. Nongame Conservation botanist Dr. J. Mincy Moffett serves on the network's steering committee. The Bog Learning Network continued its Invasive Species Fun Field Day Series. In this work-and-learn series for professionals, volunteers and students involved in the network, participants learned about mountain bog botany, ecology and bog impacts from invasive plant species. The volunteers then provided hours of labor in tough, mucky conditions. The series came to Georgia's Hedden Creek Bog in fiscal 2017.
The histories of the GPCA and mountain bog restoration in Georgia are interwoven, roots chronicled in an article by Moffett and Atlanta Botanical Garden Restoration Coordinator Carrie Radcliffe in the 2016 edition of Tipularia. The article in the Georgia Botanical Society journal also provided a primer on mountain bogs (from formation to hydrology, botany and ecology) and detailed restoration approaches and techniques used by the GPCA.
Bog restoration is not limited to the mountains, however. Georgia's Coastal Plain herbaceous bogs are small but rare jewels, one of the

highest-priority habitats for rare plant conservation. These bogs face threats such as hydrologic disturbance, fire suppression and land development. Many species of southeastern Coastal Plain pitcherplant and orchid species are safeguarded by GPCA partners, with corresponding habitat restoration projects.
In calendar 2016, GPCA partnered with the Georgia Botanical Society to raise awareness and funds for protecting Coastal Plain pitcherplant bogs. The results included "Year of the Bog" field trips and restoration workdays at several of Georgia's most important bog sites, better documenting the flora and strengthening relationships with local landowners. The organizations highlighted a project that will use conservation easements to protect bogs in southeast Georgia that are the only known site for the Coastal Plain purple pitcherplant, as well as the home to four other protected plants. The Botanical Society and Oconee River Land Trust are partners in this effort. At these bogs, GPCA and the Botanical Society also worked with landowners to restore pitcherplant habitat, augment the local population of Georgia Plume, a state-protected flowering tree, and harvest and plant wiregrass seed.

Habitat Improvement on State Lands and the Interagency Burn Team
Some significant restoration projects begun in calendar year 2015 were completed in fiscal 2017. Many involved working with adjoining landowners to improve wildlife habitats on and around DNR wildlife management areas.
In 2016, Campbell Group and CatchMark Timber Trust, two timber companies, partnered with the DNR to conduct what may rank as the largest reforestation effort in the agency's history. About 850 acres of recent clear-cuts on land adjoining Sprewell Bluff Wildlife Management Area near Thomaston were replanted with more than a half-million longleaf pines. Groundcover plant diversity, key to pollinator conservation, was conserved during the process by using selective herbicides and at lower rates, all coordinated between DNR wildlife biologists and company foresters. A few months later, DNR bought these tracts and added them to the WMA.
Also, about 250 acres that were formerly part of Sprewell Bluff State Park were thinned, removing

DNR-MANAGED ACRES BURNED 2008 - 2017
Drought played a key role in decreasing prescribed fire on DNR-managed lands in 2017.* *Totals by calendar year

33,385 40,786 41,533 52,889 42,739 54,120 57,555 52,338 60,363 38,873
Prescribed fire at Panola Mountain State Park (Hal Massie/DNR)

70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

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off-site tree species that have crowded this forest due to decades of fire suppression. This project was designed in part by working with community stakeholders, including longtime park visitors, the Thomaston-Upson Chamber of Commerce and Upson County staff involved with the adjoining county park. Multiple meetings were held and information kiosks set out before logging began. Although the logging took place along two miles of highly visible park roads, no public complaints were received. The community supported the harvest, done to help wildlife, improve habitat and restore a historic forest type.
Additional thins of natural forests, conducted to restore the fire ecology of these sites, and even clear-cutting of off-site or invasive tree species such as sand pine were planned during calendar 2016. This involved nearly 900 acres of timber harvest across three tracts (Sandhills Wildlife Management Area's Coleman and Black Creek tracts and on Joe Kurz Wildlife Management Area near Woodbury). Similar work on about 600 more acres is planned across four more tracts: Flat Creek Public Fishing Area, Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site, Sprewell Bluff WMA and Lawhorn Scouting Base. The latter is a Boy Scout camp of high conservation significance.
Prescribed fire is one of the most effective tools for conserving and restoring fire-adapted habitats and helping numerous species of conservation concern. While as noted above DNR

uses other land-management techniques on state lands to improve natural habitats such as removing invasive species, planting native species and thinning timber prescribed fire is the agency's most vital method. It is a safe way to apply a natural process, ensure ecosystem health and reduce the risk of wildfire.
The acreage of prescribed burns on lands managed by DNR's Wildlife Resources Division had almost doubled in the last decade, rising from 29,036 acres in calendar year 2008 to a high of 58,700 in 2016. But that total dipped in 2017 to 38,873 acres, down 35 percent from the previous year.
In summer 2016, drought conditions began developing across the state, conditions that persisted and even worsened during fall 2017. Continued drought and delayed moisture recovery in the first five months of 2017 resulted in unexpected fire behavior and fire effects. Prescribed fire staff had to choose burn days carefully and there were significantly fewer available days than in years past. Despite these factors and the threat of potential outbreaks of Ips bark beetles in stressed pines, the prescribed burns done on DNR lands were successful, benefitting many game and nongame species. The Wildlife Resources Division is reviewing its prescribed fire policy to ensure that burns are safe and efficient and that prescribed fire practitioners achieve burn objectives.

Keeping fire line clear during north Georgia wildfires (Hal Massie/DNR)

The total acres burned by Nongame Conservation Section staff on DNR-managed lands as well as Interagency Burn Team lands also dipped in fiscal 2017. Nongame Conservation helped on 14,683 acres in 2017, half the amount in 2016 and the fewest acres in the last five years. Fiscal 2016 had set an agency record of nearly 30,000 acres.
As a member of the Interagency Burn Team, Nongame Conservation worked with the Georgia Forestry Commission, The Longleaf Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, The Orianne Society, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Nongame staff also teamed with other Wildlife Resources Division sections and DNR's State Parks and Historic Sites Division, as well as volunteers trained to National Wildfire Coordinating Group standards. This collaboration was essential in getting those acres burned. In return, Interagency Burn Team partners played a key role in Nongame Conservation fire management. It is estimated that 90 percent of the burns carried out by the agency's fire crews included help from one or more Burn Team partners.
Since 2009, seasonal fire crews have carried out the bulk of Nongame Conservation's prescribed fires. Always on call and working statewide, members have helped improve efficiency each year. For the fourth year, Nongame Conservation had two seasonal fire crews, one housed in southeastern Georgia at Moody Forest Wildlife Management Area near Baxley and the other in west-central Georgia at Sandhills West Wildlife Management Area near Butler. These crews typically work independently of each other, with the west-central Georgia crew focused on the Fall Line sandhills and Pine Mountain regions and the southeast Georgia crew working on properties across the Coastal Plain. The southeast Georgia crew was funded by the multistate sandhills grant focused on high-priority sandhills and gopher tortoise habitat. This is one of the many State Wildlife Grants that support conservation priorities spelled out in Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan. The west-central fire crew was supported by funding from the Georgia Ornithological Society and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
As happened across the state, weather significantly hampered the work of the west-central Georgia fire crew. In this climate of extreme droughts which led to large wildfires in north Georgia and the Okefenokee Swamp the 4,534 acres burned by the

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crew registered as an accomplishment. Significant burns included 719 acres of newly acquired land adjoining Sprewell Bluff WMA, along with adjacent private property, and helping Wildlife Resources' Game Management Section burn 1,052 acres at Oaky Woods WMA, including several Black Belt prairie sites. In other work, crew members cleared about 20 acres of bog, cleared sand pine off another 200 acres of newly acquired property that is now part of Sandhills WMA, prepped two timber sales, installed a campground on Sandhills WMA, held a chainsaw class and gave a presentation at a local college.
The southeast Georgia crew worked with the Game Management Section's seasonal fire crew based at Altama Plantation WMA, even serving as fire mentors for the Altama crew members. The goal of the collaboration was to reintroduce fire to several high-priority conservation lands, including Altama Plantation and Sansavilla WMAs. Reintroduction of fire at Altama was successful. Although drought conditions hindered or prevented prescribed fire on many properties across the state, the low fuel moisture levels allowed crews to burn in fuels at Altama that would not normally be amenable to prescribed fire. As a result, several units with unnaturally high hardwood components due to encroachment and decades of fire exclusion were effectively burned with excellent fire effects. Dramatic habitat improvements are expected, and it is anticipated these units will burn more effectively under normal conditions in the future. The burn operations proved transformational for the landscape on a property of significant conservation value and high public visibility.
Other high-priority conservation sites treated with prescribed fire by Nongame Conservation included Wildlife Resources Division-managed lands such as Alapaha River, Alligator Creek, Big Dukes Pond, Big Lazer Creek, Blanton Creek, Chickasawhatchee, Doerun Pitcherplant Bog, Sandhills East and West, Joe Kurz, Mayhaw, Moody Forest, Oaky Woods, Penholloway Swamp, Silver Lake, Sprewell Bluff and Townsend wildlife management areas. The agency also assisted the Interagency Burn Team on several burns. The southeast Georgia crew helped the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service burn critical habitat for red-cockaded woodpeckers at Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge near Round Oak. Staff assisted The Nature Conservancy at Broxton Rocks Preserve, Chattahoochee Fall Line Wildlife Management Area, Moody Forest

and Ohoopee Dunes Wildlife Management Area. Nongame Conservation also helped the Interagency Burn Team with prescribed fires on private lands to support rare species, including at Buzzards Roost Mountain and properties owned and managed by The Orianne Society.
Nongame Conservation is also heavily involved with the DNR State Parks and Historic Sites' burn program. This past season, crews assisted with burns on six parks totaling 548 acres. Natural habitats were improved across the state, from longleaf forest at Seminole State Park, herbaceous bogs at Gordonia/Alatamaha State Park and xeric longleaf pine/turkey oak sandhills at George L. Smith State Park in the Coastal Plain to open pine woodlands at Mistletoe State Park and grasslands at Panola Mountain State Park in the Piedmont, as well as rare Georgia aster habitat at Pickett's Mill Battlefield State Historic Site in the edge of the mountains. The Georgia Botanical Society helped propagate important native pollinator plants that were transplanted to Panola Mountain after the fire. During burn operations, fire crew members helped inform park visitors of the benefits of fire. They also engaged with park staff and camp hosts.
A variety of fire-dependent habitats were targeted for restoration on state parks and Wildlife Resources Division-managed lands, habitats such as aeolian dune sandhills with xeric longleaf pine/ turkey oak, Coastal Plain pitcherplant bogs, striped newt pond habitats, Fall Line sandhills, longleaf pine flatwoods, longleaf pine/wiregrass woodlands, oak woodlands and native grasslands. Many highpriority species identified in Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan benefited from these efforts.
As sites move from restoration to the maintenance phase, Nongame Conservation has been able to conduct more growing-season burns. These ecological burns have a profound impact on species, restoring the natural balance in fire-adapted ecosystems by reducing hardwood competition and increasing native grasses and forbs. DNR has placed greater emphasis on growing-season burns. Totals have grown from 151 acres in 2003 to an agency-record 6,501 acres in 2014. For fiscal 2017, 26 burns totaling nearly 2,927 acres were done during the growing season, which officially starts April 1.
In another measure of prescribed fire progress, Interagency Burn Team members have moved

beyond fire management. Nongame Conservation is working closely with Orianne Society and The Nature Conservancy with the help of funding from the Longleaf Alliance. Collaborative projects include longleaf planting, removal of encroaching hardwoods and groundcover restoration on sites including Alligator Creek, Alapaha and Moody Forest wildlife management areas. Alapaha River, near Ocilla, was identified through sandhills-focused State Wildlife Grant work as a high-priority site for gopher tortoises several years ago. DNR, with help from partners and the landowner, acquired the 6,869 acres in fiscal 2016. Local colleges and other schools are taking advantage of the outdoor learning opportunities provided by the WMA's diverse habitats. Projects include beetle, herpetological and mammal surveys, forestry techniques, and adaptive management monitoring. Thanks to the prescribed burning program, a gopher tortoise survey estimated Alapaha River's population at nearly 2,400 tortoises, or two per hectare.
Nongame Conservation and the Longleaf Alliance have teamed up since 2013 to implement fire management and overall longleaf ecosystem restoration throughout southeast Georgia. With funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Longleaf Stewardship Fund, DNR contracted with the alliance to hire a coordinator for the Fort Stewart/Altamaha Longleaf Restoration Partnership, which is focused on a designated significant geographic area for longleaf under America's Longleaf Restoration Initiative.
The Longleaf Alliance has continued to apply for grants through the Longleaf Stewardship Fund, realizing more than $1 million in funding through fiscal 2017. The grants have provided funding for fire management positions at Nongame Conservation, including its seasonal fire crews. The grants also have helped pay for planting longleaf seedlings on hundreds of acres of DNR lands and supported fire crews and longleafrelated training. A recent grant award for calendar years 2018 and 2019 will provide $300,000 for longleaf restoration, allowing Nongame Conservation to hire a technician dedicated to Ohoopee Dunes Wildlife Management Area. This WMA in Emanuel County is changing as tracts are added. The Longleaf Alliance is helping build a management foundation for the area.
The Interagency Burn Team also has seen success in training partnerships, efforts in which Nongame Conservation often has taken a lead role. Fiscal

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2017 was a banner year for fire training. Partners held three Basic Wildland Firefighter academies. The January 2017 session was unique, training five seasonal fire crews from three agencies total, as well as an AmeriCorps crew, volunteers and staff from all sections of the Wildlife Resources Division. Wildland chainsaw safety training, ATV safety training and squad boss training also were offered. Nongame Conservation teamed with the Interagency Burn Team to hold RT130 Annual Fire Refreshers, training 185 wildland firefighters. DNR State Parks and Historic Sites had a key role, too, playing host for most of these trainings at no charge. Refresher training is tailored each year to cover current issues in fire that are relevant to DNR and other Burn Team members.
Two major wildfires and even a hurricane spurred a significant response from the Wildlife Resources Division in fiscal 2017. In the fall, fuel build-up, drought, low humidity and windy days proved key factors in the spread of wildfires across north Georgia and neighboring states. The Chattahoochee National Forest had 45 wildfires totaling 42,492 acres. The largest were the Rough Ridge and the Rocky Mountain fires. Suppression and management of those fires cost an estimated $10 million. Wildland firefighters from several agencies fought the blazes from early September through the first week of December.
DNR provided much-needed relief to wildfire operations on the Tatum Gulf Fire near Lookout Mountain. Nongame Conservation sent nine staff members to help cover two weeks over the Thanksgiving holiday. The skills and experience gained by agency staff through prescribed burning was applicable and valuable to battling the wildfires. Nongame Conservation crews and their Type 6 and 7 engines dealt with tasks including prepping structures ahead of the wildfire, mopping up control lines, supporting burn-out operations, suppressing hotspots, directing helicopter drops, patrolling and monitoring control lines, evacuating residents, directing attack on spot fires, and initiating attacks on new fire starts.
While long-term fire effects across the wildfire acres in Georgia are unknown, initial assessments suggest that effects on the understory were generally positive. It will take more time before effects on the overstory trees are fully realized. Some Nongame Conservation staff reported beneficial fire

DNR wildfire crew members (Hal Massie/DNR)

effects from the burnout operations as well as the areas burned in the wildfires. According to predictions, extreme weather conditions like those experienced in fiscal 2017 will become more frequent and severe as the climate changes, increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires. Prescribed burning mimics a natural process, reducing fuels and changing habitat composition. This helps prevent catastrophic wildfires and makes suppression efforts to protect communities more effective.
Spring 2017 brought more drought conditions and a new set of wildfires. For the third time in 11 years, the Okefenokee Swamp burned. On April 6, a lightning strike in the southwestern portion of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge near the Florida line started what became known as the West Mims Fire. Prolonged drought throughout the preceding fall and winter created prime conditions in this fire-dependent ecosystem for flames to ignite and quickly spread. The Fish and Wildlife Service decided to monitor fire activity and allow it to burn within the national wildlife refuge. Efforts to refresh and improve fire breaks along the Swamp Edge Break were made immediately, and resources from across the nation were ordered to manage the fire and attack any escapes from the refuge. Ultimately, the fire grew to 152,515 acres. Most of this acreage was within the refuge, but there were several escapes onto private lands, including one during the height of the fire activity in early May that spurred

evacuations in southern Charlton County. Fortunately, the escapes resulted in no fatalities or serious injuries. Fire damages were mostly to timber stands surrounding the refuge, and some minor damage to structures. The fire was fully contained by mid-June. Suppression cost an estimated $46 million.
Nongame Conservation helped with wildfire suppression on the West Mims fire. Six wildland firefighters and two Type 6 engines were used over two weeks. The primary duties: Detecting and extinguishing lingering ground fires (in duff), monitoring re-burn of needle cast due to severe scorching of timber stands, coordinating and directing heavy equipment operations, and being available for direct and initial attack response on spot fires and escapes. These crews also assisted with suppression and safety for a salvage timber cut conducted by a private landowner.
In October 2017, DNR deployed as part of Georgia's declared state of emergency and response to Hurricane Matthew. Activities included equipment and supply preparation before the storm, facilitating first responder access to affected areas during the storm (chainsaw and machinery debris removal) and clearing downed trees blocking roadways, including on state-managed properties. As an example of that effort, five Nongame Conservation staff worked on Ossabaw Island clearing roads for three days.

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Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance
The Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance, or GPCA, is an innovative network of 44 public gardens, government agencies, academic institutions, utility companies and environmental organizations committed to preserving Georgia's endangered flora. Formed in 1995 with the Nongame Conservation Section as a charter member, the GPCA initiates and coordinates efforts to protect natural habitats and endangered species through biodiversity management, public education and rare plant propagation and outplanting (i.e., safeguarding). Member organizations are engaged in recovery projects for 100 imperiled plant species. Of these, 99 are in safeguarding programs at botanical gardens, arboreta and seed banks, and 49 species have been reintroduced successfully into the wild. GPCA has 11 safeguarding partner institutions that hold and manage ex-situ collections for recovery and study.
GPCA contributions to plant conservation since the alliance's start has amounted to an estimated $1.95 million in direct and indirect support. More than $1.55 million was supplied by non-DNR members supporting high-priority species and habitats identified in Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan. A significant portion of contributions came from GPCA's trained volunteers, called botanical guardians. More than 140 volunteers contributed more than 1,000 hours of conservation work during fiscal year 2017.
This year, the GPCA focused on growing the organization, expanding its influence within the wildlife conservation community and exporting

the GPCA model beyond Georgia to regional and national audiences. Alliances were established in Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee. All five states bordering Georgia now have established plant conservation alliances modeled after GPCA. The first joint meeting of three plant conservation alliances Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee was held in May 2017.
Establishing GPCA-like organizations across the Southeast to meet the challenges of plant conservation was an essential goal of the Southeastern Partners in Plant Conservation Symposium. Held in November 2016 at Atlanta Botanical Garden, the symposium was largely an initiative of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Southeast Region office. The guiding ideas: Bring together botanical experts from throughout the region to share information on best practices and topics relevant to rare plant conservation, and increase capacity to meet the listing, recovery and conservation needs of an expanded list of petitioned and at-risk species. The Fish and Wildlife Service knew about the power and effectiveness of the GPCA-model through participating as a GPCA member via its state office in Athens. The promotion of the GPCA model as a focal point was no surprise, and GPCA members figured prominently in the program. The event's nearly 160 attendees, representing more than 80 organizations from 22 states (plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), learned in detail about the GPCA.
Following the symposium, the Center for Biological Diversity withdrew 10 plant species, seven known from Georgia, from the group it had petitioned for federal listing. During the conference workshops and in subsequent

meetings, botanists had identified some species as not warranting inclusion on the petition list. The Center for Biological Diversity, the leading plaintiff in the lawsuit and settlement with the Fish and Wildlife Service that resulted in the expanded petition list, also took part. The organization later offered to accept recommendations from the symposium to strike some species from the petition.
In September 2016, the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies honored GPCA with a special recognition award at the association's annual meeting in Philadelphia. The award celebrated GPCA's "outstanding contributions" to the association and to advancing professional fish and wildlife management in North America. DNR Commissioner Mark Williams attended the presentation.
"GPCA has proven incredibly effective in focusing and increasing efforts to conserve Georgia's rare plant species and their habitats," Williams said. "Not only is this work benefiting our state, other states are considering setting up alliances, meaning plant conservation in those states will reap from what the GPCA has sown in Georgia."
Dr. Wilf Nicholls, then director of the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, noted that ensuring "our state is as rich and biodiverse as the one we inherited is a lofty goal." "But in a true spirit of openness and sharing," Nicholls said, "the GPCA has brought together dozens of institutions and agencies all working together toward well-defined conservation goals. It has proven to be a recipe for success for which we can all be proud."
The GPCA is also involved with plant conservation on a continental and global scale. Several GPCA institutions are active members of the American Public Gardens Association, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, the Center for Plant Conservation and the national Plant Conservation Alliance. In summer 2016, these groups developed the 2016-2020 North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Plant Conservation. This document emphasizes the need for increased capacity and commitment to plant conservation on the part of botanic gardens, and recommends leveraging those collective resources to halt plant extinction and the loss of wild habitats. However, concerns about ethics, standards and quality control,

Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance meeting (Mincy Moffett/DNR)

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Ginseng (Alan Cressler) Eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Linda May/DNR)

especially regarding in-situ safeguarding (i.e., putting propagated plants back into nature), have impeded implementation of the strategy. This concern has been especially true for gardens that have little or no experience with safeguarding. GPCA member institutions, especially Atlanta Botanical Garden and the State Botanical Garden, have taken a leadership role in developing a training and mentoring program for inexperienced gardens. This includes a so-called "twinning" program where two gardens (one experienced, one inexperienced) pair up and work simultaneously on the same safeguarding project. The State Botanical Garden plans to hold a safeguarding training workshop for national and international horticultural partners in fiscal 2018.
This fiscal year, the GPCA expanded its ranks, adding as members Georgia ForestWatch in Dahlonega and Ecological Solutions Inc. in Roswell.
Ginseng Management
Export of American ginseng is regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international agreement administered in this country by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The export of ginseng from Georgia is authorized by that agency in combination with the Georgia Ginseng Protection Act of 1979, a state law amended in 2013.
In order to have a legal ginseng trade in Georgia, the Fish and Wildlife Service requires Georgia

to maintain a ginseng management program that ensures compliance with federal and state regulations. The objective is to prevent this perennial forest herb from becoming endangered because of trade. Demand for ginseng is high in natural medicinal markets and in Asian medicine.
The Nongame Conservation Section administers the Georgia Ginseng Management Program, which monitors the harvest and sale of ginseng. Staff works with ginseng dealers, growers, the DNR Wildlife Resources Division's Game Management Section and DNR's Law Enforcement Division to make ginseng regulation a transparent and simple process.
In calendar 2016, the dealer-reported wild ginseng harvest in Georgia decreased 63 percent from 2015, with dealers reporting a harvest totaling 132.5 pounds dry weight. The price of wild ginseng also declined by about 30 percent. Ginseng dealers paid an average of $385 per pound. The low price was probably the major contributing factor to the small harvest, rather than any dramatic decrease in population size. Over the Georgia Ginseng Program's 27 years, there has been an overall decline in harvest and trade.
In fiscal 2017, Georgia's ginseng program benefited from a $65,000 grant from by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the North Carolina nonprofit Friends of Plant Conservation. The grant recognized DNR Law Enforcement Division efforts for the species. Nongame Conservation botanist Lisa Kruse led a collaborative effort with the Fish and Wildlife Service, Friends of Plant Conservation and DNR Law Enforcement to determine which of Georgia's highest priority actions for ginseng conservation could be funded by the grant. Kruse also worked with DNR rangers to buy equipment such as remote surveillance cameras to help them enforce ginseng regulations.
The cultivated ginseng trade is not significant in Georgia overall, but cultivated ginseng is encouraged in the state as one strategy to relieve pressure on wild populations. Most American ginseng harvested is exported to China, although local interest in Georgia ginseng for personal use has increased. Georgia is at the southern edge of the plant's distribution, and the trade is much smaller than in nearby states such as North Carolina and Kentucky. Ginseng exports in those states total millions of dollars a year.

Biotics Database
The Nongame Conservation Section manages the NatureServe Biotics database, the state's most comprehensive database of occurrences of rare species and natural communities. Data in Biotics are used for many purposes: environmental site reviews, conservation planning, scientific research, habitat restoration and management plan development. The database contains more than 15,000 occurrence records for rare species in the state and provides web access to information on occurrences of special-concern species and significant natural communities. During fiscal year 2017, Nongame Conservation added 338 records and edited 1,213 existing ones. Significant efforts were made to update information on species proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Many species are under review, and updating database records allows for a more accurate process. Staff also responded to 625 formal requests for data, not counting in-house environmental reviews or data obtained by the public through the website. Lists of rare and protected plants, animals and natural communities are available at www.georgiawildlife.com/conservation/ species-of-concern. That page also features links to public information about rare elements and sites by county and quarter quad.

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Private Land Activities
With more than 90 percent of Georgia lands in private ownership, conservation activities on those acres are crucial to wildlife and natural communities in the state. The Nongame Conservation Section worked with private landowners throughout Georgia on a variety of conservation activities in fiscal year 2017 (also see: Land Acquisition and Conservation Easements).
Staff answered landowners' questions and visited sites to give management advice. Nongame Conservation made landowners aware of cost-share and grant opportunities and help them navigate procedures for using the programs. Examples included the Natural Resources Conservation Service's Environmental Quality Incentives, Conservation Stewardship, Wetlands Reserve Easements and Working Lands for Wildlife programs, the Georgia Forestry Commission's Southern Pine Beetle Cost Share Program, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Partners for Wildlife Program.
Nongame Conservation also:
n Helped develop a "public access" template to be used for future conservation easements associated with the Gopher Tortoise Conservation Initiative. This effort contemplates that some easements will allow public access as part of wildlife management areas.
n Identified and provided recommendations to a farmer for an erosion issue affecting the Conasauga River.

n Served as an advisor to some UGA forestry students on their senior project. The group analyzed forest and habitat management alternatives on a diverse Coastal Plain property.
n Provided threatened and endangered species training to loggers and others at quarterly Master Timber Harvester events around the state. The training includes a review of how timber harvesting affects wildlife habitat. Staff also served on the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Implementation Committee and its Private Landowner Outreach Subcommittee. Additional education activities included training sessions at Southeastern Wood Producers workshops and individually with forest products companies.
Nongame Conservation took part in Natural Resources Conservation Service State Technical Committee meetings to identify wildlife conservation priorities relevant to Farm

Bill programs for private landowners. Staff cooperated, as well, with the Private Lands Program of DNR Wildlife Resources Division's Game Management Section and the Natural Resources Conservation Service to coordinate four temporary biologist positions stationed at Natural Resources Conservation Service field offices in Blakely, Douglas, Swainsboro and McDonough. These biologists work with landowners to implement Natural Resources Conservation Service programs aimed at restoring and managing longleaf pine systems. Their efforts include the Working Lands for Wildlife initiative that targets gopher tortoises and addresses other conservation needs for priority species and habitats.
Along with Game Management and State Parks and Historic Sites personnel, staff visited DNR-held conservation easements to ensure compliance with easement terms and renew relations with landowners.

Fringed campion (Alan Cressler)

Private Lands

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2016 Forestry for Wildlife Partners

Forestry for Wildlife Partnership
The Nongame Conservation Section plays a strong role in the DNR Wildlife Resources Division's Forestry for Wildlife Partnership. This voluntary program encourages conservation of wildlife habitat on corporate forestlands in Georgia and provides public access to privately owned wildlife management areas for hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing, hiking and camping.
Corporations participating in Forestry for Wildlife are among the largest landowners in Georgia, directly affecting wildlife habitat on approximately 1 million acres. Coordinated by Game Management and Nongame Conservation Section biologists, this public-private partnership provides opportunities to enhance wildlife conservation practices on these lands and benefit companies with recognition for their conservation achievements. Companies are evaluated on wildlife conservation planning, education and outreach, management, sensitive sites and rare-species concerns, recreation, and partnerships.
Weyerhaeuser, CatchMark Timber Trust and Georgia Power were the Forestry for Wildlife partners for 2016.
Forestry for Wildlife conservation targets include red-cockaded woodpecker habitats, bald eagle and swallow-tailed kite nests, isolated wetlands critical to protected reptiles and amphibians, and rare

remnant Coosa Valley prairies, home to endangered plants. The partnerships also provide the public with many opportunities to enjoy the outdoors through wildlife viewing, hunting and fishing. All partners are committed to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, ensuring their forest managers and loggers have completed the Master Timber Harvester workshop and continue their education to maintain certification or designation.
Here are some of the highlights of partner companies' conservation work.
Former partner Plum Creek merged with Weyerhaeuser in February 2016. Weyerhaeuser was an original member of the Forestry and Wildlife Partnership and now, postmerge, returns with land ownership in Georgia. The company is committed to sustainable forestry and adhering to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative standards and continues to integrate conservation into its forests.
A key Weyerhaeuser initiative is gopher tortoise conservation. The company focuses management for this iconic species on preferred soils with viable tortoise populations and helps with Nongame Conservation tortoise surveys. Through these surveys, Weyerhaeuser is learning more about tortoise populations on its lands and is working with DNR, the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, the University of Georgia, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others to better understand how gopher tortoises respond to the shifting mosaic of suitable habitat conditions on

working forestlands. This work in Georgia is part of a larger Weyerhaeuser effort to understand gopher tortoise ecology across the company's managed lands in the southeastern U.S.
Weyerhaeuser is also managing several unique ecological areas in northwest Georgia, including the Coosa Valley Prairie property (permanently protected under a conservation easement held by The Nature Conservancy), a cave that is home to a bachelor colony of gray bats (federally listed as endangered) and rock outcrops that shelter the cliff-dwelling green salamander. A successful prescribed burn was completed on the Coosa Valley Prairie easement in 2016 to maintain the unique flora found in this fireadapted ecosystem. Weyerhaeuser also played host to researchers examining the pollinator community and pathogens that may be affecting the federally endangered whorled sunflower.
In the Piedmont, Weyerhaeuser is teaming with UGA to understand effects of forest thinning, prescribed fire and herbicide use on plant communities. Although this work, funded by DNR, is directed toward northern bobwhite conservation, the results will help inform managers about the ability of these stands to maintain "open pine" conditions important to numerous nongame species.
In the lower Coastal Plain, efforts continue with Nongame Conservation on projects including managing Henslow's sparrow habitat and wood

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stork rookeries, conserving isolated wetlands, and protecting swallow-tailed kite nesting areas. In southwest Georgia, the company is cooperating with DNR to conduct surveys for the federally endangered hairy rattleweed, an endemic species known to exist worldwide in only two Georgia counties.
Georgia Power is the third-largest private landowner in the state and carefully manages its undeveloped land for multiple benefits, including public recreation, timber production and conservation of rare species. Prescribed fire is applied to more than 6,000 acres annually, and more than 20,000 acres are open for public recreation through DNR's wildlife management areas program (Blanton Creek, Rum Creek and Oconee WMAs). The company is restoring longleaf pine habitat in support of conservation partner landscape goals, participates in DNR's Safe Harbor program for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers and manages a recipient site for gopher tortoises that DNR needed to relocate from other private lands. Tortoises and their burrows are protected during timber harvest on company lands, as are several bald eagle nests.
Georgia Power lands and transmission right of ways provide habitat for several species of rare plants, including nine that are federally listed as threatened or endangered. A tract on the Chattahoochee River contains officially designated critical habitat for Georgia rockcress. Georgia Power participates with other partners in a Candidate Conservation Agreement for Georgia aster, a wildflower that had been a candidate for federal listing and that grows well in transmission right of ways.
Georgia Power is also developing a Habitat Conservation Plan for the gray bat, Indiana bat and northern long-eared bat, all of which receive federal protection. Favorable forest management practices, including maintaining travel corridors, foraging openings and roost trees, are being implemented at four properties within the ranges of these species. Forest management practices are also being used on properties within the Altamaha River system to enhance water quality and benefit freshwater mussels of conservation concern.
Conservation and wildlife habitat improvements conducted by CatchMark Timber Trust in fiscal 2017 included:

Swallow-tailed kite (Todd Schneider/DNR)

n Working with DNR to expand and improve Sprewell Bluff Wildlife Management Area near Thomaston. CatchMark sold 494 acres to DNR, terminated its interest in the Saunders timber deed on Alexander tract 2 and planted about 741 acres of montane longleaf on newly acquired lands.
n Allowing The Orianne Society access to company lands in Telfair County for eastern indigo snake surveys.
n Cooperating with Georgia Land Trust in maintaining conservation easements in Long County. These easements protect high-priority habitats identified by Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan and maintain open spaces adjacent to the U.S. Army's Fort Stewart as part of the Army Compatible Use Buffer program.
n Continuing to work with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect habitat for the endangered fringed campion on company lands in Talbot County.
n Continuing to practice silvicultural treatments that promote the conservation of gopher tortoises and the habitat this species needs.
n Leasing 1,938 acres to DNR for Ocmulgee Wildlife Management Area near Cochran and leasing all of the company's available lands to the public for hunting and recreation. CatchMark also sponsors outdoor recreational hunting opportunities with groups such as Outdoors without Limits, which serves people with physical and mental challenges.
n Continuing to allow universities access to company lands for research, including a joint

UGA and DNR bear study and Virginia Tech's pine growth study.
n Maintaining a robust pine plantation thinning program that improves wildlife habitat and forest health while helping diversify the landscape.
n Monitoring and treating company lands for invasive species.
n Maintaining and offering the use of several sets of portable bridges for loggers to use to minimize stream-crossing impacts.
Army Compatible Use Buffer Conservation
The Army Compatible Use Buffer program, often referred to as ACUB, is focused on protecting priority conservation lands around military installations from development that would restrict key military activities such as training. This buffering is provided primarily through permanent conservation easements. In recent years, the Nongame Conservation Section has joined with forts Stewart and Benning to identify easement priorities and draft plans to conserve critical lands adjacent to these installations. The areas include some of the best habitat in Georgia for rare or uncommon species, such as eastern indigo snakes, gopher tortoises and southeastern pocket gophers, as well as potential future habitat for red-cockaded woodpecker groups.
Nongame Conservation is involved with the Chattahoochee Fall Line Conservation Partnership, which is geared toward conserving

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Green treefrog (Linda May/DNR)

lands along the eastern edge of Fort Benning. Staff involvement included teaming with land management activities to enhance gopher tortoise habitat, serving as chair of the group's steering committee and supporting efforts to bring more tracts under conservation ownership and management.
The new Chattahoochee Fall Line Wildlife Management Area, which includes the Fort Perry Tract in Marion County and the Almo area in Marion and Talbot counties, is an example of this partnership, which helps the Army with its mission, protects rare species and provides for public recreation.
Nongame Conservation staff participated in planning discussions and provided comments on planning for the conceptual Fort Benning Compensatory Mitigation Strategy. This multipartner project is aimed in part at determining conservation values for ACUB lands being managed for red-cockaded woodpeckers. The agency will have a role in developing a monitoring and reporting program associated with these properties.
Community Wildlife Project
The Community Wildlife Project, an award-winning initiative of the Nongame Conservation Section and the Garden Club of Georgia, seeks to:
n Enhance native nongame animal and plant populations and their habitats in urban, suburban and rural communities throughout the state.
n Foster wildlife conservation stewardship and education in Georgia communities.
n Promote respect and appreciation of wildlife in combination with community beautification.
n Improve the quality of life for Georgians living in these communities.
More than 750 communities, cities and counties have been awarded full certification, with more than 600 in various stages of completing certification standards. Since 2005, the Backyard Wildlife Certification survey has added about 3,500 certified backyards, 550 of which were

certified with two or more adjoining neighboring yards for Neighborhood Backyard Certification.
At the start of fiscal year 2017, a Nesting/Roosting Box Certification was created to promote adding nest and roost boxes to certified backyards. The count of certified yards is up to 43. This program is in the vein of the Hummingbird Haven Certification, started in 2013 and focused on attracting hummingbirds to yards. About 385 yards have been certified as hummingbird havens.
In calendar 2016, a quarterly awards program was started. Each quarter, a district can potentially win

an award in the form of a certificate for the greatest involvement in each of three categories: backyard habitat, hummingbird haven and nesting/roosting boxes. There is also an award for the most overall participation and the most "full" certifications. Full certifications are earned when an individual yard completes all requirements in the three categories.
The Community Wildlife Project also helps Nongame Conservation build constituency through the 11,000-member Garden Club of Georgia through habitat programs at local, state and region levels.

Carolina chickadee nestlings (Linda May/DNR)

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Invasive Species

Invasive water hyacinth on Altamaha River (Eamonn Leonard/DNR) AmeriCorps planting native plants on Living Shoreline (Amy Schuler/Coastal Wildscapes)

Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan emphasizes increasing efforts to detect, monitor and control invasive species to conserve native wildlife and their habitats. Invasives have negative impacts on native species and represent one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. Controlling and treating invasives can yield positive, cascading effects for many native species and for the benefits that people derive from ecosystems.
Following completion of the Georgia Invasive Species Strategy in 2009, the Nongame Conservation Section sought State Wildlife Grants funding to implement invasive species assessment and management programs, with a focus on the state's coastal region. The current project is aimed at enhancing methods for assessing and controlling invasive non-native species on public and other conservation lands. Objectives also include providing land managers better technical and informational resources to help control invasives, along with promoting appropriate use of native plant species by public and private land managers.

During fiscal year 2017, Nongame Conservation staff:
n Continued a multiyear control project to eradicate common reed from the Altamaha River delta. Control work has been expanded to sites in Camden County and near DNR's Coastal Regional Headquarters in Brunswick.
n Pursued the release of a biocontrol agent for water hyacinth, following the recommendations of a water hyacinth management reassessment meeting held in fiscal 2016. A permit from the U.S. Agricultural Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was obtained to transport and release the leaf hopper species Megamelus scutellaris in the Altamaha River delta. (The insect's nymphs and adults feed on the sap of water hyacinth.)
n Coordinated the seventh annual meeting of the Coastal Georgia Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area. Presenters led discussions on noxious weed list creation

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and management in Georgia, including from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and the Georgia Agriculture Department's Plant Protection Program. Agencies and groups represented at the meeting also included DNR, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve, Georgia Ports Authority, Georgia Power, Jekyll Island Authority, Little St. Simons Island, Coastal WildScapes, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension and the Georgia Forestry Commission.
n Coordinated speakers for an invasive species-focused concurrent session for the DNR-led conference Prepare, Respond and Adapt: Is Georgia Climate Ready? The conference was held on Jekyll Island in November 2016. This session delved into the implications of a changing climate on threats posed by invasive species.
n Used half of the $50,000 National Fish and Wildlife Foundation funding awarded in fiscal 2016 to the Coastal Georgia Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area to support two Student Conservation Association interns and buy herbicide and other supplies. The interns, supervised by Nongame Conservation staff, spent 15 weeks helping partners in the 11-county coastal area complete invasive species projects. Projects targeted sand pine, salt cedar, apple snails, common reed, Chinese tallow, tree of Heaven, big-leaf lantana, wisteria, flathead catfish, Chinese privet and Japanese climbing fern. Partners varied from DNR divisions to the Savannah Tree Foundation, Skidaway Audubon, Georgia Ports Authority, Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve, UGA Cooperative Extension, Georgia Forestry Commission, Little St. Simons, St. Simons Land Trust, Bethesda Academy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jekyll Island Authority and the communities of Kingsland and Pooler.
n Used part of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation funding to update the Coastal Georgia Cooperative Invasive Species Management

Intern Travis Mabe removing invasive salt cedar (Eamonn Leonard/DNR)

Area website, www.coastalgeorgiacisma.org. The remaining funds went to start a private landowner invasive species management cost-share program. Funding is directed toward a 50-percent reimbursement for landowners managing one of five high-priority invasive species: salt cedar, sand pine, common reed, Chinese tallow and water hyacinth.
n Applied for and received an AmeriCorps Corporation for National and Community Service team that worked with Nongame Conservation staff and several other partners in the Coastal Georgia Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area from January

through March on projects, including invasive sand pine seedling removal at Townsend Wildlife Management Area near Ludowici, Chinese tallow treatment on Sapelo with the Sapelo National Estuarine Research Reserve, work on trails at Cannon's Point and Musgrove Plantation with the St. Simons Land Trust, salt cedar treatment on Jekyll with the Jekyll Island Authority, and Living Shoreline planting and maintenance with DNR Coastal Resources Division and Coastal WildScapes.
n Teamed with residents in Kingsland and Pooler on awareness, assessment and removal of invasive apple snails.

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Planthoppers released as water hyacinth biocontrol (Eamonn Leonard/DNR)

n Monitored invasive species treatment plots in areas of Sapelo and Ossabaw islands infested with Chinese tallow, measuring the effectiveness of control methods and recovery of natural communities.
n Worked with contractors to remove the last remaining mature stand of sand pine from longleaf pine restoration sites at Townsend WMA. This is part of a Nongame Conservation-led plan to restore habitat for one of two known populations of the globally rare Radford's mint. As part of this effort, The Environmental Resources Network, or TERN, friends group of Nongame Conservation, awarded a grant to buy longleaf pine seedlings. The seedlings were planted with the help of volunteers in areas where sand pines were clear-cut. This is a multiyear project to safeguard the mint species while converting the remaining sand pine to a longleaf canopy.
n Partnered with Coastal WildScapes, a nonprofit group that promotes gardening with natives, to increase volunteer opportunities in collecting native seed and identifying and removing invasives. Staff also joined with Jekyll Island Authority to grow native plants from seeds collected by volunteers and offer the plants to the public during two plant sales.
n Led efforts to restore a 1930s-era formal garden at Altama Plantation Wildlife Management Area, acquired by the state in 2015. The goal is to restore the historic garden at the WMA near Brunswick and create a native plant pollinator garden within the formal hedges. Staff is seeking grant funding to support the work, most of which has been done with volunteers. Plant donations included a Franklin tree from the Georgia Chapter of the Colonial Dames Society and six native fringe trees from Lazy K Nurseries in Pine Mountain. Staff also helped with an Eagle Scout project to stabilize a section of a bridge near the garden. A ramp and observation platform were built to provide a safe place to view tidal forested wetlands and a former rice plantation. The garden, a treasured site for many locals, will serve as an educational tool to promote the use of native plants and Altama Plantation's ecological value.

n Continued efforts with the Cannon's Point Conservation Task Force to manage invasive species according to the preserve's management plan.
n Continued communications with the First Coast Invasive Working Group in northeast Florida to stay abreast of novel invasive species in the north Florida and south Georgia coastal region.
n Responded to two reports of invasive cane toad one in a Kingsland resident's yard, the other of a cane toad being sold at a Kingsland pet shop. Efforts led to an article in the local paper raising awareness of the issue and DNR rangers advising the store owner that selling the species is illegal.

n Gave talks to groups varying from garden clubs to forestry experts and Coastal WildScapes members on invasive species identification, emerging threats, native plant alternatives to invasives and native plants for backyard birds.
In fiscal 2017, the Coastal Georgia Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area was awarded a $5,000 grant from TERN to offset costs in treating more than 140 acres of salt cedar in the Altamaha delta. This is part of a regional strategy to manage this species, reducing its spread and negative effects in surrounding ecosystems.

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During fiscal year 2017, the DNR Law Enforcement Division conducted 62 commercial trawling boardings along Georgia's coast to check compliance with turtle excluder device regulations. Rangers documented four state and three federal TED violations under the Endangered Species Act.
The checks were part of 989 hours the Law Enforcement Division spent patrolling saltwater areas inshore and offshore. Activities included 76 hours patrolling for violations of laws protecting North Atlantic right whales and 50 hours at Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Rangers also logged 78 hours on public outreach involving marine mammals and the laws and regulations protecting them.
Vessel patrol hours focused on:
n Shrimp trawler checks for TED compliance.
n Intercepts of recreational and commercial fishing vessels returning to Georgia seaports from fishing trips in federal waters.

n Offshore patrols to Special Management Zones and Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
n Concentrations of fishing vessels wherever they occurred in the Exclusive Economic Zone adjacent to the state.
n Offshore and near-shore patrols for compliance with the Atlantic Whale Take Reduction Plan.
Other Law Enforcement Division work involving nongame included:
n A successful investigation with North Carolina into the illegal harvest and sale of ginseng that resulted in auctioning off 430 pounds of ginseng seized from a dealer. As part of Operation Botanical, the states split the proceeds and dedicated them to ginseng conservation. The $144,000 that Georgia received was divided between the Law Enforcement and Wildlife Resources divisions.

Law Enforcement will spend its share on equipment that helps the division combat illegal trade in ginseng. (For more on ginseng management, see the Plants and Natural Habitats section.)
n Cpl. Greg Wade, working in Region IV (west-central Georgia), found several traps used to catch birds of prey, resulting in an investigation.
n In May 2017, Cpl. Keith Waddell, also assigned to Region IV, found two people using illegal turtle baskets in the Flint River. Waddell confiscated more than 50 baskets and dozens of turtles.
The division's annual reports are available at www.gadnrle.org/reports. Report poaching and the violation of protected species laws and regulations by calling the Ranger Hotline at (800) 241-4113, emailing rangerhotline@dnr.ga.gov or contacting a local game warden (search by county at www.gadnrle.org/find-ranger).

LawEnforcement

Ranger 1st Class David Brady checks a TED's angle (Mark Dodd/DNR)

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DNR's Kathy Church instructs a youth in archery at Smithgall Woods (DNR State Parks & Historic Sites) Charlie Elliott's James Murdock leads ACE campers (DNR)

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

Regional Education Centers
The DNR Wildlife Resources Division is charged with promoting the conservation and wise use of Georgia's natural resources. This educational mission involves cultivating an appreciation and understanding of wildlife resources, fostering wise stewardship and promoting safe and ethical natural resource-based recreation.
Throughout its history, the Wildlife Resources Division has educated Georgia youth and families to increase awareness, engagement and stewardship regarding the state's habitats, wildlife and natural resources. These education efforts began in 1940 when Charlie Elliott, the first director of what is now DNR, started the Junior Ranger Program. In the program's first year, more than 25,000 children became involved, conducting nature surveys, planting wildlife food crops and helping "senior rangers" in short, learning and practicing conservation.

Elliott's vision of a conservation education program is reflected through the Wildlife Resources Division's seven regional education centers, as well as the continuation of the Junior Ranger Program in DNR's State Parks and Historic Sites Division. Wildlife Resources operates the centers with local school systems, Regional

Educational Service Agencies and other state and federal agencies to deliver wildlife-focused education. The centers are Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center near Mansfield, the Go Fish Education Center in Perry, Smithgall Woods near Helen, McDuffie Environmental Education Center near Dearing, Arrowhead Environmental Education Center near Armuchee, Grand Bay Wetland Education Center near Valdosta and Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve.
Visitors learn about natural and cultural resources through hands-on experiences. More than 95,000 students and adults visited the centers in fiscal year 2017.

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At Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center, day programming continued to grow. More than 14,000 people of all ages attended programs at the 6,400-acre site. From learning about birds, reptiles and amphibians to enjoying a family campfire with s'mores, the events attracted Georgians statewide. The center's annual JAKES day program (Juniors Acquiring Knowledge, Ethics and Sportsmanship) drew an estimated 940 guests. Day field trips also surged in popularity, totaling 1,452 students in fiscal 2017. Staff created new trips, including a museum and nature tour for special needs students.
Teacher workshops at Charlie Elliott are part of Project WILD (Wildlife in Learning Design), an interdisciplinary curriculum for pre-K- through 12th-grade students that uses nature as the backdrop for the lessons. The center continues to experience success in Project WILD, training 444 teachers in 2017. Twenty-nine educators took part in the Teacher Conservation Workshop, a partnership with Georgia Forestry Commission and Project Learning Tree. This weeklong event held each June uses the forest as a window to environmental education. Foresters, wildlife biologists, educators and industry professionals lead the activities. The workshop is interdisciplinary and centered on the environmental, economic and social benefits of Georgia's forestry and wildlife communities. Educators visited Weyerhaeuser and International Paper sites, Buckelew and Gully Branch tree farms, Jordan Forest Products mills, and the Georgia Forestry Commission's Flint River Nursery.
For the second time, Project WILD also held its Outdoor Wildlife Leadership School II, or OWLS II, at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center. Eighteen K-12 educators took part, receiving concentrated lessons in wildlife management and biology. Unlike OWLS I, this highly praised workshop focuses on north Georgia's ecosystems. Trips with wildlife experts included Panola Mountain State Park, where educators learned about grassland bird banding and plant life on granite outcrops; Crockford-Pigeon Mountain Wildlife Management Area to explore for salamanders in caves; the Go Fish Education Center to learn more about lake sturgeon and fish habitats; and Oaky Woods Wildlife Management Area to study middle Georgia's black bear population.
During fiscal 2017, staff enhanced public programming at Charlie Elliott to engage guests

Arrowhead Environmental Education Center
Go Fish Education Center
Grand Bay Wetland Education Center
in the center's plants, animals and history. The education team created and held courses including Dutch Oven Cooking, Edible Plants Hike, Art in Nature, Snakes Alive, Night of Froggery and a youth Christmas Bird Count.
Charlie Elliott's nine Hunt and Learn programs, held primarily at the center but also at Chattahoochee Fall Line Wildlife Management Area near Geneva, introduced 87 parent-and-child pairs to the dynamics of a hunt, game animal biology and hunting as a means of conservation. These programs are a bridge to young people being taught firearm safety basics and hunting ethics. In partnership with the DNR Wildlife Resources Division's Fisheries Management Section, the center piloted a Hook and Learn program for 10 parent-child pairs. Participants not only learned basic fishing techniques, they were introduced to types of rods and reels, visited a fish hatchery and learned about competitive fishing programs.
The center's seven summer camps rated a success as well, averaging 17 participants each and immersing more than 110 children ages 7-16 in a week of outdoor activities. Targeted camps such as Shooting Sports and Adventures in Conservation Education continued to draw crowds. Throughout the year, Charlie Elliott played host to 132 area schoolchildren through The Outdoor Discovery School. Educators from surrounding counties also found the ecology and outdoor recreation programming beneficial

Smithgall Woods Regional Education Center
Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center
McDuffie Environmental Education Center
Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve
to their students, and the center has seen more interest in its overnight field-trip courses than can be accommodated.
Charlie Elliott's Outreach Program stayed busy, traveling to every corner of the state. Staff helped with Weekend for Wildlife on Sea Island, Sportsman's Day at the State Capitol, the Claxton Rattlesnake and Wildlife Festival, The Nature Conservancy's Earth Day celebration and events at county tag offices promoting DNR license plates. Outreach staff visited schools, ranging from kindergartens to universities, and provided presentations for civic groups and homeschoolers. Presentations focused on Georgia's physiographic regions, vertebrates, endangered species, birds of prey and reptiles. The Outreach Program also helped with the center's camps and day-use, residential and visitor programming.
Related to outreach, Charlie Elliott's "Talking Nature Tuesday" video series registered more than 5,000 unique viewers and increased engagement on the center's social media sites. An episode on granite outcrops was seen 3,020 times and recorded 400 clicks/shares. During fiscal 2018, the Charlie Elliott team plans to produce six videos highlighting some of Georgia's lesser-known ecosystems. These videos will be done using funding from The Environmental Resources Network, or TERN, friends group of the Nongame Conservation Section.

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Set on 6,000 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Smithgall Woods Regional Education Center offers an assortment of environmental education programs for students of all ages. Programming is coordinated and conducted by a certified teacher and wildlife interpretive specialist in association with professionals from the DNR State Parks and Historic Sites and Wildlife Resources divisions and with Georgia State Parks-certified volunteers. Teachers also can choose to lead activities themselves. Financial support for programming is provided through the Wildlife Resources Division, Georgia Trout Unlimited chapters and donations.
During the 2016-2017 school year, Smithgall Woods saw a large increase in constituents reached compared to the number of programs given. Although programming grew by only 5 percent (592 programs to 622), participation increased 56 percent, from 10,639 to 16,650 participants. The rise occurred, in part, as schools in large-population counties took advantage of the center's varied programming opportunities.
Smithgall Woods' catalog of nearly 50 programs is adaptable to reach students from pre-K through college. Most programs correlate to state curriculum standards and focus on resources unique to the north Georgia mountains. This approach familiarizes students with local issues and demonstrates biological principles at work in their region. Most students served are from counties in the Wildlife Resources Division's Game Management Region II. Programming is divided into two categories: on-site and outreach.
Onsite programs in fiscal 2017 included lessons in ecology, forestry, wildlife, aquatic habitats, archery and orienteering. While largely schoolrelated, programming is not restricted to students. Smithgall Woods offers many programs to the public, thereby allowing "students" of all ages to take part in environmental-themed events. The year saw a drastic change in the percentage of outreach versus on-site programming. In fiscal 2016, 91 percent of programming was on-site, compared to 49 percent in 2017. The change occurred mainly because the center had a fulltime programming coordinator for the entire fiscal year. That allowed for outreach programming throughout the year, which was not the case in 2016. Also contributing to the shift is the trend of schools moving away from field trips. They

can reach more students, at a lower cost, with outreach programming versus field trips.
Therefore, although outreach programming comprised 51 percent of programs, it accounted for 87 percent of students involved in the center's educational programs. These 45- to 60-minute lessons extend programming into the winter months and serve schools experiencing budget cuts or logistical limitations. Outreach programming provided approximately 14,436 students most of them middle-schoolers opportunities to learn about animal adaptations, arachnids, birds of prey, conservation practices, genetics, Native American history and snakes and other reptiles.
The Georgia Council of Trout Unlimited again provided scholarship funding to support free outreach programming for seven counties in area school districts. Counties that use the opportunity tend to take advantage of it to the fullest. One goal for fiscal 2018 is to increase the number of counties reached through this funding. Digital and hard-copy flyers with details will be delivered to every school in each county at the beginning of the school year. Through increased publicity, social media and word of mouth, Smithgall Woods hopes to continue to spread wildlife educational programs throughout northeast Georgia.
A scene and sounds from Arrowhead Environmental Education Center: "Toxico!" the Arrowhead naturalist chants. "Toxico!" the kids echo. "Dendron!" "Dendron!" "Toxicodendron radicans!" "Toxicodendron radicans!" And soon the strains of the old rock song "Poison I-vee-ee-ee-ee-eeeee!" are wafting through the woods as fifth-graders march along Arrowhead's nature trail, bound for the center's beaver dams and another learning opportunity.
During the 2016-17 school year, students visiting Arrowhead studied the collection of live and mounted native animals, including snakes, turtles, frogs and fish. They walked through beaver habitats, along streams and through woods to observe the life cycles and food chains they study at school. In scores of outreach programs, Arrowhead teachers visited schools, bringing animals, stories and lessons.
Through songs, chants and stories, and sometimes armed with butterfly and stream nets, hand lenses and binoculars, and pencils and notepads, 8,441 children and adults learned about the world around

them, examining, measuring and writing about their findings while at Arrowhead or in sessions at their schools led by the center's staff. Another 5,862 people learned about the biodiversity of the region's ridges, valleys and streams at events, displays and programs involving Arrowhead.
Through the center's partnership with Floyd County Schools, three teachers planned and taught lessons, developed and staffed displays, and created and presented programs for pre-K through 12th-grade students. Displays and programs also were done for public events. Arrowhead staff provided storytelling, live animal encounters, educational scavenger hunts and other hands-on nature experiences at DNR's Outdoor Adventure Day, the Environmental Quiz Bowl, Trout Unlimited's Trout Expo and Ducks Unlimited's Greenwing event.
Staff led nature-trail lessons during the year on school campuses, including every class at one school. Several classrooms and children helped feed animals at the center through Arrowhead's Adopt-an-Animal program. For the 16th year, students helped in the DNR project to restore lake sturgeon to the Coosa River basin, which was followed by lessons at the schools. Arrowhead staff visited classes at Berry College and Shorter University to teach future Georgia teachers about wildlife and how to use the environment as a context for learning. Arrowhead also teamed with the Coosa River Basin Initiative, Riverkeeper for the upper Coosa watershed, to visit each kindergarten in Floyd County Schools and teach about watersheds and water conservation.
Arrowhead worked with the Coosa River Basin Initiative to co-sponsor and hold the 2017 Coosa Basin Environmental Quiz Bowl at the center, helping teams learn about the area's ecology. Arrowhead also committed to co-sponsoring the 2017-2018 event and helped organize the fourth-grade Young Naturalists Club to expand the program. Arrowhead naturalists met with Floyd County's gifted education staff and Rome City School's academic coaches to plan the Quiz Bowl.
Whether displaying a corn snake or box turtle and discussing adaptations at in-school outreach lessons or observing green treefrog tadpoles at Arrowhead to learn about life cycles, or through any other of the center's activities, Arrowhead naturalists tailor lessons to Georgia's educational standards and to DNR's mission,

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using Georgia's natural systems as a context to help students in Floyd County Schools learn.
Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve Education Program offered a range of environmental educational programming during the 2016-2017 school year. K-12th-grade and college-level programs were held onsite and at area schools and universities. In all, 56 programs were delivered during the fiscal year, reaching 1,920 students from 15 Georgia counties. The reserve offered onsite programs three days a week, with a limit of 40 participants per program due to ferry and on-island transportation limitations.
Sapelo Island Reserve sees seasonal ebbs and flows in K-12 participation. However, data show a significant increase in student participation during the past five years, with calendar 2016 posting the highest annual enrollment since a comprehensive database was created. Calendar year 2017 shows signs of surpassing 2016.
No comprehensive participation database existed before calendar year 2012, but analysis of the best available student data from 2010 and 2011 indicates respective enrollments then of 576 and 312.
The reserve continued its student program Seeds to Shoreline during fiscal 2017 and has entered a multistate, multireserve program to expand the initiative into the Spreading the Seeds of Estuary Health program. For this Science Transfer Grantfunded program, 10 teachers will be trained to help their coastal students collect and experiment with Spartina propagation. The training also will help teachers create a new curriculum for the classroom. This program will continue to enhance students' knowledge of the scientific method and re-enforce a strong stewardship principle for young learners. A total of 340 students from five coastal counties took part in the currently funded program.
Sapelo Island Reserve also conducted programs for 308 road scholars from the national Elderhostel program. In addition, educational opportunities were provided for 148 participants from various special-interest groups, including churches, birding groups and other organizations. An additional 1,951 participants took part in the reserve's public tour program. Included were tours of the island's south and north end, plus the reserve's Christmas tour program conducted in partnership with DNR's State Parks and Historic Sites Division.

Sapelo Reserve students (DNR)

The Sapelo education program also conducted or partnered with other institutions to train 115 teachers through eight teacher workshops. Partners included Georgia Southern University, the Georgia Association of Marine Educators, DNR's Coastal Resources Division and the University of Georgia Marine Extension Service. Teacher workshops focused on coastal ecosystems and issues, as well as science, technology, engineering and math. In addition, Sapelo Island Reserve's education coordinator helped train 21 naturalists from the two coastal 4-H centers, instruct 31 coastal decisionmakers for the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership and educate DNR's 2017 leadership class on Sapelo. The education coordinator also took part in educating state legislators and their staff during the 2017 Coastal Day at the Capitol.
The education coordinator conducted four lectures for 113 participants. Topics ranged from Georgia's estuaries and fisheries to coastal fauna. The coordinator also supervised about 130 volunteers who contributed 4,277 hours to service projects on and around Sapelo.
Sapelo Island Reserve staff and volunteers had an educational booth at the annual Coastfest, an event that drew an estimated 8,000 visitors. The reserve's mainland Visitor Center reported 11,560 walk-in guests who were not associated with a state program.
McDuffie Environmental Education Center provides a wide range of activities designed to

immerse students, parents and teachers into the natural world to develop a lifelong appreciation for nature and conservation. Activities available for pre-K through seventh grade are aligned with Georgia educational standards and delivered by three certified teachers.
Staffed entirely by part-time employees, McDuffie Center is open by appointment only. Reservations for school field trips begin April 1 each year. Focusing on the attributes of small group instruction, the center reached 5,549 students, teachers and parents during the 20162017 school year in onsite visits.
McDuffie offers experiences in three distinctive habitats: sandhills, aquatic and wetlands. For kindergarten through second grade, students explore the Longleaf Pine Trail. This path takes them through a mature longleaf pine forest habitat where observation, data collection and math skills are practiced as students search for hidden objects along the trail. Additionally, students can identify the parts of a gopher tortoise habitat and draw conclusions about camouflage and other wildlife adaptations. Students in third grade and up explore the Blackwater Creek Swamp Trail. On this hike, students compare habitats: The trail begins in typical sandhill habitat, follows the banks of McDuffie Public Fishing Area lakes and hatchery ponds and ends in a hardwood wetland habitat. The change from sandhill habitat to wetlands is so distinctive that even the youngest visitor can tell the differences. Another exciting

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component of the Blackwater Creek Swamp Trail is an active beaver colony. Hikers walk within feet of several beaver dams and can easily recognize the impact these animals have on their environment, including providing habitat for many other forest and aquatic dwellers. Emphasis on the habitats found in the area ponds and lakes is highlighted at all grade levels, with activities varying from fish hatchery tours to macroinvertebrate studies and microscopic plankton studies.
To reinforce outdoor learning, programming features supplemental classroom instruction and hands-on activities, including take-home crafts. One example, the bead zipper pull for second-graders, not only uses skills in patterns but serves as a memory cue for the four stages of the butterfly life cycle. The Discovery Room exhibits offer the opportunity for students to see wildlife up close. There are displays of mounted native wildlife and an animal fur collection. Other displays include fossils, rocks and minerals, skeleton replicas and an aquarium.
With easy visitor access to the wetlands, one of the education center's areas of emphasis is wetland conservation. Best practices in maintaining the area's wetland are demonstrated to support this focus. Along with McDuffie Center funding, a generous grant from the Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission offices in McDuffie and Columbia counties was used to complete the raised boardwalk through the Blackwater Creek Swamp Trail during winter 2017. After several years of work, the trail through the wetland section now includes 768 feet of raised boardwalk and two observation and teaching platforms. Staff from the DNR Fisheries Management Section and the education center built the boardwalk with help from volunteers. All visitors can now safely hike the entire handicap accessible trail with a minimum impact to the wetland it traverses. The value of this trail for teaching the importance of wetlands and the interrelatedness of nature is immeasurable. In October 2016, the McDuffie County Soil and Water Commission presented the center with a Conservation Education Award for promoting education and conservation practices.
Partnering with the Hunter Development Program in Wildlife Resources' Game Management Section, the center added archery to the activities available for fifth-grade and up students. Two

staff members became certified instructors for the National Archery in the Schools Program. The program quickly became popular and is fast surpassing geocaching as one of the favorite activities at McDuffie. The center will continue working with Game Management to offer National Archery in the Schools teacher workshops during the 2017-2018 school year.
McDuffie does not limit its educational efforts to field trips. During the McDuffie Outdoor Adventure Day in September, staff provided tours through the education building's Discovery Room, as well as nature crafts in the classroom. At the 2017 Eco-Meet, held at the Savannah River Ecology Lab in Windsor, S.C., McDuffie continued its involvement with the Environmental Sciences Education Cooperative by operating the tiebreaker station. Students were challenged to produce a public service announcement on the general topic of conserving a local natural resource. In supporting educational partners at the Watson Brown Foundation, the center continued to assist in programming by teaching students about beavers and their adaptations at the Eco-Camps held at Hickory Hill in Thomson.
The Go Fish Education Center provides quality onsite environmental education programs focused on aquatic resource education and conservation. Over the past several years, the center's primary focus has been school field trips. However, the Go Fish Center also offers fish dissections, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) classes, homeschool lessons, a toddler program, and various community events. Started as a pilot, the fish dissection program has since spread to two schools, involving 405 students dissecting fish and generating more than $2,000 in revenue.
During the 2016-2017 school year, Go Fish partnered with a local elementary school to help with the school's STEM certification. STEM projects were developed, including aquaponics and fish attractors. Off-site at Flat Creek Public Fishing Area, 126 fourth-graders built 70 fish attractors for use in central Georgia public waters. During fiscal 2017, Go Fish Center staff also continued the center's homeschool program. Topics included junior aquarist, junior hatchery manager and various dissections (albatross bolus, fish stomach, worms). The program featured several guest speakers.

In fiscal 2016, Go Fish started a toddler program that became an overnight sensation with 94 participants at the first session a one-hour experience with live music, a live-animal program and hands-on activities and crafts. Since, the program has grown into four or five (depending on the season) one-hour sessions split between the theater and classroom. A city of Perry staff member volunteers to assist with the program. Recently, www.signupgenius.com has been used to streamline the registration process. The May 2017 toddler program had a record 202 participants.
Go Fish continued the State Fish Art contest during the past fiscal year. The center received 313 entries from across Georgia. Education staff also worked to get two new state fish added to Georgia's state fish list the red drum and Southern Appalachian brook trout. Staff also nominated a Georgia teacher for State Fish Art Teacher of the Year. Kathleen Petka of Walton High School in Marietta went on to win the National Teacher of the Year Award and receive $500 for school supplies from Wildlife Forever.
As part of a new push for community programming, Go Fish held its first Scuba Santa event. This included story time with Mrs. Claus, a sing-along, a lure-building demonstration and, of course, a Scuba Santa! Advertising was limited since the program was a pilot to judge participation. More than 100 people attended, and many inquired about a fiscal 2018 version of the program.
This fiscal year, the center played host to 8,579 education program participants. The Go Fish education program received more than $2,000 in educational supplies and financial donations. Looking to fiscal 2018, the center will continue providing quality educational programs. Goals include increasing participation numbers and revenue, exploring programming opportunities, creating and implementing an online field-trip survey, starting a community program, and developing an afterschool fishing program.
Grand Bay Wetland Education Center, a partnership between DNR and the Coastal Plains Regional Educational Services Agency, maintained a full schedule. During the 20162017 school year, approximately 9,500 students and 3,000 adults attended day classes at the center. Primary and secondary education students participated in programs that focused

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on native wildlife and resources in the area. All activities met Georgia Performance Standards.
With the support of superintendents, principals, teachers and parents in 12 school districts, Grand Bay filled its scheduling calendar for the school year in one week. Visiting primary students are immersed during the day with hands-on exercises in and out of the classroom. Students observe and learn about wildlife species and how these animals or plants affect the environment. Everything from apex carnivores such as American alligators to unusual plants such as the hooded pitcherplant are covered. Visits typically ended with a hike on the boardwalk and climbing Grand Bay's observation tower.
Taking a different approach, secondary education students performed exercises concerning water quality, wildlife identification and collection. The students are provided with necessary lab equipment and supplies for performing scientific methodology throughout each visit. The experiments include turbidity test, pH readings, dissolved oxygen and nitrate levels, and nomenclature usage and identification. Collecting and identifying nonendangered specimens is always a bonus for these students, who spend most of their day at Grand Bay on the boardwalk performing field tests and making observations.
While the busy schedule and limited staff do not allow for outreach programs during the school year, Grand Bay had a full summer in 2017. Valdosta State University and Wiregrass Georgia Technical College took part in day camps and attended lessons at the facility, as well. Students from Valdosta State's Biology Department attended sessions including ornithology, botany, dendrology and teacher education. Grand Bay staff attended the second annual Camp Timber program held at Wiregrass Tech. Lowndes County Sheriff's Department also began a partnership with Grand Bay during the summer in which students participated in Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) programs. Georgia Boy and Cub Scout troops also frequented the center during the summer. About 1,000 children and other students attended lessons during summer camps and school outreach programs concerning mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish found in south Georgia, as well as local plant communities and current environmental issues.

2017 Youth Birding Competition team (Rick Lavender DNR)

Youth Birding Competition
The Nongame Conservation Section held its 12th annual Youth Birding Competition on April 29-30, 2017. Participants again broke records for the number of bird species seen or heard within the 24-hour birdathon, with the overall winning team counting 170 species. Twenty-five teams signed up, underscoring the popularity of this annual spring event that promotes birding and conservation among young Georgians. Eight new teams competed in 2017.
During the Youth Birding Competition, teams of pre-K through 12th-grade birders representing schools, Scout troops, science clubs and other groups compete with teams of similar-aged youth to identify as many bird species as they can in the state.

As part of the 2017 event, the young birders also raised $2,178 for conservation projects throughout the state, pushing the cumulative fundraising for this event to more than $22,000. The event's T-shirt Art Contest attracted 248 drawings and paintings of native Georgia birds. A blue jay by Ava Wang, a 16-year-old from Duluth, proved the grand-prize winner and adorned the competition's T-shirts.
The Youth Birding Competition is aimed at cultivating an interest in birds and conservation. Sponsors include TERN, friends group of Nongame Conservation; the Georgia Ornithological Society; and the Atlanta and Albany Audubon societies. The event's reach is being expanded by Race4Birds, a foundation that is helping spread the Youth Birding Competition concept. Volunteers also are key to holding the competition banquet, awards ceremony and T-shirt art contest.

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Camp TALON
The Nongame Conservation Section held the eighth annual Camp TALON (Teen Adventures Learning Ornithology and Nature) on June 3-8, 2017. The foremost goal of the camp is to teach teens how to identify birds, but honing that skill only nicks the surface of this ecology-rich syllabus. Among other subjects, students learned about habitats and their management, threatened and endangered species, bird survey methods, coastal plants, island geology, how avian research is performed, the lives of invertebrates that live on beaches, and outdoor career opportunities. Using cabins on St. Simons Island as a base, participants traveled by bus or boat to each day's two or three birdwatching and outdoor classroom destinations. Sites included Sapelo, Little St. Simons, Andrews and Jekyll islands, as well as Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, Fort Stewart and Altama Plantation Wildlife Management Area.
Leaders included a dozen mostly volunteer teachers from state, federal and nonprofit agencies, as well as retired university faculty. The 12 students counted 125 species of birds

Camp TALON at Jekyll Island (Bob Sargent/DNR)

and brought home great memories. In addition to support from volunteers and from professional biologists, this camp's continued success is made possible by grants from the Georgia Ornithological

Give Wildlife a Chance poster by fifth-grader Juan Diego Orduz

Society, The Environmental Resources Network (TERN), the Georgia Natural Resources Foundation and the Atlanta Audubon Society. The 2018 camp is scheduled for June 2-7.
Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest
Kindergarten through fifth-grade students submitted about 1,500 posters for the 2017 Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest. This annual program has encouraged students to explore the wonders of Georgia's native plant and animal species through art for 27 years.
Students from 33 public schools, private schools and homeschool groups participated in 2017, taking to heart the event's theme "Keep Georgia Wild!" Artwork was judged based on aspects such as theme, originality, quality and impact.
The posters of state-level contest winners were displayed at the State Botanical Garden in Athens and posted on the Wildlife Resources Division's Flickr site. In addition, the parents and teachers of winners were offered free wildlife license plates.
The contest is organized and sponsored by DNR, the State Botanical Garden of Georgia and The Environmental Resources Network (TERN), the friends group of Nongame Conservation.

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Social Media
The DNR Wildlife Resources Division's social media sites Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr and a blog continued to grow in popularity in fiscal year 2017, spreading awareness of the division's conservation efforts and engaging its constituents. Wildlife Resources' Facebook page recorded 110,784 likes through June 2017, the end of the fiscal year. Twitter had nearly 8,185 followers, up from 6,927 the year before. The YouTube channel has drawn 444,871 views all told. The division's blog, which has a conservation-specific section,

logged 170,930 views for calendar year 2016. Instagram grew from 4,980 to 6,227 followers during the fiscal year.
It is no surprise that a nongame-related video attracted the largest audiences. The Georgia Wild video series featuring Nongame Conservation Section Environmental Outreach Coordinator Linda May and produced by Public Affairs' Heidi Ferguson has been a DNR blockbuster with its informative focus on backyard wildlife. An episode on small snakes led all division videos with more than 146,000 views, 2,370 shares and nearly 100 comments on Facebook. The series'

Kyle Coleman was one of three bloggers for 7Days4SeaTurtles (DNR)

DNR's Linda May on Georgia Wild

first video, on ruby-throated hummingbirds, registered more than 47,000 views and won Conservation Post of the Year in the 2017 Association for Conservation Information's national contest. Other Georgia Wild topics included bats, songbird nesting and "bumpy" squirrels (those infested with the larvae of tree squirrel bot flies).
Other popular posts included video of Nongame Conservation Section Program Manager Dr. Bob Sargent helping Auburn University's Southeastern Raptor Center release a rehabilitated bald eagle at West Point Lake, videos on the disentanglement of a North Atlantic right whale from commercial fishing gear, and footage a loggerhead sea turtle making her nest by day. The leading non-video post? News on Facebook about the discovery in Georgia of a wind scorpion a small but fierce-looking arthropod. That post reached nearly 81,000 people, fielding 85 comments and 436 engagements.
At the close of fiscal 2017, Public Affairs and Nongame Conservation staff created a #7Days4SeaTurtles social media campaign that used images, video and text on all Wildlife Resources Division platforms, including blog posts from a sea turtle technician, to raise awareness of sea turtle conservation and celebrate loggerheads surpassing one of the species' recovery benchmarks in Georgia 2,800 nests that summer (2016). The campaign racked up 212,011 reaches and impressions, 6,180 engagements and reactions, and 965 comments and shares. The outreach was repeated at the start of fiscal 2018.
The nongame e-newsletter Georgia Wild also grew in popularity, although the pace slowed compared to fiscal 2016. The number of subscribers increased by nearly 14 percent, or 11,000, to 92,400. Also, in summer 2017 Georgia Wild placed third in the external newsletter category at the annual Association for Conservation Information conference. The newsletter, which turned 10 in fiscal 2017, placed first in the national competition the year before and third in 2014.
Social media efforts and the e-newsletter not only broaden the reach of Nongame Conservation communications, they enhance interactivity and customer service.

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Other Outreach
Beyond youth contests, social media and the newsletter, the Nongame Conservation Section promotes awareness of nongame wildlife and issues in many ways speaking to civic, technical and special-interest groups, informing lawmakers on rare species, showing journalists research in the field, and working with other conservation organizations, to name a few examples.
In fiscal year 2017, the agency staffed events varying from CoastFest in Brunswick and Endangered Species Day at Atlanta Botanical Garden to the Georgia Association of Tax Officials' spring conference in Athens, Reptile Day at Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta and the 50th annual Rattlesnake & Wildlife Festival in Claxton. Employees provided interviews about wildlife and habitats to media including the Savannah Morning News, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Atlanta's National Public Radio station WABE-FM (90.1), The Augusta Chronicle, Georgia Public Broadcasting, The Associated Press and Atlanta Magazine. Topics ranged from sea turtle nesting to surveys of white-nose syndrome, a disease plaguing bats.
Outreach efforts are mentioned throughout this report. However, examples include:
n Wildlife biologist Clay George, working with other DNR staff, NOAA Fisheries Service, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation

DNR's Pete Griffin at Atlanta Botanical Garden Endangered Species Day (Linda May/DNR)

Commission and Sea to Shore Alliance, helped compile and coordinate videos documenting the successful disentanglement of a North Atlantic right whale dragging more than 150 yards of commercial fishing rope and a 135-pound trap or pot. As noted in the social media section, the videos, part 1 and part 2, drew significant traffic and wide use by media.
n Environmental Outreach Coordinator Linda May and artist Ami Flowers Staples revised the "Exploring Georgia's Wildlife" coloring book, correlating the content with new Georgia science standards for third-graders. Funded by

British birders and DNR's Lisa Kruse at Big Hammock (Rebecca Byrd/DNR)

The Environmental Resources Network (TERN), friends group of Nongame Conservation, the coloring book serves as a teaching aid for conservation while also promoting Wildlife Resources Division license plates.
n Using "Exploring Georgia's Wildlife," May and DNR's Katie Flowers helped Terrell County Tax Commissioner Mary Ellen Harnage organize a wildlife coloring page contest for area children. Winners were recognized at the tax office in May 2017 with a live animal presentation, goodie bags and their entries on display.
n The Weather Channel interviewed senior wildlife biologist John Jensen for a live segment about snakes and why they should be appreciated, not feared. In part responding to a reported rise in snake bites, Jensen also emphasized the importance of snakes on other outlets, including the 365 Atlanta Family blog.
n Journey, the Auburn University College of Science and Mathematics magazine, profiled Dr. J. Mincy Moffett Jr.'s pilgrimage from business to botany, resulting in his current work conserving rare plants and restoring natural habitats for Nongame Conservation.
n British birders touring Georgia's Coastal Plain received some rare insight into Big Hammock Wildlife Management Area when they happened across botanists Lisa Kruse and Rebecca Byrd at the WMA near Glennville.

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Swainsboro Sci-Fries Club with DNR staff at Ohoopee Dunes (DNR)

Kruse and Byrd, now Atlanta Botanical Garden conservation coordinator, explained Big Hammock's natural history to Eric and Gail Hampshire and Richard and Sue Rose, all from Worcester, England. The four subscribe to the Georgia Wild e-newsletter and said their trip to Georgia had been spurred in part by what they read about the state's diverse biology and focus on wildlife conservation.
n Moffett, Byrd and Private Lands Program biologist John Thrift of the Wildlife Resources Division Game Management Section led Swainsboro Middle School and East Georgia State College students in field trips and field work at Ohoopee Dunes Wildlife Management Area. Science teacher Deanna Ryan organized a "sand dune exploration" across two days for seventh-graders to learn about animals, plants and habitats. East Georgia biology students and Swainsboro Middle Sci-Fries Club members also helped plant endangered pond spice and pondberry at the WMA near Swainsboro.
n Wildlife biologist Eamonn Leonard worked with Georgia Outdoors to feature two Student

Conservation Association interns, hired through the Coastal Georgia Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area, in a "New Conservationists" episode for the Georgia Public Broadcasting program.
n Dr. Brett Albanese, now a Nongame Conservation program manager, helped create the Fishes of Georgia Photo Gallery on Flickr. Featuring photos of freshwater and commonly encountered marine fishes, the gallery helps the public identify and appreciate species found in Georgia.
n A video profile of wildlife biologist Tim Keyes and his focus on conserving birds was highlighted in the Wildlife Resources Division's employee e-newsletter and posted on Facebook.
n Program Manager Dr. Bob Sargent gave presentations to professional organizations and general audiences about bald eagles. Sargent was interviewed by Georgia Public Broadcasting, as well as by the Savannah Morning News and other newspapers, about conserving the species. Sargent and wildlife

biologist Todd Schneider also took part in the release of rehabilitated bald eagles at, respectively, West Point Lake and Red Top Mountain State Park.
n News releases written by Public Affairs' Rick Lavender promoted nongame projects varying from tracking manatees on Georgia's coast to the discovery of rare bog turtles at Brasstown Valley Resort & Spa in Young Harris. The announcement with Sea Turtle Program Coordinator Mark Dodd that loggerhead sea turtles had surpassed a nesting recovery benchmark in Georgia placed first in releases in the Association for Conservation Information's national contest.
n Nongame Conservation senior wildlife biologist Nathan Klaus shot time-lapse video of the west-central Georgia fire crew conducting a prescribed burn at Sandhills Wildlife Management Area in April. Georgia Wild featured the video.
n Linda May and Environmental Review Coordinator Anna Yellin organized and awarded a $1,000 grant to third-grade teacher Tiffany

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Smith of Forsyth's Samuel E. Hubbard Elementary. The grant from TERN recognizes Georgia's exceptional third- through fifthgrade teachers in life sciences.
n Wildlife biologist Steve Raper and John Thrift of the Private Lands Program staffed an information booth at the annual Southeastern Wood Producers Association meeting on Jekyll Island. In addition to general outreach topics, Raper and Thrift emphasized the protection of gopher tortoise habitats.
n Raper, Kruse and Oconee River Land Trust held a workshop on land protection for Georgia Botanical Society members at Panola Mountain State Park. Topics included landowner relationships, habitat-protection programs, conservation easements and land trusts.
n Wildlife biologist Katrina Morris spread the word about the importance of bats and efforts to research and combat the spread of white-nose syndrome. This outreach included talking with Gwinnett County Osborne Middle School students taking part in the First Lego League Challenge.
n Linda May highlighted Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan and DNR conservation partnerships during a National Wildlife Day presentation for about 80 Georgia Power employees in Atlanta. Children from a neighboring day-care center were invited over when high-priority native animals, including a gopher tortoise and eastern indigo snake, were shared with the audience.
n May and wildlife biologist Thomas Floyd helped Newton County Trails officials announce a new 15-mile rail trail, the Cricket Frog Trail. They shared live cricket frogs with the 160 attendees and drew attention to the species' "marbletapping" calls while on the trail.
n The promotion of wildlife cams shared on the Wildlife Resources Division's website Berry College's bald eagle nest cam, The Landings' osprey nest cam near Savannah and DNR's Go Fish Education Center aquarium cam continued to help raise awareness of nongame wildlife.
n Nongame Conservation's fiscal year 2016 report, compiled by section staff and

edited by Rick Lavender, placed second in the publications category at the annual Association for Conservation Information conference. The report includes summary, comprehensive and story map versions.
n Many biologists wrote popular articles and published research. For example, senior wildlife biologist John Jensen co-authored a study published in Southeastern Naturalist on the status of alligator snapping turtles in the Flint River nearly a quarter-century after commercial harvest was outlawed. Senior wildlife biologist Nathan Klaus' article in the Longleaf Alliance magazine described his research of new technology to measure duff moisture and resulting opportunities to burn fire-suppressed, old-growth longleaf

forests. Dr. Jessica McGuire, now manager of Wildlife Resources' Private Lands Program, co-authored a paper in Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation on the discovery of snake fungal disease in a Georgia mud snake.
n Wildlife Resources Division blog posts by Nongame Conservation staff included Assistant Chief Matt Elliott's profile of Alapaha River Wildlife Management Area, Anna Yellin's call to be on the lookout in Georgia for endangered rusty patch bumblebees, Lisa Kruse's insights into pitcherplants and their prey, wildlife technician Emily Ferrall's introduction to mussel conservation, and a discussion with Clay George about the downward trend in sightings of North Atlantic right whale calves and adults off the Georgia/Florida coast.

Banding rehabilitated bald eagle before release at Red Top Mountain (Gena Flanigen)

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L A N D ACQ U I S I T I O N A N D CO N S E RVAT I O N E AS E M E N TS
Sandhills WMA: Coleman Tract
Paulding Forest WMA: B.M. Jones, Forestar Tracts
Panola Mountain State Park: GDOT Tract

Sprewell Bluff WMA: Alexander, Beasley, CatchMark Tracts
Alligator Creek WMA: Alligator Creek Tract
Sansavilla WMA: Sansavilla Phase 2 Tract
Musgrove Plantation: St. Simons Land Trust Phase 2 Tract

Through its Real Estate Office, DNR acquired fee ownership of 13,207 acres for public recreation and conservation in fiscal 2017. A 90-acre conservation easement also was acquired. In all, these created a wildlife management area (Alligator Creek) and expanded five other WMAs, a state park and conservation lands on St. Simons Island.
The tracts were targeted in Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan to increase public recreation and expand conservation efforts across DNR-managed lands. The Alexander, Beasley and CatchMark tracts added to Sprewell Bluff Wildlife Management Area near Thomaston will allow DNR to restore more

montane longleaf pine habitat, conserve golden eagle habitat and expand protection along the scenic Flint River. The donation of the Panola Mountain State Park/Georgia Department of Transportation tract increases recreational opportunities and restores riparian buffer along the South River. The Alligator Creek Tract, now a wildlife management area, protects gopher tortoise habitat and the federally threatened eastern indigo snake, among other species. The phase 2 acquisition of Sansavilla Wildlife Management Area protects frontage along the Altamaha River, as well as gopher tortoise habitat. The acquisition also assures that this WMA near Brunswick will remain available to the public for recreation.

The Forestar and Jones tracts at Paulding Forest Wildlife Management Area near Dallas permanently protect and restore additional montane longleaf pine habitat, protect the headwaters for Raccoon Creek and provide areas popular for recreation, because of the tracts' proximity to Atlanta. The Coleman Tract, at Sandhills Wildlife Management Area near Butler, protects important habitat for species like the gopher tortoise and longleaf pine. The phase 2 acquisition of the Musgrove Plantation conservation easement on St. Simons Island protects several high-priority habitats such as brackish and saltwater marsh and maritime forest, as well as species such as the federally threatened wood stork.

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Longleaf pine at Sprewell Bluff (Nathan Klause/DNR)

DNR's Simon Dilts scopes a tortoise burrow at Alligator Creek (Rick Lavender/DNR)

Here is a brief description of each acquisition and a breakdown of the funding allocations.
n Sprewell Bluff WMA
Alexander Tract: The 2,720-acre Alexander Tract in Meriwether and Talbot counties was acquired as an addition to Sprewell Bluff. The property closed Sept. 29, 2016. The purchase price was $4,358,124. Funding included the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Restoration Program grant, $2 million; DNR bond, $1,608,124; National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $375,000; and the Knobloch Family Foundation, $375,000.
Beasley Tract: The 233-acre Beasley Tract in Meriwether County closed on Sept. 29, 2016. The purchase price was $384,936, which was supplied through a DNR bond.
CatchMark Tract: The 494-acre CatchMark Timber Trust Tract, also in Meriwether County, closed on Sept. 29, 2016. It was acquired for $692,547. Funding came from a DNR bond, $442,547; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $125,000; and the Knobloch Family Foundation, $125,000.

n Panola Mountain State Park: GDOT Tract
These 167 acres in Rockdale and DeKalb counties were a donation from the state Department of Transportation. The addition to Panola Mountain State Park closed on Dec. 12, 2016.
n Alligator Creek WMA: Alligator Creek Tract
The 3,087-acre Alligator Creek Tract (also known as Stanley Farms) in Wheeler County closed on Dec. 16, 2016. This purchase created Alligator Creek WMA and totaled $3,087,540. Funding included: DNR bond, $1,092,540; Fish and Wildlife Service recovery grant, $850,000; Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Restoration Program grant, $645,000; and the Knobloch Family Foundation, $500,000.
n Sansavilla WMA: Sansavilla Phase 2 Tract
The 4,500-acre Sansavilla phase 2 Tract was acquired Dec. 16, 2016, as an addition to Sansavilla WMA near Brunswick. This acquisition

in Wayne County resulted from a partnership between The Conservation Fund, The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marine Corps acquired an easement from The Nature Conservancy for $5,192,250, reducing DNR's purchase price to $3,842,486. Funding included: DNR bond, $3,836,821; other state funds, $5,665; and the Marine Corps, $5,192,250.
n Paulding Forest WMA
B.M. Jones Tract: The 391-acre B.M. Jones Tract in Paulding County was added to Paulding Forest and closed on Dec. 16, 2016, for $978,808. Funding included: Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Recovery Grant, $500,000; The Conservation Fund (Georgia Imperial Bat Fund), $353,808; and The Nature Conservancy (Stream Fund), $125,000.
Forestar Tract: The 500-acre Forestar Tract in Paulding County closed Dec. 19, 2016, for a purchase price of $1,358,904. Funding included: Fish and Wildlife Service recovery grant, $500,000; Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Restoration Program grant, $360,000; The Conservation Fund (Georgia Imperial Bat Fund), $373,904; and The Nature Conservancy (Stream Fund), $125,000.

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Etowah darter from Raccoon Creek (Brett Albanese/DNR)

n Sandhills WMA: Coleman Tract
The 1,115-acre Coleman Tract, in Taylor County, closed on Dec. 19, 2016, for $2,108,360 and was added to what is now Sandhills WMA. Funding included: Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Restoration Program grant, $850,000; DNR bond, $758,360; and the Knobloch Family Foundation, $500,000.
n Musgrove Plantation: St. Simons Land Trust Phase 2 Tract
St. Simons Land Trust bought the more than 90 acres (phase 2) of Musgrove Plantation in Glynn County on Feb. 15, 2017. Using a $1 million Fish and Wildlife Service grant from the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program, DNR then acquired a conservation easement on these acres that will prevent development.
Georgia Conservation Tax Credit Program
The Nongame Conservation Section administers the Georgia Conservation Tax Credit Program in conjunction with the State Properties Commission. This program provides a tax credit for taxpayers who place conservation easements on their land or make fee-simple donations to qualified organizations.
Of the 19 applications in 14 counties received in fiscal 2017, one was approved by the State Properties Commission and received the tax credit. Twelve of the 19 applications received pre-certification for the program and most have submitted final applications. In addition to the one certified application received in fiscal 2017, five applications received prior to the fiscal year were certified.
These six certifications protected a total of 2,710 acres using conservation easements donated to qualified organizations.
The staff managing the program is funded in part through the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority.

Prescribed fire at Sandhills WMA (Hal Massie/DNR)

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CO N S E RVAT I O N P L A N N I N G

State Wildlife Action Plan Revision
As coordinator of the State Wildlife Action Plan in Georgia, the Nongame Conservation Section completed and submitted revision of the plan for review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in September 2015. The revised plan, created with the help of DNR's conservation partners and updated with the most current information, was approved in September 2016.
The Wildlife Action Plan outlines critical areas of need, with a focus on keeping native species from declining to the point of requiring federal protection as threatened or endangered species. Developing, revising and implementing the plan are required to receive State Wildlife Grants.
Officially called the Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy, this plan a 10-year roadmap for conservation is the primary guiding document for much of Nongame Conservation's work. In fiscal year 2017, DNR also continued to serve with the Fish and Wildlife Service on a regional team reviewing late-arriving revisions of State Wildlife Action Plans, including one for the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Regional Conservation Partnerships
Since 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has received three mega-petitions to list a total of 496 species under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service's Southeast Region is responsible for roughly 60 percent of the workload to evaluate these species. More than 100 of the species are found in Georgia, amplifying the need for up-to-date status information to help inform the service's 90-day findings and 12-month findings to determine whether a listing is warranted.
Tackling emerging issues such as megapetitions to list species under the Endangered Species Act requires innovative approaches. One is the creation of regional conservation partnerships, such as the Southeast Atrisk Species Program, capable of achieving

Prescribed fire at Buzzard's Roost (Hal Massie/DNR)

Savanna milkweed (Alan Cressler)

success that could not be accomplished by individual states. Often referred to as SEARS, the Southeast At-risk Species Program was implemented by the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies in cooperation with the Fish and Wildlife Service. The goal is for states to work together to preclude the need to federally list species.
This and other proactive measures are contributing to conservation gains. From 2011 through fiscal year 2017, the Fish and Wildlife Service, working in partnership with state fish and wildlife agencies, has determined that 97 of the petitioned species did not warrant federal listing because of research or conservation actions. Another 14 species that were federally listed have been either down-listed or delisted.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives are another type of regional conservation partnership developed since the first version of Georgia's Wildlife Action Plan. The aim here is using a network of resource managers and scientists from a wide range of sources to more effectively integrate science and management in addressing climate change and other landscape-scale issues across regions. DNR is represented on the steering committees for each of the three cooperatives that include parts of Georgia: South Atlantic, Appalachian and Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks.
Early in fiscal 2017, the South Atlantic Cooperative released Blueprint 2.1, an adaptable, spatial plan that describes the places and actions needed to conserve natural and cultural resources for future generations. The blueprint provides a consistent plan that transcends boundaries and organizations in mapping out how the conservation community can respond to change.
The work of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives has led, in turn, to the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy, referred to as SECAS, an initiative by the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and others to knit together the conservation blueprints of cooperatives in the region. Scheduled for release in mid-October 2017, a first draft for the Southeast and Caribbean Land Conservation Cooperatives will combine conservation priorities of these cooperatives across the region into one map.

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FINANCIAL AND ADMINISTRATION

Income tax checkoff 4%
($113,606)
Donations & other income 11% ($302,704)

Earned interest 2% ($45,331)

Professional services (contracts, fees) 16% ($418,061)

REVENUE
TOTAL: $2,727,194*

Weekend for Wildlife* 22% ($599,142)

Nongame license plates 61% ($1,666,411)

Does not include federal and other grants or $477,213 in state appropriations for the Nongame Conservation Section.
* Includes revenue from Weekend for Wildlife that will be disbursed to the Nongame Conservation Fund through the Georgia Natural Resources Foundation.

EXPENDITURES
TOTAL: $2,551,788

Operations 19%
($469,576)

Personnel 65%
($1,664,151)

Expenditures paid through the Nongame Fund.

NONGAME CONSERVATION FUND

Listed in millions per year

12 M

11 M

10 M

INCOME

EXPENSES

BALANCE*

9 M

8 M

7 M

6 M

5 M

4 M

3 M

2 M

1 M

FY '08 FY '09 FY '10 FY '11 FY '12 FY '13 FY '14 FY '15 FY '16 FY '17
*Includes revenue from Weekend for Wildlife that will be disbursed to the fund through the Georgia Natural Resources Foundation.

Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund
For the second consecutive year, the Nongame Conservation Section received state appropriations $477,213 in fiscal 2017. However, because those appropriations made up less than 5 percent of the section's research and conservation budget, as in previous years fundraising remained a priority.
Nongame Conservation depends largely on three fundraisers: sales and renewals of nongame wildlife license plates (the bald eagle and hummingbird designs), the annual Weekend for Wildlife and the Georgia Wildlife Conservation Fund income tax checkoff. Contributions go to the Nongame Wildlife Conservation and Wildlife Habitat Acquisitions Fund, often referred to as the Georgia or Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund. Created in 1989, the fund is dedicated by state law to support nongame wildlife conservation, wildlife habitat acquisition and related educational and promotional projects.
The Environmental Resources Network, better known as TERN, friends group of Nongame Conservation, also provides significant support.

The Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund received an estimated $2.7 million in revenue in fiscal 2017. That included $1,666,411 in license plate sales and renewals, $113,606 via the state income tax checkoff, $599,142 from Weekend for Wildlife (which will be disbursed to the fund through the Georgia Natural Resources Foundation), $45,331 in earned interest and $302,704 in donations and other income. The total does not include federal and other grants. Revenue was up 18 percent from the $2.3 million raised in fiscal 2016 and has averaged $2.4 million annually over the past 10 years.
Expenses paid through the fund in fiscal 2017 totaled $2,551,788. Sixty-five percent of that amount, or $1,664,151, went to personnel expenditures, 19 percent ($469,576) to operations and 16 percent ($418,061) to professional services, including contracts and fees. The 10-year average for spending is $3 million a year. 2017 expenditures were in line with the average over the last eight years of $2.6 million per year.
From fiscal 2008 to 2017, the fund balance ranged from a high of nearly $9.2 million in 2008 to a low of $5.3 million in 2016. The balance increased to an estimated $5.5 million in 2017.

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Nongame License Plates
The bald eagle and ruby-throated hummingbird tags are the Nongame Conservation Section's largest fundraiser, a standard of support for more than 15 years. Sales and renewals provide about two-thirds of Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund revenues each year. In fiscal 2017, license plates accounted for 61 percent of estimated revenue, down from 66 percent in 2016 but up from 55 percent in 2015 and 41 percent in 2014. Though the percentages have fluctuated, license plate revenue has gradually increased since fiscal 2014. This year's $1,666,411 marked an 8 percent, or $124,574, increase over fiscal 2016.
The main reason for the positive trend? In 2014, state lawmakers lowered the cost of buying and renewing DNR wildlife plates to only $25 more than a standard state tag and dedicated up to 80 percent of those fees to wildlife programs that the plates benefit. Since July 1, 2014, $19 for each eagle and hummingbird tag bought and $20 for each one renewed has gone to help conserve nongame wildlife and natural habitats. Revenue from the tags bottomed out at $841,160 in 2014 and has risen since, from $1,526,087 in fiscal 2015 to $1,541,837 in 2016 and nearly $1.7 million this year.

Sales and renewals had spiraled downward after 2010 legislation upped the price for most specialty plates, reduced the share going to sponsor groups to $10 a tag, and added an annual renewal fee. While those changes initially increased revenue peaking at $1.9 million in 2011 for eagle and hummingbird tags the higher price, less money for conservation and additional fee soon undercut sales and renewals.
The challenge now is twofold: continue to slow the decline in renewals while bolstering the increase in plate sales through effective marketing. Key to both areas is the redesigned eagle and U.S. flag plate released in August 2016. A smaller, less vibrant version of this iconic combo sold from 2004-2013 and still ranks as Georgia's most popular specialty plate. The new eagle-flag tag is off to a promising start, outselling the design it replaced a flying eagle by nearly 43 percent, 7,452 to 5,224 plates, during comparable 11-month periods in fiscal 2017 and 2016 (the most recent data available).
Sales of this WL (wildlife) series plate, plus a bump in the number of hummingbird tags issued during the fiscal year, helped offset an almost 7 percent decline in renewals of both tags from 2016 to 2017. There were 75,613 eagle and hummer

plates on the road in Georgia at the close of fiscal 2017. That marks a 78 percent drop from 2010, when there were 347,401 nongame tags in circulation. One sign of progress, however, is that the rate of decline from 2016 to 2017 was about half the rate the previous year.
(Note: Tag revenue as distributed by the state Department of Revenue can include revenue collected outside the July-June fiscal year. Yet DNR tracks total plates issued and renewed by fiscal year. The differences can affect year-to-year comparisons. Also, 25 percent of net revenue from Jekyll Island's Georgia Sea Turtle Center plate goes to DNR for conserving nongame and is reported as tag revenue.)
Nongame Conservation and the Wildlife Resources Division's Pubic Affairs office worked in fiscal 2017 to raise awareness of the new eagle plate and the reduced price and increased benefits of nongame and other DNR plates. Efforts included a contest for county tag offices, outreach to tag office staff and tax commissioners, contacts with car dealers (which can sell plates to vehicle buyers), and targeted promotions, including eagle tag advertisements at football games of Georgia Southern University's Eagles. The Environmental Resources Network, friends group of Nongame Conservation, provided a $3,000 grant in 2016 for the contest promoting wildlife plate sales and renewals at county tag offices.
Weekend for Wildlife
Weekend for Wildlife is one of the country's most successful fundraisers for nongame conservation, grossing more than $10 million since 2001. The annual event started in 1989 draws 200-400 guests to the prestigious Cloister at Sea Island for a weekend of outdoor trips, auctions and dining.
The celebration in 2017, the 29th annual Weekend for Wildlife, raised more than $1 million for the second consecutive year. Excluding event-related expenses and fees, directed giving for targeted programs and money raised by TERN, $599,142 will be disbursed through the Georgia Natural Resources Foundation to the Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund.

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Conservation Teacher of Year Tiffany Smith (center) of Forsyth's Samuel Hubbard Elementary (DNR)

Georgia Wildlife Conservation Fund Checkoff
The state income tax checkoff offers Georgians a convenient way to donate to the Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund. Since the checkoff's creation in 1989, net contributions have averaged $282,000 and made up roughly 10 percent of Nongame Conservation Fund revenues. (This revenue is collected by calendar year.)
For the past two years, however, contributions to what is commonly called the Give Wildlife a Chance checkoff have hit new lows. 2017's total of $113,606 undershot the then-record $131,248 contributed in 2016. The checkoff's low before 2016 was $184,065 in 1994. This year's total represents a 53 percent drop-off from the $240,443 raised in 2015. Revenue ranged to an all-time high of $510,910 in 1991.
The Georgia Wildlife Conservation Fund checkoff is line 30 on the long state income tax form (Form 500) and line 10 of the short form (Form 500-EZ).
The Environmental Resources Network
The Environmental Resources Network, or TERN, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 to support Nongame Conservation Section activities. TERN, online at http://tern.homestead.com and on Facebook, raises most of its funds through membership dues and through auction, raffle and sale items at Weekend for Wildlife.
In fiscal 2017, TERN funded 16 project proposals, including three out-of-cycle requests, submitted by Nongame Conservation staff and totaling $58,142. Those projects included:

Summer Camp ACE (Adventures in Conservation Education) $7,000 Outdoor Wildlife Leadership School $6,240 Youth Birding Competition $5,500 Gopher tortoise exhibit $2,650 Pine Mountain and western sandhills native plant propagation $4,518 Study of the impacts of extreme high-tide events on sea turtle nesting $4,800 Regional management of invasive salt cedar $5,000 "Talking Nature Tuesday" video series $1,974 Integrating Youth Birding Competition participants into the Breeding Bird Survey $600 Shorebird research field equipment $7,000 Give Wildlife a Chance poster contest $2,250 Teacher Conservation Workshop $2,000 Trailer for transporting prescribed burn equipment $5,500 2017 Christmas Bird Count for young birders $840 TERN Outstanding Teacher Award $1,250 Camera for red-cockaded woodpecker research $1,020 (Hoyt Funds)
TERN provided financial support, as well, to several other projects and nongame-related conferences throughout the year.
Officers for the group include Brooks Schoen as president, Vice President Joey Slaughter, Secretary Kim Kilgore, Treasurer Jerry Booker, Executive Director Terry W. Johnson and Executive Secretary Wanda Granitz.

Federal and Other Funding
The Nongame Conservation Section received more than $8.9 million in federal and other grants during fiscal year 2017 to support projects that benefit nongame wildlife species and their habitats. Those grants included $2.85 million for land acquisition. Sources varied from the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program, the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund and National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program all administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Navy.
Use of these targeted grants, usually matched with funds from the Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund, included acquiring habitat for conservation and research, surveys, and occurrence data collection focused on at-risk species.
As part of that total, Nongame Conservation received $1,323,377 in State Wildlife Grants. The amount marked a $9,100 increase over fiscal 2016 and a $722,576 or 35 percent decrease from fiscal 2010, the program's funding high-point. A suite of federal conservation programs, including State Wildlife Grants, have been cut since 2010. State Wildlife Grants has bipartisan support. Its funding, however, is not sufficient for states to meet the conservation needs outlined in their State Wildlife Action Plans.
State and Tribal Wildlife Grants is the only federal program designed to prevent wildlife from becoming endangered through voluntary, proactive

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conservation. The DNR Wildlife Resources Division uses the funding to research and monitor species of greatest conservation need, restore habitat, acquire land, and accomplish other work identified in Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan. This plan, a comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy created in 2005 and revised in 2015 with partner agencies, organizations, stakeholders and the public, is required to receive State Wildlife Grants.
Conservation work spurred by the Wildlife Action Plan contributes to local and state economies by supporting the nation's more than 90 million wildlife watchers 16 years old and older, part of an outdoors recreation economy that generates more than $124 billion in tax revenue annually. In Georgia, State Wildlife Grants are critical to helping conserve wildlife and natural places for current and future generations. Wildlife viewing included more than 2.2 million Georgians and $1.8 billion in related expenditures in the state in 2011, according to a 2011 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey.
Considering the conservation needs identified in states' Wildlife Action Plans and the insufficiency of State Wildlife Grants to meet those needs, the push to secure dedicated funding to prevent more than 12,000 species from becoming endangered coalesced into the Alliance for America's Fish and Wildlife in fiscal 2017. The alliance grew out of the partnership developed by the Blue Ribbon Panel on Sustaining America's Diverse Fish and Wildlife Resources. Organized by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the 26-member panel comprised of national leaders representing outdoor recreation retail and manufacturing, energy and automotive industries, private landowners, educational institutions, conservation organizations, sportsmen's groups, and state fish and wildlife agencies worked to identify a new funding mechanism to support state fish and wildlife conservation to ensure the sustainability of wildlife.
The panel released its recommendations in March 2016:
n Congress should dedicate $1.3 billion annually in existing revenue from the development of energy and mineral resources on federal lands and waters to the Wildlife Conservation Restoration Program. Without requiring a new tax, these funds would provide states with the resources needed to implement Wildlife Action Plans. Georgia's share (if fully realized

through the proposed match ratio) would be an estimated $31 million annually, compared to the less than $1.5 million received from State Wildlife Grants.
n A working group should be convened to examine the impact of societal changes on the relevancy of fish and wildlife conservation and make recommendations on how programs and agencies can evolve to engage and serve broader constituencies.
At the start of fiscal 2017, the Recovering America's Wildlife Act was introduced in the House of Representatives. As outlined in the Blue Ribbon Panel recommendations, the legislation would provide dedicated funding for the Wildlife Conservation and Restoration Program, established in 2000 as a subaccount under the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act. Pittman-Robertson, officially the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, has provided states critical funding for wildlife management and conservation funding since its passage in 1937.
DNR's Wildlife Resources Division has helped shape the effort to identify dedicated funding for states to conserve nongame. That effort included former directors Dan Forster and David Waller taking part in the Blue Ribbon Panel's first meeting.
Learn more about the Alliance for America's Fish and Wildlife and Recovering America's Wildlife Act at www.ournatureusa.com.

DNR's Kim Morris-Zarneke with Georgia Environmental Alliance award

Administration and Personnel
Early in fiscal year 2017, DNR Commissioner Mark Williams appointed Rusty Garrison as director of the agency's Wildlife Resources Division, effective Aug. 1. Garrison, an 18-year DNR employee, had served most recently as manager of Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Mansfield. He previously worked as assistant chief of Wildlife Resources' Game Management Section and state coordinator of Project WILD (Wildlife in Learning Design), a wildlife-based conservation and environmental education program. Garrison filled the position left vacant by Dan Forster, who retired.
In other personnel news:
n Matt Elliott was promoted from program manager at the Nongame Conservation Section's Social Circle office to assistant chief of the section. Among other work, Elliott was key in developing and implementing the State Wildlife Action Plan, leading the Gopher Tortoise Initiative and coordinating staff involvement in the Southeast At-risk Species program.
n Dr. Brett Albanese was promoted to the vacant program manager position. Albanese, an aquatic zoologist, supervised nongame aquatic research and survey programs, and worked to prioritize research, survey and conservation efforts for imperiled aquatic fauna throughout the Southeast.
n Kim Morris-Zarneke was named business operations senior manager at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Mansfield. Morris-Zarneke has more than 20 years of experience in environmental education and is a past president of the Environmental Education Alliance of Georgia. She filled the position left vacant by Garrison, the new Wildlife Resources director.
n At the Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance Conference, Morris-Zarneke was presented an award for Outstanding Service to Environmental Education. Through her years of leadership, she has exemplified the alliance's mission to "promote communication and enrichment among professionals" in environmental education, according to the organization.
n The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service honored five DNR employees with a Regional Director's

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DNR's Tim Keyes (Linda May/DNR)

Honor Award for Conservation Partners in May 2017. The five included Nongame Conservation Chief Dr. Jon Ambrose, nongame Assistant Chief Matt Elliott, DNR Real Estate Chief Steve Friedman, nongame Program Manager Jason Lee and wildlife biologist Brent Womack of the Wildlife Resources Division's Game Management Section. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife Resources has taken the lead on working with partners to establish new and expanded conservation lands at strategic locations, including adding to Paulding and Sheffield Forest wildlife management areas in northwest Georgia and "significant efforts" to expand the lower Altamaha River conservation corridor. Former Wildlife Resources Director Dan Forster also received a Regional Director's Honor Award for his work on state, regional and national levels as "a guiding force in Southeastern species and habitat conservation."

n In January 1017, the conservation group One Hundred Miles named Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan as one of the 100 most significant accomplishments in coastal resource stewardship. DNR's Youth Birding Competition, started and still led by Nongame Conservation biologist Tim Keyes, was recognized in the One Hundred Miles 100 "next generation" category. The awards honor people and organizations that have made a significant difference for Georgia's coastal resources, according to the organization.
n Jenifer Wisniewski, Wildlife Resources Division marketing and communications manager, was elected vice president of the Association for Conservation Information. The national organization is made up of communicators representing state and federal wildlife, parks and natural resource agencies, as well as private conservation organizations.

FWS Regional Director's Honor Awards presented by Cindy Dohner (center) to, L-R, DNR's Jon Ambrose, Matt Elliott, Steve Friedman, Jason Lee and Brent Womack (USFWS)

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GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES WILDLIFE RESOURCES DIVISION
NONGAME CONSERVATION SECTION
2067 U.S. Highway 278 SE, Social Circle, GA 30025 (770) 761-3035
OFFICES ALSO AT:
116 Rum Creek Drive, Forsyth, GA 31029 (478) 994-1438 2065 U.S. Highway 278 SE, Social Circle, GA 30025 (770) 918-6411 One Conservation Way, Suite 310, Brunswick, GA 31520 (912) 264-7218
Mark Williams n Commissioner, DNR Rusty Garrison n Director, Wildlife Resources Division Jon Ambrose n Chief, Nongame Conservation Section Matt Elliott n Assistant Chief, Nongame Conservation Section Dr. Brett Albanese, Jason Lee, Bob Sargent n Nongame Program Managers
Steve Friedman n Chief, DNR Real Estate Office Linda May n Nongame Environmental Outreach Coordinator
Rick Lavender n Report Editor Contributors: Nongame Conservation Section staff, DNR Real Estate Office, DNR Law Enforcement Division
Design: OM Graphic Design
FOLLOW US /WildlifeResourcesDivisionGADNR
/GeorgiaWild /georgiawildlife /georgiawildlife.wordpress.com, a Wildlife Resources blog /GeorgiaWildlife /photos/wildliferesourcesdivision
Also sign up for the Nongame Conservation Section's free e-newsletter, Georgia Wild. Subscribe under the Education tab at www.georgiawildlife.com.
Cover photo: Gopher tortoise entering burrow (Kevin Stohlgren)

Groundcover under loblolly pine (Nathan Klaus)