Enhancement of Turtle Recruitment in the Kalamazoo River (Kalamazoo River NRDAR) | F17AS00007

Opportunity Information: Apply for F17AS00007

The "Enhancement of Turtle Recruitment in the Kalamazoo River (Kalamazoo River NRDAR)" grant opportunity is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funding initiative created as part of the natural resource damage assessment and restoration (NRDAR) process following the 2010 Enbridge Line 6B oil spill in southern Michigan. On July 25, 2010, the 30-inch Line 6B pipeline ruptured near Marshall, releasing crude oil into wetlands connected to Talmadge Creek and then into the Kalamazoo River, ultimately contaminating river and floodplain habitats for roughly 38 miles downstream to Morrow Lake. Because the spill affected both aquatic and floodplain environments, it also harmed wildlife that depends on those habitats, including multiple turtle species. During the emergency response, approximately 3,800 oiled turtles were rehabilitated and released back into the system, with notable impacts documented for common map turtles, snapping turtles, painted turtles, and eastern spiny softshell turtles.

This funding opportunity supports a restoration project specifically aimed at improving turtle recruitment (the successful production and survival of young turtles entering the population) in the affected Kalamazoo River system. The core work described centers on locating and protecting turtle nests to increase hatching success and bolster population recovery. Project activities are expected to include capturing female turtles, fitting or tracking them with radio telemetry to find nesting locations, and then building nest enclosures designed to keep predators out. After nesting, project staff return to the protected nests to assess outcomes such as hatching success, and then release hatchlings to help strengthen the next generation of turtles in the river corridor. This approach targets a common bottleneck for turtle populations: high egg and hatchling predation rates that can severely limit recruitment even when adult turtles survive.

A notable feature of this project is its connection to the earlier spill-response rehabilitation effort. Turtles that were cleaned, treated, and released during the response were marked (using internal tags and/or shell notching). Because of that marking, researchers working under this project can identify whether turtles captured and tracked today were among those rehabilitated after the spill. The opportunity states that capture and release records for rehabilitated turtles will be made available to project participants, which creates an unusually strong foundation for follow-up research and long-term evaluation. Beyond simply protecting nests, the project is intended to generate data that can be combined with the earlier rehabilitation dataset to answer broader scientific and management questions, including population structure, growth patterns, survivorship, and recruitment trends after environmental oil exposure. In other words, the work is designed not only to produce more hatchlings in the short term, but also to improve understanding of how turtle populations recover after a major contamination event.

Administratively, this opportunity is offered as a discretionary cooperative agreement rather than a standard grant, which signals that the federal agency will play an active role during the project instead of simply providing funds. The East Lansing Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is described as being "substantially involved" in implementation and evaluation. That involvement includes on-site monitoring to document that the project is being carried out as planned, ecological monitoring to measure outcomes (such as nesting success and recruitment indicators), and the development and delivery of outreach materials to communicate results to the public, stakeholders, and the Natural Resource Trustees overseeing restoration. The notice also indicates that, depending on staffing and funding, the Service may assist with implementation, reinforcing that this is meant to be a collaborative restoration effort with federal participation throughout.

In terms of basic funding details, the opportunity is listed under the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, with CFDA number 15.658 and a funding activity focus on environment and natural resources. It is identified by Funding Opportunity Number F17AS00007. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any type of entity), subject to any additional eligibility clarifications in the official notice of funding opportunity (NOFO). The listed award ceiling is $300,000, and the opportunity anticipated up to five awards. The opportunity was created on October 20, 2016, with an original closing date of January 13, 2017, and applicants were directed to the NOFO for specific submission instructions. Overall, the program is a targeted, science-based restoration investment meant to directly offset spill-related injuries to turtle populations by improving nesting success and generating long-term data that can guide continued recovery work in the Kalamazoo River watershed.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the environment, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Enhancement of Turtle Recruitment in the Kalamazoo River (Kalamazoo River NRDAR)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.658.
• This funding opportunity was created on Oct 20, 2016.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jan 13, 2017 See NOFO for application instructions.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for F17AS00007

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: