Maine tribes get $778K from U.S. Funds for wildlife conservation

Maine’s Indian tribes have been awarded more than three-quarters of a million dollars in federal grants for wildlife conservation projects, including dam removals on the Penobscot River, a search for wolves and cougars Down East and an effort to save the tree at the heart of Maine’s native basket industry.

Federal officials announced $14 million in grants during a press conference Tuesday in Washington, saying that the funds represent the first awards from two new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs created for tribes.

“We know that wildlife has enormous economic, cultural and spiritual value for the tribes,” Marshall Jones, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Tuesday.

The land controlled by federally recognized tribes exceeds more than 90 million acres scattered all across the country, said Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

“That’s a lot of wildlife habitat,” Norton said Tuesday. “Native Americans have a special relationship with the land. … [The tribes] are in a unique position to preserve wildlife.”

Tuesday’s grants fall into two categories, the Tribal Landowner Incentive Program, which requires 25 percent matching funds and is limited to projects related to threatened and endangered species; and the Tribal Wildlife Grants, which don’t require a match and can be used for any species that the tribe deems important.

Nationwide, $14 million was awarded to 79 projects sponsored by 60 tribes in 23 states. Maine has five successful projects, with $778,839 going to the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Penobscot Indian Nation and the Passamaquoddy Tribe.

The Penobscot Indian Nation received two awards. First, a $198,625 incentive grant will fund the tribe’s efforts in the ongoing Penobscot River Restoration Project. The cooperative effort to remove two dams from the Penobscot River and improve fish passage on a third is expected to reopen the river to federally protected Atlantic salmon and short-nosed sturgeon.

The Penobscots also received $250,000 for a two-year study of moose and deer populations on their 80,000 acres of tribal land in central Maine, natural resource director John Banks said Tuesday.

Though subsistence hunting for big game is a traditional part of the Penobscot culture, management of deer and moose population has been limited because of a lack of funding. Banks hopes to use data from the study to update the tribe’s game laws to ensure a sustainable hunt as well as to identify areas that could benefit from habitat improvement projects, Banks said.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe, based in Princeton, will use a $180,700 incentive grant to survey for populations of federally threatened Canada lynx and Grey wolves as well as federally endangered Eastern cougar on their 200,000 acres of tribal lands Down East. A tribal wildlife biologist could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The Aroostook Band of Micmacs will focus its $80,647 wildlife grant on the brown ash tree – a wetland species that feeds countless birds and provides the wood used by native basket makers. In recent years this crucial tree has been on a steady decline, Micmac environmental director Fred Corey said Tuesday.

The Micmacs plan to study and care for a 10-acre patch of healthy young ash on their 1,000 acres of tribal land in the Presque Isle area. They also expect to restore natural wetland habitat by planting about 3,200 ash seedlings on a 30-acre plot, Corey said.

Though the funding will cover a year of effort, Corey hopes that the Micmacs’ brown ash conservation project can continue indefinitely.

“It’s a lifelong process,” he said.

The Maliseets will use their $68,867 wildlife grant to fund a range of habitat improvements, to be conducted over the next three years, on their 854 acres in Houlton and Littleton, David Lombard, tribal environmental protection and forestry specialist, said Tuesday.

Historic apple trees will be cared for, and blight-resistant American chestnuts will be planted, to improve the food supply for deer, bear and many species of birds.

Tribal lands will be surveyed for invasive plants, including purple loosestrife and Japanese knotwood, a plant that resembles bamboo.

Finally, nest boxes will be constructed for native species such as bluebirds and wood ducks that are rare in southern Aroostook because intensive logging cuts down the dead, cavity-riddled trees the creatures use for nesting.

Together, the projects should boost populations of native wildlife, Lombard said.

“The wildlife is an important resource. It helps bring back that cultural identity to have these species on the land,” he said.