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In fact, more than half of the completed grants have focused on species
or community-based assessments. These surveys have illuminated the cave
life found in northeastern Oklahoma, tallied the mammal communities found
on western Wildlife Management Areas, and mapped winter bird occurrences
across the state. While most projects are limited to a two- to four-year funding
period, others spark a series of projects that more fully implement the state’s
conservation plan.
Mark Howery, a senior wildlife biologist who was instru-
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mental in shaping Oklahoma’s State Wildlife Grant Program,
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said, “Grants often build upon earlier work. A prime exam-
com/ODWC-wild-side. To review
ple is a project that looked at the genetic variation among
final reports from many surveys and
populations of alligator snapping turtles.
research funded by the State Wildlife
“We learned these turtles aren’t very genetically diverse,
Grants Program, scan this code:
which means biologists can responsibly take an alligator
snapping turtle whose parents came from the Arkansas River
watershed and release it in the Red River watershed because the two populations
are so genetically similar. This project has been foundational for the reintroduction
work now occurring at the Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge.”
The planning efforts necessary for identifying survey and research needs have
similarly inspired long-term conservation work.
“Planning grants can provide the information needed to move project-level
funding into program-level funding,” Howery said. “For example, a paddlefish
research project, along with other work funded by the Sport Fish Restoration

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