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Six grant projects announced today by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources will improve public opportunities to see and learn about native animals and plants statewide.
The proposals chosen by the DNR Wildlife Resources Division for this year’s Wildlife Viewing Program grants range statewide from signs exploring native fish in the Flint River near Albany to community bat programs in Clarkston and a native plant “waystation” for monarchs in Toccoa.
The grants, funded by the Georgia Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund, help develop and enhance wildlife viewing options with an emphasis on State Wildlife Action Plan species and habitats. Georgia’s Wildlife Action Plan is a comprehensive strategy to conserve these animals, plants and places before they become rarer and costlier to conserve or restore.
This year’s recipients and their projects include:
- The Jones Center at Ichauway – $4,349 to build and install signage highlighting the diversity of native fishes in the Flint River along river trails in Albany and other sites in the watershed.
- Georgia 4-H Foundation – $2,169 to provide high-quality spotting scopes for students at 4-H Camp Jekyll to view wildlife, especially shorebirds, seabirds and wading birds.
- Horti-Floral Garden Club – $5,000 to restore and expand with native plants a waystation for monarch butterflies and other pollinators at the historic train depot in Toccoa.
- Friends of Forty Oaks – $4,125 to support bat-related outreach at Clarkston’s Forty Oaks Nature Preserve with bat houses, signage, detection equipment and other items.
- Chattahoochee Nature Center – $5,000 to help buy and install a dual, ADA-accessible viewer and signage on a wetlands viewing platform at the Roswell center.
- Southeastern Trust for Parks and Land – $5,000 to create signs about native habitats and wildlife species as well as install benches and provide binoculars at two south Fulton County parks.
These projects include work and support by partners that will amplify the grants provided. Each will also help people experience the Georgia’s native wildlife, including species and habitats identified in the State Wildlife Action Plan, according to Matt Elliott, chief of DNR’s Wildlife Conservation Section.
“We are thrilled to be able to support these conservation partners in these types of quality projects focused on high-priority species and habitats throughout the state,” Elliott said.
The grants are small – capped at $5,000 each – but the interest they target is large. In 2022, wildlife viewing involved more than 148 million people nationwide, or nearly 60 percent of the population. That total has been growing since the mid-1990s. In Georgia, an estimated 4.8 million residents, almost three out of every five residents 16 or older, said they took part in wildlife viewing activities such as observing, feeding or photographing wildlife. Nationwide, related expenditures reached $250 billion in 2022.
Among other work, in 2025 the DNR grants helped refurbish a popular wildlife viewing tower near Darien, hold prescribed-fire field days for landowners and bird watchers as part of a Burning for Birds Collaborative, print beach-bird guides for steward programs raising awareness of priority coastal bird species and supply spotting scopes and binoculars for wildlife-focused outreach at a Carroll County park.
The Wildlife Conservation Section works to restore and conserve nongame wildlife, rare native plant species and natural habitats through research, management and education. The section depends largely on fundraisers, grants and donations to the Nongame Wildlife Conservation Fund. Sales and renewals of DNR’s eagle and monarch license plates, plus renewals of the hummingbird tag, provide critical funding.
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