Utah gets funds to protect 2 species

Interior Secretary Gale Norton awarded grants Thursday to help Utah efforts to protect the threatened Utah prairie dog and the rare Virgin River spinedace, a desert fish.

She awarded $80,000 to the Shivwits Band of the Paiute Tribe for efforts designed to help the spinedace, and $55,590 to Environmental Defense to improve forage on private lands in Iron County for the Utah prairie dog.

The Interior Department said the grant to the Shivwits will help the band "take an active leadership role in managing important natural resources, such as fish, wildlife, habitat and water flows on their reservation." It said it will focus on conditions of the Santa Clara River and will help prepare recommendations on how to restore and protect the spinedace.

It said the money for the prairie dog is to improve forage on private lands in Iron County, and then introduce and maintain populations of the prairie dog there. The department said, "This is a new conservation approach for this species, which until now has been largely protected solely on public lands."

The Utah grants were part of $16 million for 150 projects in 42 states announced by Norton on Thursday, all designed to share costs with tribes and private groups to conserve threatened, endangered and at-risk species across the country.

Norton said the grants empower "tribes and private citizens to do what the federal government cannot do alone — conserve habitat for imperiled species on private and tribal lands."

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