Recovery of the Federally Listed Endangered Iowa Pleistocene Snail | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

This grant opportunity, titled "Recovery of the Federally Listed Endangered Iowa Pleistocene Snail," is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) cooperative agreement focused on advancing recovery actions for the Iowa Pleistocene snail (IPS), a federally listed endangered species strongly tied to a very specialized habitat type known as algific talus slopes (ATS). The USFWS and its partners have already built a network of protected ATS habitats that support the species, and the agency believes that with additional targeted monitoring and strategic land protection, the existing conservation framework may be enough to move the snail closer to recovery. The work is grounded in the Rock Island, Illinois Ecological Services Field Office 2013 five-year review, which laid out practical next steps: locate additional colonies, consistently monitor known colonies to understand their status, and permanently protect additional occupied sites, including at least one in the southeastern portion of the species range to improve geographic representation and reduce risk.

A key reason the opportunity emphasizes renewed searching is that IPS distribution is naturally patchy and difficult to confirm with one-time visits. The species can migrate vertically through the soil, meaning it may not be detectable at the surface during a single survey, and thorough, repeated, and systematic searches are needed to confidently determine whether a slope is occupied. Many potentially suitable slopes were only surveyed once, with some not revisited since the 1980s. The partners also have strong expectations that additional colonies remain undiscovered because many apparently unoccupied or unknown slopes sit in adjacent drainages to occupied areas or within watersheds already known to support the species. Past search efforts in occupied watersheds have produced new occupied slopes, with the Buck Creek Watershed example noted as a case where extensive searching helped identify a string of occupied sites now protected by The Nature Conservancy. In other words, the opportunity is not speculative in the abstract; it is built on the idea that better coverage of likely habitat can still yield meaningful discoveries.

The proposed project is organized around four practical objectives that together map onto a recovery strategy that blends science, land protection, and long-term stewardship. First, it aims to locate between one and five new IPS colonies on ATS that are already protected, such as public lands or private lands under existing conservation agreements. Finding colonies on already-protected slopes is particularly valuable because it can immediately strengthen the protected network without waiting for new legal protections to be put in place. Second, the project seeks to permanently protect between one and five known colonies that occur on private land, using conservation easements or fee-title acquisition. This component recognizes that a significant share of the remaining habitat and occupied sites are associated with private ownership, and that recovery depends on voluntary but durable protection mechanisms that prevent incompatible land use and maintain the unique microclimate conditions these slopes require.

Third, the project explicitly targets geographic dispersal of protected colonies, with a special emphasis on the southeastern extent of the snail's range. The five-year review recommended permanently protecting six additional colonies, including one in the southeast portion of the range, and this grant aligns with that recommendation by pursuing one of two approaches: either discovering at least one new colony on an already protected ATS in the southeast, or providing financial assistance to the Jo Daviess County, Illinois Conservation Foundation to acquire a known occupied slope in that area. The logic is straightforward: recovery is more resilient when protected populations are not clustered in one area, because localized disturbances, land-use change, or microclimate shifts could otherwise affect too many colonies at once. Building a better-spread network is a classic risk-reduction approach in endangered species recovery planning.

Fourth, the project prioritizes documenting the population status of all known IPS colonies through monitoring for species presence, described as occupancy monitoring. While the opportunity does not frame this as full demographic monitoring (such as abundance estimates), consistent occupancy data across sites is still a major step for tracking persistence, identifying declines or extirpations early, and evaluating whether protected sites are maintaining suitable conditions. Monitoring priority is given to colonies already protected and to colonies on private lands where landowner permission is granted and where conservation easements may be feasible, tying the monitoring effort directly to on-the-ground protection opportunities.

The opportunity also highlights the collaborative nature of the ongoing work and the continuity from prior field efforts. In 2013, the Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge (DANWR) and the Rock Island Ecological Services Field Office, working with Luther College and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, monitored IPS populations at 12 sites. At the same time, DANWR, the Rock Island office, and the Jo Daviess County Conservation Foundation were negotiating purchase or easement of an occupied site from a willing private seller. Partners for Fish and Wildlife biologists were also actively contacting private landowners in fall 2013 to gauge interest in easements and monitoring. Together, these details show that the grant is meant to push forward an already active pipeline of surveys, monitoring, and land-protection discussions rather than launching an entirely new effort from scratch.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary USFWS funding opportunity under CFDA 15.657 (Endangered Species Conservation, Recovery Implementation Funds) and uses a cooperative agreement as the funding instrument, signaling close involvement and coordination with the federal agency during implementation. The anticipated funding level is up to $150,000 total, with an award ceiling of $150,000 and no cost-sharing or matching requirement. Only one award was expected. Importantly, the notice states there is no open application process; it is a single-source notice of intent to award to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation under a specific justification. The posting date was March 24, 2014, with an original and current closing date of April 2, 2014, and the opportunity was archived April 3, 2014. A service contact was provided through the Rock Island office for access issues and questions.

Overall, the grant is best understood as a targeted recovery implementation package: find additional colonies where protection already exists, lock in permanent protection for currently known private-land colonies, strengthen the geographic spread of protected sites (especially in the southeast range margin), and build a clearer, standardized picture of where the species persists through occupancy monitoring. The combination of renewed systematic searches, land-protection tools like easements and acquisition, and prioritized monitoring is designed to close information gaps left by decades-old survey coverage and to convert promising conservation momentum into durable recovery progress.

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