Wildlife Viewing Grants Recipients

Celebrating Bat Week, DNR biologist Katrina Morris (center) opens a bat walk near bat houses added to the Oconee Rivers Greenway as part of an Athens-Clarke County wildlife viewing grants project. (Athens-Clarke County) | Photos including other projects available on SmugMug.

2024

Big Haynes Creek Nature Center/City of Conyers

$3,000 to install an ADA-compliant canoe/kayak launch at Big Haynes Creek Nature Center.

Georgia 4-H Club Foundation

$3,000 for binoculars for the ornithology program at Burton 4-H Center on Tybee Island.

Southeastern Trust for Public Lands

$3,000 to build wildlife viewing blinds at Talking Rock Nature Park in Talking Rock.

Summerville Middle School

$2,576 for creating a native plants “sensory” garden for pollinators and involving students at the school in Summerville,

The Learning Tree Academy

$3,000 for developing publicly accessible monarch-focused habitat at the Toccoa school.

Southern Conservation Trust

$1,500 for informational signage about wildlife and habitats at 120-acre Nesmith Preserve near Starr’s Mill High School in Fayetteville.

2023

Forsyth County

$1,915 for gear including a bat call detector, portable demonstration bat house and red-light headlamps to equip outreach programs educating the public about bats.

Little St. Simons Island Center for Coastal Conservation

$3,000 for cameras to capture time-lapse imagery of Little St. Simons habitats and wildlife to reach people about conserving coastal ecosystems.

Cubihatcha Outdoor Education Center

$3,000 for interpretive trail signs that promote self-guided exploration at the 1,000-acre Henry County Water Authority center in Locust Grove.

The Wanderland Society

$3,000 to help build a multistory, birds-nest design viewing tower for campers, other users and the general public at Wanderland Campground near Rising Fawn.

Athens-Clarke County

$2,954 for bat houses and signage to create a bat viewing area beside a “night” demonstration garden at the Athens-Clarke Extension office.

2022

Manomet

$2,999 to create shorebird guides and banded-bird stickers to help steward programs inform the public about priority species on Georgia beaches and other coastal sites.

Friends of Hard Labor Creek State Park

$3,000 to build observation platforms along a 2.5-mile nature trail at the park near Rutledge, improving access to wildlife-viewing areas.

Lavonia Elementary School

$3,000 for row cover and native trees and plants to expand Betty’s Garden, a project at the Lavonia school focused on pollinators.

Environmental Education Alliance

$3,000 to provide wildlife cameras and support materials for teacher-and-student projects to investigate local wildlife at schools and ed centers.

Phinizy Center for Water Sciences

$2,400 to help buy materials needed to repair the Sunrise Pond boardwalk at Phinizy Swamp Nature Park near Augusta.

2021

Georgia Wildlife Federation

$3,000 for signage and outreach for an expanded wildlife trail through prescribed fire demonstration areas, along with signage for a swamp trail at the federation’s Alcovy Conservation Center in Covington.

Prater’s Mill Foundation

$2,938 to build two wildlife viewing platforms along Coahulla Creek nature trails at Prater’s Mill Historic Site in Varnell.

Wolf Creek Trout Lily Preserve

$2,844 for trail upgrades to improve access at the Grady County preserve near Cairo.

Georgia Audubon

$1,996 for signage to help visitors spot and identify birds at Constitution Lakes Park in Atlanta.

Georgia 4-H Foundation

$3,000 to install two wildlife viewing gardens featuring native plants at the Burton 4-H Center on Tybee.

ABAC Foundation

$2,097 to replace the boardwalk in a nature study area at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton.

2020

Friends of Oatland Island Wildlife Center

$2,160 to buy and install commercial-grade binoculars near a freshwater pond and wood stork rookery on the Savannah center.

One Hundred Miles

$2,445 for outreach regarding responsible viewing of sea turtles and shorebirds and involving turtle-friendly flashlights and communications.

Lavonia Elementary School

$2,970 to create a monarch and pollinator garden of native plants at the school as part of a community project.

City of Watkinsville

$2,885 to add bat houses, native plant plots and programs focused on bats at the city’s Harris Shoals Park.

Atlanta Audubon

$3,000 to build a tower for chimney swifts at Atlanta’s Freedom Park, as well as to help create signage and hold events that relay the importance of conserving native birds.

Friends of Panola Mountain State Park

$3,000 to replace all boards on a popular viewing platform that overlooks a granite outcrop at the Stockbridge park.

2019

DeKalb County Recreation, Parks and Cultural Affairs

$3,000 for a mountain trail viewing platform with interpretive signage at Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve.

Georgia 4-H Foundation

$3,000 for a project adding a platform, viewing scope and interpretive panels overlooking a marsh pond at 4-H Tidelands Nature Center on Jekyll Island.

Georgia Wildlife Federation

$3,000 to repair and upgrade a boardwalk and observation platform in a Piedmont tupelo river swamp at the Alcovy Conservation Center near Covington.

Gwinnett County Department of Community Services

$2,198 to develop monarch and related pollinator habitats with signage and outreach at Gwinnett parks.

Southeastern Trust for Parks and Land

$2,832 to build a chimney swift tower and kiosks that highlight area wildlife of concern at Talking Rock Nature Preserve in Pickens County.

Satilla Riverkeeper

$2,000 for adding at Burnt Fort landing near Woodbine a Satilla River Water Trail kiosk and signage exploring the trail and key species and habitats along the river.