Inventory and Monitoring of Northern Red-bellied Cooter (NRBC), UMASS

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Region 5, intends to make a sole source award of a cooperative agreement to UMass, who will work closely with MDFW to implement this work. This award is for the amount of $58,000. UMass has been working closely with MDFW, Eastern Massachusetts NWR Complex, and the New England Field Office for several years to secure funding through the CRI to reevaluate the NRBC population and range to determine if down listing of this species is warranted. MDFW and the USFWS have also been working together on a NRBC headstarting program for decades, and evaluation of this program will be incorporated into this work. The Cooperator is uniquely qualified to implement the proposed inventory and monitoring recovery actions because they are based on protocols which they developed for another rare aquatic turtle, Blanding¿s turtle.