Deadline: 3-Feb-23
The Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) is seeking applications for the Invasive Mussels Lake Monitoring Fund 2023.
The purpose of the Invasive Mussels Lake Monitoring Fund is to ensure lakes and rivers across the province of BC are actively sampled and monitored for the presence of invasive zebra and quagga mussels.
HCTF is administering this fund to provide support to various agencies and community organizations across the province to participate in the sampling of waterbodies. This program has been funded through a contribution to HCTF from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy (ENV).
Funding Information
- There are no specific restrictions on the amount of funding which may be provided, but typical grants for this program are in the $5-15K range. Requests significantly over $15K will require a strong rationale.
- Funding Period: This call for applications is for the 2023 field season only. They anticipate sending notifications of funding in early April 2023, and reports will be due in November 2023.
Eligible Activities and Expenses
- This grant opportunity is available only for the following specific activities, as outlined in the Field Protocol, including:
- Collecting plankton tow water samples from waterbodies as identified by the province to test for the presence of zebra and quagga mussel veliger larvae.
- Material costs to build substrate samplers to test for the presence of adult or juvenile zebra and quagga mussels. Substrate samplers may be deployed at locations where plankton tow samples are being taken or at other waterbodies opportunistically. The application does not require a list of locations of where substrate samplers will be deployed; however, successful proponents will be asked for a list of waterbodies where substrate samplers were deployed in the Grant Report.
- Preserving, packaging, and mailing samples to the designated lab only
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible Applicants
- Invasive Mussels Lake Monitoring Grants are available to community groups, non-profit organizations, local, regional and provincial governments, First Nations, and others. For applicants to be successful, the application must demonstrate that applicants have proven experience, knowledge, and capacity to carry out the activities in the proposal. Activities may be conducted by paid staff, volunteers, or a combination, but the applicant must clearly demonstrate that they have the experience necessary to complete the proposed activities according to the sampling methods as outlined in the Field Protocol, including direct experience with sampling of waterbodies.
- Eligible Waterbodies
- The Field Protocol includes a list of priority waterbodies from which grant proponents must select waterbodies to sample. The waterbodies identified with a sampling frequency of bi-weekly in the Field Protocol are the highest priority. It’s not expected that all the priority waterbodies within your region are selected for sampling. Please consider the additional cost vs. benefit to add a given waterbody. If you plan to sample more than one or two additional waterbodies over what you have sampled in previous years, please contact HCTF to discuss before you submit your proposal. For larger and more complex priority waterbodies, a minimum number of sample site locations have been provided; however, additional sites may be proposed for sampling. Rational for including additional sites must be included as part of the proposal.
For more information, visit HCTF.