In 2018, The Alongside Wildlife Foundation started a small grants program to support wildlife conservation projects around the world. In just one year, we funded projects focused on everything sloth bears in India to penguins in Australia, from Namibian aardvarks to Nepalese Musk Deer, Arkansas dragonflies and Oklahoma ants to Nigerian monkeys and Pakistani wolves, from Nepalese leopards to Costa Rican dart frogs. Overall, we awarded over $10,000 to these important projects and we are going to do it again in 2019.
Here’s what we have supported so far this year.
There is very little natural history information available on the relationship between native ant species and neighboring reptile and amphibian communities in North America; Sebastian Harris will be studying the relationship between a dominant mound building ant species, the Allegheny Mound Ant and neighboring reptile and amphibian diversity in Pennsylvania.
Down to central Argentina, where Dr. Estela Luengos is working to promote coexistence between carnivores (pampas fox and cougar) and rural inhabitants in the rangelands, where ranchers respond to depredation by shooting and poisoning carnivores. They aim to test several depredation reduction methods to provide non-lethal alternatives for the mitigation of human-carnivore conflicts, including guard dogs and llamas!
Now, to the Mamoni Valley of Panama. The area is is high in diversity, with four species of small cat: the ocelot, margay, jaguarundi, and tigrina. However, there is also a significant number of small villages, farms and ranches that are found throughout the valley. Dr. Jennifer McCarthy has a long term project in the Mamoni Valley focused on elucidating the ecology of small felids, and during the course of their workdiscovered a significant amount human-small felid conflict. The goal of this project is to address human-small felid conflict by contributing to the education of primary school children throughout the valley by publishing a bilingual children’s book that will be distributed at the three schools in the valley. This book will introduce children to the small cats of Panama, giving basic ecological information about these little known species. It will also tell the story of why these cats are important ecologically, and what children can do to contribute to the conservation of small cats in their area.
Do you value these projects and think they’re important? Here’s a harder question: who else funds them? Want to help us do even more to create and promote science-based solutions to living alongside wildlife in perpetuity? Please consider joining our growing network of recurring small donors here. We are a grassroots network of small donors, most give under $5 a month; that’s all we are and how we can do what we do.
