GREEN RIVER - Biologists have long known the key to the recovery of many endangered and threatened wildlife species rests on the conservation and habitat work of private landowners.

Now those landowners can get a little financial help from the feds for their efforts.

Ranchers and other private landowners in Wyoming can undertake conservation projects for endangered, threatened and at-risk wildlife species under the second year of a new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service program.

USFWS spokeswoman Patricia Fisher said the agency will have about $7.1 million available in fiscal year 2004 to support on-the-ground conservation efforts on private lands through its Private Stewardship Grants Program.

Last year, Wyoming landowners received three grants for three conservation projects during the first year of the program.

The program provides federal grants on a competitive basis to individuals and groups engaged in voluntary conservation efforts on private lands that benefit imperiled species, Fisher said. She said landowners and their partners may submit proposals directly to the agency for cost-share funding to support those efforts.

In Wyoming, those species include federally-listed endangered or threatened species such as the grizzly bear and gray wolf, as well as proposed candidate or at-risk species such as the black-tailed prairie dog and the sage grouse, among many others.

President Bush proposed the creation of the stewardship grant program during a speech in Nevada in June 2000. The first grants benefited species ranging from the whooping crane in Nebraska to the bald eagle in Washington.

In May 2003, the Service awarded 113 grants totaling more than $9.4 million to individuals and groups in 43 states. Stewardship grants funded three projects in Wyoming, including:

* The Rimfire Ranch, LCC, located in Sublette County received $87,000 for a project aimed at restoring, expanding and enhancing wetland habitat for the trumpeter swan following management recommendations from the Pacific Flyway Plan. Following habitat restoration, swans will be introduced into the site, which is considered to be areas of historic occupation, according to agency biologists.

* The Wyoming Wetland Society received $97,000 for their Valley Springs Wetlands and Swan Breeding Facility Initiative that will develop an outdoor captive breeding facility and long-term habitat for trumpeter swan populations in a three-state region.

* The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory received $76,000 for their Private Lands Habitat Restoration for High Plains Species At Risk Program. The project will restore grassland habitat on over 10,000 acres in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota for such species as the black-tailed prairie dog and the mountain plover.

Other grants awarded around the nation include $100,000 to Idaho's Friends of the Teton River and several foundations to help restore Teton River fish habitat through a series of tree planting and streambank revegetation efforts; $22,000 to the Turner Endangered Species Fund to continue projects aimed at restoring black-tailed prairie dog colonies on the Vermejo Park Ranch in northern New Mexico; and $127,000 to the Umikoa Ranch on the Big Island of Hawaii to improve habitat while reducing threats posed by invasive species to the endangered Hawaiian Duck, the Hawaii creeper and the Hawaiian hawk.

For more information on how and where to submit proposals, visit the Service's stewardship program Web site (http://endangered.fws.gov/grants/private_stewardship.html) or contact the agency's Branch of State Grants, Endangered Species Program, 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Room 420, Arlington, Va. 22203.