beaver foot

Competitive Grants Program

2024-2025 OWCN Request for Small Grant Proposals submission window is now closed. Recipients will be notified on April 30, 2024.

Competitive Grants Program

The Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN), a collaborative program between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife - OSPR and the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at University of California, Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine, annually seeks research and technology development proposals from wildlife professionals interested in furthering OWCN goals.

Specifically, we solicit:

  • Small Grant proposals for pilot or smaller research projects (up to $15,000/yr for one year)
  • Proposals with direct application to OWCN readiness and response will be prioritized!
Goals of the OWCN’s Research & Technology Development Program are to fund projects related to:
  1.  Improving animal capture and care methods and technologies, and
  2. Assessing wildlife health and welfare to inform prevention, capture, care, and release of oiled wildlife.

Projects can focus on both marine and inland species. Examples of topics related to these goals include:

  • Identify new, and refine current, wildlife hazing, capture, care, and release protocols and technologies to improve animal welfare and rehabilitation success.
  • Assess applicability of telemetry/remote sensing techniques to monitor survival and fitness of wildlife after spills.
  • Develop and validate new oiled wildlife treatments & clinical diagnostics.
  • Generate methods to detect/quantify oil exposure in wildlife to inform capture and care.
  • Determine and test methods for minimizing and mitigating the effects of oil on wildlife.
  • Investigate medical conditions that may affect care during oil spill response.
  • Compile biomedical health parameters of commonly oiled wildlife species where those data are not widely available (e.g., inland species).
  • Determine the acute and chronic health impacts of oil exposure to guide and improve capture, care, and treatment.
  • Assess the impacts of medical treatments and chemical countermeasures on wildlife.

NOTE: Projects with greater than 50% of effort focused on Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) issues will not be considered. Research done on species that are not found in California must be applicable to those species or ecosystems that do occur in California.

Review Process

Complete Small Grant proposals will be reviewed by the OWCN’s Scientific Advisory Committee and evaluated & scored for relevance to the goals of the OWCN, its scientific merit/quality, and the ability of investigators to perform work/distribute findings. Final funding recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Committee are given to the OWCN Advisory Board, which has final approval of projects.