The back of its wings glinting rust-red in the sun, a ferruginous hawk scans the grasslands below for ground squirrels and jackrabbits, two choice meals. These hawks rely on broad vistas to catch prey. But shrubs and juniper trees have steadily invaded many of their hunting grounds in the Southwest.

Over the next five years, some of the grasslands they depend on will receive much-needed attention through a new public-private partnership. The USDA Regional Conservation Partnership Program will pay private ranchers and farmers to cut and mulch brush and trees in grassland areas.

This work will improve habitat for several sensitive grassland species, including the American pronghorn, Gunnison prairie dog, western burrowing owl, and ferruginous hawk, while increasing forage for livestock.

The program focuses funding on grasslands with good chances of natural recovery, as it counts on jumpstarting the return of native grasses and forbs from the existing soil seedbank. Water once locked away in shrubs and trees will nourish the spread of native grasses and forbs, making food more plentiful for the ferruginous hawk’s prey.

Other wildlife, like the American pronghorn, will also benefit. Though a pronghorn can approach speeds of 60 miles per hour, it will not move through areas lacking wide-open visibility. Restoration work will create more of the quarter- to half-mile-wide travel corridors vital to this species’ long-term survival.

In northeastern Arizona, projects will focus on historical grasslands along the lower boundary of the Colorado Plateau, between Interstate 40 and the Mogollon Rim to its south.