Improving deer habitat
Local conservation districts awarded grants
Trending
MARQUETTE -- The Marquette County Conservation District has been approved for a $14,449 grant by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for its Central Upper Peninsula Critical Wintering Deer-Wildlife Habitat Improvement project.
The DNR recently awarded a total of $100,000 in deer habitat improvement grant funding to 11 entities for projects in the U.P.
The MCCD project will be on private non-industrial ownerships in the county.
MCCD will target critical deer wintering habitat in the county and work with a contractual tree planting company to plant overwintering conifer habitat as well as soft and hard mast trees on seven private landowner parcels totaling 55 acres. The parcels lay within or near known critical wintering areas and will border state or Commercial Forest Reserve Act lands.
The proposed conifer plantings will provide quality cover for white-tailed deer and other species, including snowshoe hare, wild turkey, and game and non-game bird species. The proposed mast plantings also will provide a sustainable food source.
Native conifer seedlings will be planted for reforestation of poorly stocked forests that didn't regenerate as expected. The plantings will introduce a conifer component to predominantly northern hardwood forests. Native conifer species will include white pine, white cedar and hemlock. Mast species will include red oak, fruiting apple and/or crabapple trees.
Six 5-acre parcels will include understory planting of 200 seedlings per acre and an additional parcel will include a 25-acre parcel for complete reforestation at a planting rate of 700 seedlings per acre. Each parcel will receive up to five soft mast trees.
The Alger Conservation District has been approved for a $4,669 grant for hard and soft mast tree plantings in Onota and Rock River townships. The project's intent is to enhance and create hard and soft mast in areas affected by beech bark disease. Conifer tree plantings will occur as added habitat enhancements to provide escape cover.
The project consists of two sites: one owned by the Snow Owl Outdoor Club and the other owned by Rock River Township. The goal for the club property is to plant crabapple and other native fruit-bearing shrubs to create a pocket of soft mast. A mix of red and white oak saplings, American hazelnut and other hard mast species; red and white pines; and highbush cranberry and other soft mast species also will be planted to provide escape cover.
Planted at the township site will be red oaks and other hard mast species, crabapple and other soft mast species, and white pines to create escape cover.
Hancock Forest Management was approved for $5,750 for operational deer habitat management in the Harlow Lake-Big Bay deer wintering complex. The project includes the planting of about 5,000 large-stock conifer/desired species with seedling protectors.
Other grants approved were for:
≤ the Gogebic Conservation District, $9,835, to establish food plots using stretches of logging roads recently used in timbering activities.
≤ the Forestland Group, $10,000, to continue its red oak underplanting work in Mackinac County.
≤ Wildlife Unlimited of Iron County, $5,445, for wildlife opening maintenance.
≤ the Schoolcraft Conservation District, $5,570, for its Schoolcraft County Weyerhaeuser spring break-out areas project.
≤ the Iron Baraga Conservation District, $14,500, for deer wintering complex tree planting.
≤ Ontonagon Chapter of Whitetails Unlimited, $8,632, for deer yard spring break-out wildlife opening establishment.
≤ Greenleaf Timber Holding Inc., $9,160, for Deerfoot Lodge deer wintering complex conifer and hard mast planting.
≤ Dickinson Conservation District Cheese Factory Co-operative, $11,990, to manipulate habitat type changes to favor more progressive changes in vegetation, thus providing higher valued habitat for deer.
The Deer Habitat Improvement Partnership Initiative is a competitive grant program designed to enhance deer habitat on non-state lands in the U.P.
Bill Scullon, DNR field operations manager and administrator for the grant initiative, said in a news release that the grants will produce positive impacts on 850 acres across the U.P.
The planned match for the 11 grants is valued at more than $61,000.
The initiative is supported by the state's Deer Range Improvement Program, which is funded by a portion of deer hunting license revenue.