Conservancy's 2010 Projects Feature Innovation

The Michigan Wildlife Conservancy’s Board of Trustees recently selected an ambitious slate of projects for 2010.  The non-profit organization will tackle head-on one of the most serious threats ever to our state’s wildlife, and continue its significant efforts to improve coldwater streams in both Peninsulas.  The Conservancy will also enhance critical habitat for the endangered Karner Blue butterfly, provide technical assistance to remove a significant barrier to fish movement in the Saginaw Bay Watershed and boost walleye numbers in Upper Peninsula lakes.  

The Conservancy’s Featured Project for 2010 will be the innovative Michigan Wild Hog Removal Program.  The Conservancy will team with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services branch and many other groups to develop a multi-faceted program focused on wild hog eradication.  This will involve training citizens to detect and trap hogs, which have the potential to cause more damage to Michigan’s agriculture and natural resources than any single biological threat of the past several decades.   

Over the past 10 years, hundreds of wild boars, mostly of Eurasian stock, have escaped from hunting ranches and breeding/raising facilities in Michigan.  Wild hogs have been confirmed in at least 69 of Michigan’s 83 counties.  Most are in bands of fewer than 20 animals, but wild hogs have dispersed many miles from the game ranches and are reproducing.  They are already causing crop and forest damage, and pseudorabies virus has been found in free-roaming wild hogs shot in Saginaw County.  The presence of this disease prompted quarantines of game ranches, as pseudorabies is a huge threat to Michigan’s domestic swine industry.  

“The wild hog is to the land what the lamprey eel is to the Great Lakes—an invasive exotic species that is, at best, a management nightmare,” said Dr. Patrick Rusz, the Conservancy’s Director of Wildlife Programs.  “But the lamprey eel caught resource managers by surprise by swimming into our state on its own, albeit through the man-made Welland Canal in the St. Lawrence Seaway.  In contrast, the wild hog was hauled into our state in livestock trailers—right up I-75 and our other highways and bound for game ranches—even though the animal has a long and well-documented record of destruction in 40 other states.”  

Officials in other states have emphasized that Michigan must act now or our narrow window of opportunity will be gone.  Dr. John Mayer, the country’s foremost expert on wild hogs, thinks Michigan might already have 3,000-5,000 wild hogs and the habitat to support a huge population.  With wild hogs capable of producing liters of 3-12 annually, even a few months of delay in implementing an effective control program is detrimental.  We have been told by the experts, repeatedly, to pull out all the stops in Michigan.  

Michigan citizens report shooting about 40 hog hogs each year.  Most of the hogs killed are being taken opportunistically (e.g., by deer hunters).  Sport hunting has not controlled hogs in other states, and by itself, sport hunting (even with the added incentive of a private-sponsored bounty program as in the Upper Peninsula) will be ineffective in Michigan.  Rather, hog control will depend on year-round opportunistic shooting and periodic trapping by citizens, especially rural landowners.  For this to be effective, Michigan citizens must be trained to detect wild hogs, and be educated about the currently confusing rules that apply to shooting of hogs.  A network of volunteers who can work with wildlife officials in a widespread hog trapping program must also be developed.  A citizenry knowledgeable about wild hog trapping is a key to protecting endangered and threatened plant and animal species in the Hawaiian Islands and in other areas of the U.S.  

That’s why the Conservancy wants Michigan citizens to get involved quickly.  “Our goal is to increase the number of wild hogs shot annually by citizens and to place at least 90 volunteer-operated hog traps (at least one per county) around the state,” said Conservancy President Dave Haywood, of Lansing.  

Citizen training will be conducted primarily at the Conservancy’s 259-acre Bengel Wildlife Center by staff of the Conservancy and Wildlife Services in April 2010 and September 2010, at a minimum.  Supplementary sessions aimed at citizens in Northern Michigan will also be held at other locations in September 2010 and September 2011.  

The Conservancy will also be involved in more traditional habitat improvement work in 2010.  The organization will partner with the U.S. Forest Service to improve two trout streams—Ruby Creek, a tributary of the Big South Pere Marquette River in Oceana County; and Bear Creek in the Upper Peninsula’s Schoolcraft County.  The Conservancy will also restore trout habitat in Ottawa County’s Pigeon Creek in cooperation with the Timberland Resource Conservation and Development Area Council and several other partners.  

Warmwater fish populations will get a boost by creation of a large walleye rearing pond in Delta County.  The Bay De Noc Great Lakes Sport Fishermen group and other partners think the proposed rearing pond could provide most of the stock needed to plant all Upper Peninsula lakes where walleye are desired.  

The Conservancy has long been known for its work to help rare species.  That tradition will continue with a project on National Forest land in Oceana County that is home to the endangered Karner Blue butterfly.  In partnership with the U.S. Forest Service the Conservancy will help cut brush and plant wild lupine and other important nectar plants over 20 critical acres.  Almost all of the world’s population of this species in confined to Michigan.  

Conservancy staff will provide technical assistance to move a fish passage project forward in the Cass River in Saginaw County.  Rock structures will be used to form a fish passage “ramp” to allow walleyes and other warm water species to get over the Frankenmuth Dam.  The work is the top priority on the list of such projects in the Saginaw Bay Watershed.  

The Conservancy also plans to continue work under the Michigan Private Wetlands Program, particularly on lands in six counties in Southwest Michigan, centering in Ottawa and Allegan Counties.  Working with private landowners, the Conservancy restores a dozen or more wetlands there annually.

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