The Michigan Wildlife Conservancy’s 2011 projects stretched across most of the state.  The non-profit organization again worked on some of the most serious biological threats to our fish and wildlife while also improving coldwater streams and wetlands of regional importance.

The Conservancy spear-headed the Michigan Wild Hog Removal Program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Michigan Pork Producers Association, and several other groups.  The Program is a multi-faceted effort to train citizens to detect and trap wild hogs, which have the potential to cause more damage than any single biological threat of the past several decades.

“A network of volunteers who can work with wildlife officials in a widespread hog trapping program is our best chance to keep numbers of this destructive, invasive species in check,” said Conservancy President Bill Taylor, of Duck Lake.

Over the past 12 years, hundreds of wild boars, mostly Eurasian stock, have escaped from hunting ranches and breeding/raising facilities in Michigan.  Wild hogs have been confirmed in at least 72 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 causing crop and forest damage, and pseudorabies virus has been found in free-roaming wild hogs shot in Saginaw County, and more recently, Midland County.  Pseudorabies is a huge threat to Michigan’s domestic swine industry.

The Conservancy has trained about 150 volunteers and helped purchase nearly fifty 15-foot diameter traps that USDA’s Wildlife Services Branch loans out to landowners and other volunteers.  Wild hogs have been caught in several counties through the program. 

Another of the Conservancy’s featured projects for 2011 was construction of a sturgeon spawning reef in the St. Clair River.  (See October-November issue of The Wildlife Volunteer).    The Conservancy provided technical assistance and administered a $75,000 construction grant for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Coastal Grant Program.  The total cost of constructing the reef was about $355,000.  Most of that was covered by other federal grants which will also fund a long-term research project to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of reef building in the Great Lakes.

The St. Clair River historically served as an important spawning grounds for many other native species as well as sturgeon.  But channelization, loss of coastal wetlands, filling/armoring shorelines, water pollution, and dredging limestone bedrock and gravel caused the sturgeon population to drop to less than one percent of its former abundance.

“We can make a difference by restoring some of the key elements for sturgeon, especially spawning grounds,” noted Taylor. 

The conservancy continued its long commitment to wetlands restoration in 2011.  The organization partnered with the Clinton County Conservation District and the Clinton County Drain Commission to restore a 50-acre wetland, and the Conservancy and the Timberland Resource Conservation and Development Area Council teamed to restore smaller ones along Kent County’s Tyler Creek.

Four stream improvement projects were completed in 2011.  In the Upper Peninsula, the Conservancy partnered with the U.S. Forest Service to improve trout habitat in Mackinac County’s Carp River and Biscuit Creek.  In the Lower Peninsula, trout will get a boost from habitat projects on the Platte River in Benzie County and on Cedar Creek in Kent County.  The Conservation Resource Alliance and Trout Unlimited were involved with the Platte River work and the habitat improvements to the Cedar Creek were coordinated by Trout Unlimited and the City of Cedar Springs as well as the Conservancy.

“Part of investing in our future fish and wildlife resources is influencing decision-making,” said Conservancy President Taylor.  “Some important issues need to be resolved quickly or we may pay dearly in the future.”

One of those issues is the threat to the Great Lakes and its tributaries posed by the Asian Carp.  Bighead and silver carp feed on plankton.  Bigheads are capable of consuming up to 40 percent of their body weight in plankton daily and can reach weights of 80 pounds.  Fisheries officials believe they could drastically alter the food chain in the Great Lakes and outcompete native species for habitat.  Conservancy staff testified at several hearings and wrote letters urging federal lawmakers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take action to ensure the destructive species will not enter Lake Michigan via the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.  That waterway connects the Illinois River, where Asian carp are already plentiful and harming the environment, to Lake Michigan.  To thwart the invasive carp, the Conservancy continued to press for a permanent barrier between the Illinois River and Lake Michigan.

[Return to Newsletter Index]