Project Updates

Transcription

1 Project Updates Serving Keweenaw, Houghton, Gogebic, Ontonagon, Iron, Baraga, Alger, Delta, Dickinson, Marquette, Menominee, Schoolcraft, Chippewa, Luce, and Mackinac Counties UP RC&D Council is the Recipient of a $1 Million Dollar NAWCA Grant The Upper Peninsula Resource Conservation and Development Council (UPRCD), working in cooperation with Ducks Unlimited (DU) and several other partners, was recently awarded a $1 million North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant to protect, restore and enhance habitat in the Upper Peninsula for waterfowl and other wildlife that depend on wetlands. The grant will also fund work related to specific management limitations at two of the most productive and intensively managed wetland complexes in Michigan s Upper Peninsula. Other partners in the grant proposal include Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Nature Association, Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy, Raber Area Sportsmen s Club, Sault Area Sportsmen s Club, Straits Area Sportsmen s Club, The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and private landowners. Collectively, partners have pledged more than $2.1 million dollars in matching funds in pursuit of this grant. This is a complex project that has a large number of partners engaged and it s rewarding to see all of the pieces fitting into place and leading to a significant impact on our natural lands. The coastal wetland project will protect 2,272 acres and enhance 1,455 acres, including 2,143 acres of wetlands. The project will also secure approximately 13 miles of riparian waterways and protect an additional 8 miles of migration and breeding habitats along beaches, lakeshores, islands and Great Lakes shorelines, including habitat for the piping plover, a federally listed endangered species. More About NAWCA - Passed by Congress in 1989, NAWCA provides federal matching funds to public-private partnerships for wetland habitat conservation projects in North America. The Act is critical for successfully implementing the habitat objectives of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and other national and international conservation plans for migratory birds that use wetlands. NAWCA funds long-term projects that protect, restore and/or enhance wetlands and associated upland habitats on both public and private lands. The NAWCA grant program is itself a public-private partnership. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service administers the grant program, while the North American Wetlands Conservation Council establishes the policies that govern the grant selection process. The UP RC&D Council is very excited to play a key role in helping to bring these federal grant dollars to the UP. Project highlights include providing funds to The Nature Conservancy to purchase and permanently protect a two acre tract of Lake Superior shoreline in Grand Marais that is critical habitat for the piping plover. Funds will also be used to secure a conservation easement on a 640 acre parcel in the upper reaches of the Peshekee River which includes 6,000 feet of river frontage. More than half the grant funds will be used to help the Michigan DNR and Ducks Unlimited work together to improve water level management at the Mususcong State Wildlife Management Area in Chippewa County, and the Sturgeon River Sloughs State Wildlife Area in Houghton County, enhancing over 1,400 acres of habitat for migrating waterfowl, outdoor recreationists and hunters. Piping plover on cobble beach at Grand Marais (above right), and Peshekee Headwaters tract (left). Photos by Chris Burnett. For more information - visit our website at

2 The UP RC&D Council Has A New AmeriCorps Member: Meet Dan Watt As a Huron Pines AmeriCorps member, Dan is serving at the UPRC&D Council as the Invasive Plant Specialist. Dan holds a bachelor s degree in Natural Resource Management from Grand Valley State University and has previously worked at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Texas as a plant ecology intern, and as a member of the Huron Pines Restoration Field Crew in Gaylord, MI. Throughout his service term at the UPRC&D Council, Dan s main focus will be on garlic mustard and non-native Phragmites mapping and management. He will continue garlic mustard management efforts started under the RRIP-IT-UP project by educating students, recruiting volunteers to help manage infestations, developing outreach materials, and attending events to promote awareness of garlic mustard issues. Since this is the second and final year of funding for our U.P. wide Phragmites project, Dan will continue efforts to survey and map phragmites infestations and visit with landowners to provide them with invasive plant technical assistance. Also, as a certified pesticide applicator, Dan will help the local conservation districts to treat outlying infestations. Another important part of Dan s service will be working with all five Cooperative Weed Management Areas (CWMAs) developing outreach materials to increase exposure of a new group called the Upper Peninsula Invasives Council (UPIC). We hope the formation of this group will facilitate communication between the five CWMAs to more efficiently manage invasive species. Dan has already implemented a bi-monthly electronic newsletter called The UPIC enews which highlights projects, invasive species news, stories from the field, or anything of interest to the 5 CWMAs. Dan is also serving on the conference planning committee for the 5 th annual Northern Great Lakes Invasive Species Conference, which will be held in the fall of Dan Watt demonstrating Sea Lamprey biology to students at a YMCA camp Sustainable Invasive Plant Collaboration in Michigan s Upper Peninsula The UP RC&D Council is mid-way through this two year project which will improve the capacity and long-term sustainability of all five Cooperative Weed Management Areas in the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan and northeastern Wisconsin and build on the accomplishments of the RRIP-IT-UP (Rapid Response Invasive Plant Intervention Team for the UP) project which was successfully completed. These efforts are being funded by a $51,466 grant we received from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and which we are sharing with several of these CWMA partners. Many of the components of this project will be directed towards, or take place in all five UP CWMAs which encompass all 15 UP counties and 3 counties in northern Wisconsin. Components of this project that are or will be helping to increase the capacity, sustainability, and networking potential of all UP CWMAs are: The collaboration of these groups through the Upper Peninsula Invasives Council (UPIC) The development of a UPIC webpage and standardized outreach materials The utilization of standardized mapping protocols by all UPIC partners The continuation of the Annual Northern Great Lakes Invasive Species Conference Development of a bi-monthly electronic newsletter the UPIC enews Another goal of this project is to build the organizational capacity of the two CWMAs which encompass the six western counties in the Upper Peninsula. Both of them have a partnership with the Ottawa National Forest. The Keweenaw Invasive Species Management Area (KISMA) has only been in existence for 1 year, and the Western Peninsula Invasives Council (WePIC) is now in the process of re-organizing. We are making grant funds available to support these two CWMAs under the guidance of other UPIC partners by providing for them some of the key components that we feel have made the other UP CWMAs successful. We have contracted with the Iron Conservation District to provide a Coordinator for WePIC and we have made a weed crew available to the KISMA partners to assist them with their priority invasive species mapping and management activities. The UP RC&D Council is a member of all 5 of these CWMAs, and you can contact them or find more information about each at: Eastern UP CWMA Nick Cassel, Coordinator nick.cassel@macd.org Central UP CWMA Abbie Debiak, Coordinator cupcwma@gmail.com Wild Rivers Invasive Species Coalition Emily Anderson, Project Mgr. wildriverscwma@gmail.com Keweenaw Invasive Sp. Mgmt. Area Meral Jackson, Coordinator meral.jackson@macd.org Western Peninsula Invasives Council Jen Ricker, Coordinator ironconservationdistrict@gmail.com

3 UP Phragmites Project Update - March 2014 Working to De-Phrag the UP! The Upper Peninsula Resource Conservation and Development (UP RC&D) Council has completed the first year of our project entitled Invasive Phragmites Control in Michigan s Upper Peninsula. We worked with partners to map all the native and non-native phragmites (Phragmites australis subsp. australis) in the UP, prioritize these infestations for treatment with grant funds, and contract with certified pesticide applicators to conduct herbicide treatments on almost 500 acres of public and private land. This is a brief summary of project accomplishments. Public Outreach and Education UP RC&D collaborated with personnel from the Michigan Natural Features Inventory and local county conservation districts to sponsor 8 public workshops in 2013 where 387 residents were educated about the biology of phragmites, the negative impacts of this species, and how they could participate with our project. The workshops were held in Mackinac, Schoolcraft, Delta and Menominee counties. Mapping of Phragmites in the UP One goal of this project is to collect accurate information about the location, size and density of non-native phragmites infestations in the Upper Peninsula. The majority of these infestations are located along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Menominee and Delta Counties. During 2013, native and non-native phragmites infestations were mapped along this entire 200 mile shoreline and these data are now part of a regional database where this information is available to the general public and natural resource managers. All phragmites infestation data for the UP can be found at Project partners also re-visited infestations that were mapped a few years ago along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Schoolcraft, Mackinac and Chippewa counties, and surveyed sites that were identified as potential phragmites infestations from high resolution aerial photos, and any sites reported by project partners and landowners. These survey and mapping efforts have shown that there are approximately 1,950 acres infested with phragmites in the UP! Phragmites infestations in Delta and Menominee counties alone total 1,852 acres (1,256 acres in Delta and 596 acres in Menominee). Known infestations in the remaining 13 UP counties account for only about 100 more acres and at this time no infestations have been found in Keweenaw and Baraga counties. Phragmites Treatment in 2013 Unfortunately, our grant funds are not sufficient to treat all the phragmites infestations in the UP, so we had to prioritize the infestations for treatment. Our first priority is to treat the infestations in close proximity to high quality natural communities, rare species, and other highly valued sites. The second priority is to treat isolated, outlying patches which would be considered the leading edge of the infestation. Treating these outliers will prevent further spread to interior wetlands, and adjacent coastal sites. All remaining grant funds were used to conduct treatment on the large, monotypic source infestations along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Menominee and Delta counties. We are also coordinating efforts with the Michigan Department of Transportation to ensure that all infestations in road rights-of-way are being treated.

4 This project is funded by a grant to the Upper Peninsula Resource Conservation and Development (UP RC&D) Council from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and includes funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 487 Acres of Phragmites were treated in acres - Menominee County 174 acres - Delta County 38 acres - Mackinac County 26 acres - Luce County 18 acres - Schoolcraft County 1.5 acres - Marquette County 1.5 acres - Alger County 1.5 acres - Iron County 1.5 acres - Dickinson County 1.0 acres - Chippewa County Large, dense infestations in Menominee and Delta counties were sprayed from tracked vehicles with boom sprayers. Targeted spraying of re-sprouts in areas treated in previous years was done using hoses mounted on these vehicles or with backpack sprayers. Herbicide treatments on 367 acres were paid for by grant funds. Private landowners paid for treatments on 68 acres in Menominee County and the Michigan DNR funded treatment of 52 acres on state land in Luce and Mackinac Counties. All treatments were done using a 2% solution of the aquatic formulation of glyphosate. Backpack spraying and hand-swiping techniques were utilized for smaller, less dense infestations that were growing with native plants or in areas where threatened or endangered species were known to exist. The infestation above is the only one known to exist along the Lake Superior shoreline. Project partners obtained all necessary DEQ, MDOT, and MDNR permits required to conduct these treatments as well as obtaining signed permission forms from all landowners. The dead-standing biomass on 43 acres of the large, dense stands that were treated with herbicide in 2013 were mowed during the winter/spring of Additional acres could not be mowed due to unusually deep snow. All infestations that were treated with grant funds in 2013 will be re-treated in What You Can Do to Help Us De-Phrag the UP Learn As Much As You Can About the Biology of Phragmites and the Most Effective Control Strategies: Some of the most comprehensive and up-to-date information about the biology of this plant can be found at the website maintained by the Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative. Visit that website at greatlakesphragmites.net/. Encourage your constituents, friends and neighbors to educate themselves about non-native Phragmites as well. Thanks for your support of this project! Contact Us: Darcy Rutkowski, Project Coordinator phragmites@uprcd.org Website

5 Garlic Mustard Project Successfully Completed Partner Efforts Will Continue Until Seedbank is Depleted The UP RC&D Council worked with partners in local county conservation districts to successfully complete a two-year grantfunded project of mapping and managing garlic mustard in all 15 counties of the UP. Partners conducted herbicide treatments and manual hand-pulling of garlic mustard on 478 acres of infested land. The project was funded by a competitive grant to the UP RC&D Council from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for $150,000, and we worked with project partners to secure another $150,305 of in-kind matching funds, which translated into a total investment of over $300,000 towards this problem in the UP. Tackling garlic mustard infestations is important because in many counties, this species is still at manageable levels of infestation, unlike many other areas of Michigan. Garlic mustard has the ability to quickly take over an area, replacing the native wildflowers and other flora that native insects and other wildlife depend on for food and habitat needs. It also has the ability to inhibit native tree seedling regeneration which could negatively impact the forest resources of the region. Our strategy was to collect as much information as possible about Chris Evans, Illinois Wildlife Action Plan, Bugwood.org the extent of the garlic mustard infestations in the UP, and then to prioritize control efforts by focusing our resources on the outlying (satellite) populations first and then move on to controlling the larger, denser source infestations. This was accomplished by more carefully surveying and mapping the 4 large known infestations which were located in riverine areas of the Cut River (Mackinac County), The AuTrain River (Alger County), The Dead River (Marquette County), and both the Michigan and Wisconsin sides of the Montreal River (Gogebic County, MI and Iron County, WI). Standard mapping protocols of the Midwest Invasive Species Information Network (MISIN) were utilized for mapping all infestations, and location data have been uploaded to their website ( so that these data are available to other resource professionals and the general public. Our strategy for locating smaller, outlying backyard infestations was to educate the public about the negative impacts of garlic mustard, how to identify garlic mustard, how they could participate with project partners to help control garlic mustard, to encourage residents to become familiar with and report sightings. We conducted an intense media campaign over a two year period to educate residents of the UP (and visiting tourists) about garlic mustard. Our survey data indicates that there are about 150 separate infestations in the UP totaling approximately 580 acres which are infested to some degree with garlic mustard. Using grant funds, we have also installed 18 garlic mustard bootbrush stations in high traffic locations throughout the UP, and across the border in northern Wisconsin where infestations threaten to infest UP forests. These stations have proven to be a very effective way to both educate the public about garlic mustard and how it is easily spread by seed, and to physically prevent the spread of garlic mustard from one natural area or trail system to another.

6 RRIP-IT-UP Partners Win the Garlic Mustard Challenge! All of our conservation district partners and the volunteers they recruited participated in The Stewardship Network s Garlic Mustard Challenge for two seasons ( This is a friendly competition between many of the Cooperative Weed Management Areas and Stewardship Clusters in Michigan and the adjacent Great Lakes States to see who can pull the most garlic mustard. Participants keep track of the number of garbage bags of garlic mustard pulled, and report these data to the Stewardship Network. Our RRIP-IT-UP partners won our division of the Challenge both seasons. During 2012, project partners reported pulling 37,000 pounds of garlic mustard that s 1,233 large garbage bags of garlic mustard. We won our division again during 2013 by pulling at total of 27,750 pounds! Many of these bags of garlic mustard were hand-pulled by the Invasive Plant Weed Crew of the Central UP Cooperative Weed Management Area. Garlic mustard control in the Upper Peninsula has been hugely successful during the two years of this project, primarily because of the collaboration of so many partners. During the first year of this project partners collectively hand-pulled and conducted herbicide treatments on a total of 289 acres of garlic mustard infestations. During the second year of treatment, all these acres were re-treated and an additional 189 acres were treated for the first time for a total of 478 acres. This by far exceeded our goal of treating 350 acres. Almost 85% of the infested acreage (405 acres) was hand-pulled. The remaining 73 acres were treated using a 2% solution of trichlopyr by certified pesticide applicators which were contracted to do the work. Herbicide treatments were conducted in the larger, contiguous infestations which were on state and county land in Mackinac, Alger and Gogebic Counties. Hand-pulling offered private landowners and other groups the opportunity to take ownership of the infestations which were on their own land or public land that they were passionate about. Some of these groups have adopted these infestations and plan to continue control efforts into the future until the seed-bank is exhausted. Acres of Garlic Mustard Management by County County Acres Treated Marquette County 187 Alger County 135 Mackinac County 87 Gogebic County 61 Houghton County 5 Dickinson County 3 Treatment was also conducted in Chippewa, Keweenaw, Luce, Baraga, Delta, Ontonagon, Iron and Schoolcraft Counties where all known infestations account for less than 1 acre total in each of these counties. All infestations were hand-pulled. Menominee County is the only UP County where no garlic mustard infestations have been reported! Lessons Learned- This project has confirmed a lesson that we learned during our previous RRIP-IT -UP project collaboration and communication are the keys to success when working on invasive plant issues across multiple land ownerships and jurisdictions throughout the Upper Peninsula. Bringing multiple partners together to share lessons learned has really maximized the effectiveness of this project and that collaboration has carried over to other conservation issues that are of mutual interest to several of these partners.