|  04/16/2014

Wildlife Habitat Grant to Help Michigan Pheasants


07537a6d-7d1a-4591-b0a3-a46999f7d9ed
Pheasants Forever is the recipient of a 2014 Wildlife Habitat Grant from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The $44,000 grant will help upland habitat restoration efforts at the Lake Hudson State Recreation Area in Lenawee County.
 
“These funds will be used to contract tree and brush removal on four overgrown fields on the Lake Hudson State Recreation Area,” says Bill Vander Zouwen, Pheasants Forever’s regional representative in Michigan, “Once the trees and brush are cleared, the fields will be planted to native prairie grasses and forbs. The goal for this recreation area is to provide 600 acres of pheasant nesting cover on public lands in a landscape that contains a good amount of Conservation Reserve Program fields on private lands. A population of pheasants exists in this area, and hunters will have access to all of the project fields.” Pheasants Forever’s Michigan State Council is also contributing $5,000 to this project. 
 
The 2,800-acre Lake Hudson State Recreation Area project is also within the Lake Hudson Landowner Cooperative, which has a goal of providing habitat in one of three focus areas of the Michigan Pheasant Restoration Initiative. Local Pheasants Forever chapters have also taken interest in this property and have provided volunteer brush management efforts as well.
 
Michigan’s Wildlife Habitat Grant Program, which began in October 2013, is funded with a portion of the revenue generated by the sale of hunting and fishing licenses each year. The WHGP is administered by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources through a cooperative effort between the DNR's Wildlife Division and Grants Management Section. The main objective of the WHGP is to enhance and improve the quality and quantity of game species habitat.

Photo credit: Tom Koerner / USFWS
  
-Anthony Hauck is Pheasants Forever’s online editor. Email Anthony at AHauck@pheasantsforever.org and follow him on Twitter @AnthonyHauckPF.