Family-Outdoors

The Michigan Department of Natural Recourses recently was awarded $600,000 by the  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for bumble bee and Karner blue butterfly conservation. Bumble bees and butterflies are important pollinators, which are vital to the production of healthy crops for food and medicines and as food sources for wildlife. They also are important visitors to backyard flower gardens. Pollinators as a group have seen severe declines in their populations. Those declines have been felt by the agricultural community. To gauge bumble bee declines in Michigan, the DNR will provide the Michigan Natural Features Inventory with $100,000 to assess historic and current native bee diversity, distribution and status. This information will inform conservation decision making and enhance the next revision of Michigan’s  Wildlife Action Plan . Additionally, the Michigan DNR, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy will be restoring and e...

North Dakota's 2013 fall duck flight is expected to be down significantly from last year, but still similar to the good fall flights of 2007-11. Mike Johnson, game management section leader for the State Game and Fish Department, said the fall flight estimate is a combination of the spring breeding duck survey and the summer brood survey. Results from the breeding duck survey in May indicated the duck index was down 17 percent from 2012, but still exceeded the long-term average by 73 percent. May water conditions were up 17 percent from 2012 and 12 percent above the long-term average. The mid-July waterfowl production survey indicated a duck brood index that was down 48 percent from 2012, but still 27 percent above the long-term average. Average brood size was 7.2 ducklings, up 0.3 from last year. The long‑term average is 7.1 ducklings per brood. The water index in mid-July was up 60 percent from last year and 67 percent above the long-term average. T...