Family-Outdoors

Fish, wildlife and communities of the upper Midwest and Great Lakes will benefit from leading Aurora borealis at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. Photo courtesy of Bryan Worth. edge science projects that aim to inform on-the-ground conservation efforts and natural resource management across the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region. The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC), a partnership of more than 30 agencies and organizations vested in long-term sustainability of our natural resources and regional communities, announced funding for new and ongoing research projects that aim to connect science with land and water resource managers and policymakers. “Our partnership is founded on a collaborative approach to problem-solving. Working together across federal, state and non-governmental lines, we are identifying, and filling, key gaps in our collective body of scientific knowledge. By leveraging our resources, we are more equipped to respond ...

On Saturday, May 10, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe and Midwest Partners in Chicago are working together  to develop the Burnham Wildlife Corridor. Photo by Louise Clemency/USFWS. Regional Director Tom Melius joined the Chicago Park District and volunteers from around the Chicago Area to plant trees to develop the Burnham Wildlife Corridor, a new natural area in Chicago’s Burnham Park. The corridor creates a 100-acre ribbon of urban wilderness running through one of the city’s premier lakefront properties. The corridor is located within the Millennium Reserve, one of two sites in Illinois to be included in President Obama's "America's Great Outdoors" initiative. The event was conducted in partnership with Chicago Wilderness, The Field Museum, Friends of the Parks, The Nature Conservancy, Openlands, Audubon - Chicago Region, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. During the event, Service Director Dan Ashe thanked participants and partner...

Midwest natural resource leaders came together in St. Louis, Mo., last week to strategize collaborative conservation efforts to benefit both wildlife habitat and water quality across the Mississippi River basin. As part of the  Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers Landscape Conservation Cooperative  (LCC), federal, state, non-governmental and tribal partners have been working side-by-side to reduce nutrient runoff from agricultural communities while improving habitat for fish, wildlife and native prairie systems. The 800-million acre Mississippi River basin provides vital habitat for fish and wildlife, and also supports more than 400,000 farms and large urban populations from Chicago to Des Moines. High nutrient runoff from agricultural communities in the Mississippi River basin contributes to to hypoxic (or oxygen-less) waters that pour into the Gulf of Mexico, and, thus declines in commercial and recreation fisheries in the Gulf region. U.S. Fish and Wildlife ...