Family-Outdoors

Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin will receive grant funding to restore habitat and help restore the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly. Photo by Ann. B Swengel/USFWS. Minneapolis – Bumblebees, mussels and Karner blue butterflies are among imperiled species in the Midwest that will benefit from more than $2 million in grants through the Service’s Competitive State Wildlife Grants program.  Midwest Region grant recipients include Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin and will receive a total of 6 grants. The Competitive State Wildlife Grant Program grants focus on large-scale conservation projects to conserve and recover Species of Greatest Conservation Need and their habitats. The Service awarded 15 grants, a total of $5.7 million to states across the country. This will be matched by more than $2.9 million in non-federal funds from states and their partners. “We appreciate the strong ties formed by state agencies and their partners to protect these imp...

We celebrated the life and work of conservation workhorse and former Midwest Regional Director Jim Gritman this weekend, out among the lands and waters that he fought to protect. Saturday September 20, 2014 was a day of remembrance, as family and friends came from across the country to honor a head-strong conservationist. Current Regional Director Tom Melius joined Fergus Falls Wetland Management District Project Leader Larry Martin and staff as we unveiled the Jim Gritman Waterfowl Production Area near Wendell, Minnesota. As the sun burned off morning clouds and the dew glistened, we had the prefect backdrop of prairie and blue sky to mark the occasion.  “Thinking outside of the box and coloring outside of the lines is what fueled Jim’s strategy for bringing back habitat for our trust resources here in the Midwest,” said Melius. Gritman said it best, “If we could start restoring wetlands rather than draining them, then I could say we were making headway." Making headway...

Screenshot from the new Upper Midwest and Great Lakes LCC website. Join the online community for the latest in landscape conservation efforts April 23, 2013 - The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) today released its newly designed public Web site GreatLakesLCC.org  to promote effective conservation through collaboration and sound science. The LCC facilitates dialogue among federal, state, non-governmental, academic and private interests to build a collaborative network of knowledge surrounding natural resources issues impacting the upper Midwest and Great Lakes landscape. LCC partners are working together to bridge the gap between science and natural resources management while tackling broad reaching natural resources challenges like climate change, aquatic and terrestrial connectivity, energy development, and socio-economic implications of conservation practices. GreatLakesLCC.org  provides natural resources professionals and...

Spring is coming to the Midwest and so are hundreds of thousands of birds looking for a summer home. Bank swallows - the smallest swallows in North America - are among them and they are actively looking for places to nest and raise their young. You can help protect these gregarious birds by keeping an eye out for their nesting colonies across the region. Bank swallows live in low areas along rivers, streams or reservoirs. Their territories usually include vertical cliffs or banks. Though in the past, bank swallows were most commonly found around natural bluffs or eroding streamside banks, more and more often these swallows populate human-made sites, such as road banks, construction sites and landscaping borrow sites. Social and always active, these small brown and white birds nest in colonies sometimes numbering in the thousands and quickly colonize these sites before landowners may realize. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, bank swallows and their nesting sites are...