Restoring Critical Deer Habitat in the Upper Peninsula
For nearly a decade, we have partnered with the Sustainable Resources Institute (SRI), Safari Club International, landowners, foresters, and wildlife professionals to improve habitat conditions and landscape connectivity for game, non-game, and sensitive species across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Our work has included developing winter shelter through conifer planting, small-scale deciduous mast plantings, forestry mulching, conifer release treatments, invasive species management, and other habitat improvements. We have also worked directly with landowners to promote sustainable forest management through timber harvests, forest management planning, and connections with consulting foresters.
Using funding from Safari Club International and grants from the Michigan DNR Wildlife Habitat Grant Program, these projects have covered more than 500 acres across the Upper Peninsula, helping maintain, restore, and regenerate critical deer habitat.
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Continuing the Work Through Winter Whitetails
Building on that history, we are now working with SRI to support the development of the Winter Whitetails Project, a new effort dedicated to the management and preservation of deer winter range in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Winter Whitetails is focused on directing funding to worthwhile habitat projects on private lands within, or within approximately one mile of, deer winter range. The project is an independent effort that builds on previous U.P. deer habitat work.
RRS and SRI are helping get the new effort off the ground through project administration, communications and outreach, development of project materials, and coordination with the people and organizations involved.
Winter Whitetails provides a way to continue the habitat work developed over the past decade while bringing landowners, conservation partners, funding sources, and technical expertise together around the long-term management of critical deer winter range in the Upper Peninsula.
