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April 11, 2018
Contact: Bill
Scullon 906-563-9247 or
John
Pepin 906- 226-1352
DNR announces $100,000 awarded
in Upper Peninsula Deer Habitat Improvement grants
Projects on private lands aimed at
improvements for white-tailed deer
 The Michigan
Department of Natural Resources has awarded a total of $100,000 in deer habitat
improvement grant funding to 11 entities for projects in the Upper Peninsula.
The Deer Habitat
Improvement Partnership Initiative is a competitive grant program designed to
enhance deer habitat on non-state lands in the Upper Peninsula.
“These grants will
produce positive impacts on 850 acres in Menominee, Marquette, Alger, Luce,
Iron, Baraga, Ontonagon, Gogebic, Schoolcraft, and Mackinac counties,” said Bill
Scullon, DNR field operations manager and administrator for the grant
initiative. “The planned match for the 11 grants is valued in excess of
$61,000.”
A 25 percent
match is required for the projects, which allows the DNR to get more “bang for
the buck” on these deer habitat improvement projects by providing further reach
beyond the original grant investment to accomplish more important habitat work.
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Check out a full list of this year’s grant
recipients and project descriptions.
Groups eligible for these grants include organizations with a formal mission to promote wildlife conservation and/or hunting, such as sportsmen’s clubs, conservation districts, land conservancies, industrial landowners with more than 10,000 acres, or private land affiliations where two or more unrelated persons jointly own 400 or more acres.
Primary goals for each of the projects include producing tangible deer habitat improvements, building long-term partnerships between the DNR and outside organizations and showcasing the project benefits to the public.
Scullon said the total amount of grant funding available is $100,000. The maximum amount of individual grants is $15,000 and the minimum is $2,000.
 Now in its ninth
year, the initiative is supported by the state’s Deer Range Improvement
Program, which is funded by a portion of deer hunting license revenue.
“With this
year’s crop, we will have made available $650,000 to U.P. partners for 83
projects to improve deer habitat. The value in partner match over the years has
exceeded $447,535,” Scullon said. “The reach of the program has been to
hundreds of landowners, on several thousand acres, involving all of the U.P.’s
15 counties.”
Availability of
the grants was announced in January, with a March 1 deadline to apply. There
was a total of 13 applicants in this year’s grant cycle. Awardees were notified
by March 19.
For more
information on the grant program, please contact Bill Scullon at 906-563-9247
or scullonh@michigan.gov.
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Note to editors: Accompanying photos are available below
for download. Suggested captions follow. Credit: Michigan Department of Natural
Resources.
Deer: A group
of deer stands in a March field in Mackinac County.
Planting: A crew works on a 2017 deer habitat
improvement project near the Dead River Basin in Marquette County./
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