Northern Lower Peninsula habitat work, sharp-tailed grouse and the Ursus americanus

In this episode of the Wildtalk Podcast, we talk to Mike Parker about all things habitat in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, fly away with sharp-tailed grouse as we talk all things feathers, and we discuss the Ursus americanus in our all things fur segment.

Episode Hosts: Rachel Leightner and Eric Hilliard
Producer/editor: Eric Hilliard

• All things habitat
  • Michigan.gov/Hunting
  • Michigan.gov/Deer
• All things feathers
  • Sharp-tailed grouse
• All things fur
  • Black bears
  • Nuisance wildlife information

Questions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

Transcript

Announcer:

The Michigan DNR Hunt Fish app is your digital connection to all things hunting and fishing in Michigan. Buy, store, and display your hunting and fishing licenses, check your points and chances for elk and bear, apply for the draw and view drawing results, access all the hunting and fishing regulations, view your hunter safety certificate and report your harvest all from within the Michigan DNR Hunt/Fish app. Just click the app banner at the top of the page for download instructions at Michigan.gov/hunting.

Rachel:

Great. Now I don't even know what the song is and it's stuck in my head. That's so awesome.

Eric:

It's such an ear worm.

Announcer:

You know what that sound means, it's time for the Michigan DNRs Wild Talk podcast. Welcome to the Wild Talk podcast, where representatives from the DNRs Wildlife Division chew the fat and shoot the scat about all things habitat, feathers, and fur. With insights, interviews, and your questions answered on the air, you'll get a better picture of what's happening in the world of wildlife here in the great state of Michigan.

Rachel:

Hello everyone and welcome to the September episode of the Wild Talk podcast. This is your host, Rachel Lightner and back with me this episode is the exuberant Eric Hilliard.

Eric:

I don't know if I'd say exuberant, especially with the week that I've had. I had somebody try to break into my car and steal it unsuccessfully, so I just had a car sitting there with a window smashed out and a steering column all ripped up, so it was great. So I'm not sure how exuberant I'm feeling. Nonetheless, I am here ready to go. I probably won't be able to do the interview with Mike Parker, but I'm sure that you'll be able to handle that just fine on your own.

Rachel:

Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to hear about your week, that does sound like a real bummer and a drag to handle, but thanks for joining us today. We do appreciate having you on the podcast. We're back with another fresh episode Today we'll be chatting with Mike Parker, the field operations manager for the Northern Lower Peninsula region. Then we'll learn about the sharp-tailed grouse and later on we'll be chatting about black bears and what they're up to this time of year. Of course, somewhere in the episode you will get a chance to win a Wild Talk podcast cat mug, which if you haven't seen these mugs yet, let me tell you, they are awesome. One, they're adorable, but they also are like the perfect size and have really good mug feel to them. So when you're holding them in your hand, they're sturdy and they're awesome and you can take them with you camping. They're durable. I highly recommend that you look at these mugs.

Eric:

Yeah, I'd have to say that they're probably as coveted as the Stanley Cup, but they pack so much more easily.

Rachel:

Yes, I couldn't agree more. Now, before we dive into this episode, let's hear a word from our forests.

Announcer:

Trees provide for the wellbeing of our state, that's why we work so hard to keep our forest healthy and abundant so wildlife has a home, and so do people so that there's clean air and water for everyone and so Michigan's economy can be as strong as the trees that support it. Because every branch of forestry ensures that future generations will always have a tree for life and forests for a lifetime. To learn how sustainable forestry benefits your life, visit Michigan.gov/forestsforalifetime.

Rachel:

We're joined today by Mike Parker, the field operations manager to chat about the awesome work going on in the Northern Lower Peninsula region. Thank you so much for joining us.

Mike:

Thanks Rachel. Great to be here. My pleasure, and look forward to talking to you for a bit.

Rachel:

Can you tell us a little bit about your backstory?

Mike:

I just started this position back in April. Great opportunity for me, really excited to be in the north. So my primary role here is I'm supervising our staff in the northwest part of the region. So I'm covering staff out of Gladwin, Ross Common, Baldwin, Cadillac, and Traverse City. So really cool, really unique area, lots of amazing habitat and different types of habitats. It's a really unique area to be. But my background, I joined the division in 2011. My first job, I was a private lands biologist down in southeast Michigan, so I helped landowners make their dreams come true on their land, managing for game species and non-game species and all sorts of stuff like that. I was also responsible for the hunting access program. After a couple of years I moved on to become our Private Land Specialist. So in that role I oversaw all of our statewide private lands programs.

One of the things that I'm most proud of is the work on the Federal Farm Bill. It's the largest source of funding for private landowners in the country. So I really focused on how do we take those dollars, bring them to Michigan, meet our unique needs here that we have with all the Great Lakes and all of our water and different things. So was successful in bringing millions and millions of dollars for different conservation challenges with wildlife. Prior to that, I was a regional biologist with Pheasants Forever for 14 years. So a lot of folks know me from that role because I worked all over the state leading that organization.

Rachel:

Now, in the past couple of months that you've been in the supervisor role, what would you say is the biggest accomplishment that your region has tackled so far this quarter?

Mike:

Wow, that's tough to put your finger on. We have this amazing staff up here and they all work so hard and they're all so committed to wildlife and wildlife recreation. So it's just been great to get to know them, but I would say there's probably two areas that I would say our biggest accomplishment in the time I've been here. The first is the habitat restoration where we have about almost 2 million acres of state land in the northern lower. So there's a lot of land, there's a lot for our staff to try to manage, but they've been really busy with different types of habitat management, including prescribed burning to maintain our healthy grasslands and forest, planning forest openings, which are really important for wildlife, planting trees and shrubs, invasive species work to help control some of the species we don't want on our lands. We bought a new piece of equipment this year called the Fecon, which is an amazing tool to create early successional habitat, which is really important for species like rough grouse and woodcock and non-game species like golden wing warbler.

So it's a really great new tool we have here, so that staff has been running that all over the region working on habitat. And the other one that's really a big lift for staff is, we own an awful lot of wetland infrastructure with dams and things like that, so an awful lot of their time has been spent maintaining those dams, and mowing dikes, and making sure that they're all safe and doing great things for wildlife. The second accomplishment I'd say is this has been a really big year for wildlife surveys. And surveys are an important tool for us to understand where our wildlife populations are and what the trends are. We did our bear hair snare surveys this year, which only happens every five years. We did grouse and woodcock surveys and we also surveyed the Kirtland warbler this year. So it's been a great year for that.

Rachel:

It certainly has. Now, you mentioned bear hair snare survey. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that entails?

Mike:

Yeah, that's a really great project. As I mentioned, it only happens every five years and it's the way that we help estimate the number of bears that we have. So the gist of the way it works is our staff go out and they set up snares, which is essentially barbed wire with bait inside, and as bears go into that area to find a little snack, if you will, that barbed wire will pull hair out. So we go out every week for five weeks and we pull those hairs off. Those hairs get sent to our lab and it's crazy the technology here, but they're actually genetically testing that hair so that they know what individual bears are. Folks that are a lot smarter than me put all that data into a model and that helps us estimate what is our bear population within the state or a certain area. So it's a really cool project.

It's a lot of work for our staff and they just did an amazing job. It's five hard weeks carrying all those supplies and walking way back into unknown places. At the end of the day, it's a really important tool for us to understand our bear population.

Rachel:

What's up next? What's on the docket for the fall?

Mike:

The Super Bowl, right? For a lot of our staff, it's that time. They work all year working on this great habitat for folks to get out and enjoy hunting on our lands and other wildlife recreation too. So it's a really exciting time for us. We've got the early elk season coming up, bear hunting, small game hunting, all that stuff. The two big projects on the horizon for us, the first one is part of the department's CWD surveillance strategy. We're going to begin testing deer for CWD this year up in the northwest part of the lower peninsula and that strategy, essentially we're looking in areas where CWD has not been detected in the deer to understand is it there and we just don't know about it, is it spreading and that really helps us better manage deer. So that's coming up so our staff has been really, really busy gearing up for that. And we're building partnerships with taxidermists and processors and other partners to put drop boxes and stuff to make it real easy for hunters to get their deer to a sampling point so that we can sample those deer.

And we have a pretty significant goal that we need to achieve for the number of samples. So that's a really big one coming up. The second one, which is really cool, that I'm real excited about is we have a couple really significant wetland projects that we're focusing on. One is the Houghton Lake Flats, and I think a lot of people are familiar with that. If you're driving up 127, you go past Houghton Lake, you see that big beautiful marsh complex there and there's the osprey boxes out there. So it's a pretty popular area. We're currently undergoing a pretty significant project there. We're looking at redoing the way we're able to control the water there with new pumps and that. And also the Manistee Marsh, very similar project, very showy project, right on M55 outside of the city of Manistee.

Another really unique wetland area there. What we're really looking to do, something a little different is engage our local communities and how can we engage a community to partner with us in these areas to make them more accessible to the public so that we can have folks using these areas throughout the year, not maybe just for hunting in the fall. So we're hoping that the communities and other partners will get involved and maybe help us with building trails or parking areas and things like that. So we're really excited in the coming year to see where those projects are going to go and how we can really enhance some partnerships with local communities to make these areas the best that they can be.

Rachel:

Now, your team is filled with really incredible staff who care deeply about wildlife and the work that they do, but if you had to choose some impressive contributions some of your team have made this quarter, what would you choose?

Mike:

Steve Griffith and Mike Kowalski from the Traverse City office and Vern Richardson and Angela, her band from Cadillac in Baldwin, they just did an absolutely spectacular job of handling the really difficult situations. When you have a bear up a tree and the public is watching and there's a high pressure situation and they handled it really outstanding. I'm really proud to call them teammates. Another person I'd like to highlight is Miranda Van Cleave, she's the technician in Atlanta. And she successfully wrote a grant to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation for $95,000, and those funds are going to be used to plant over 100 acres of native grasses and forbes on wildlife openings. So it's going to be a huge benefit to elk and certainly many other wildlife species. And so the wildlife division, we match those funds to do another 1,250 acres of wildlife opening maintenance and management.

And so Miranda did a great job leading that and again, it's going to be a huge benefit to wildlife up in the east side of the northern lower. If I had to choose one other person, I'd like to highlight Bruce Barlow. He's the biologist in Gladwin, and he helped organize our annual goose banding program. And under his leadership and organization, we banded over 600 geese this year in the northern lower, and in talking with our banding expert in Lansing, that's the highest number that we've banded at least since 2009 when he started, and it might be the most geese we've ever banded up here. So we're really proud of the work that he did organizing that, but then it's all the staff up here that work are out there in the waders and the kayaks and rounding up the geese. And I spent some time with them, and again, the professionalism of our staff when homeowners are out watching and asking questions, they just did a spectacular job.

Rachel:

It's always a joy to chat with you, so I really appreciate you taking the time to tell us about what's going on in your region, tell us how awesome your staff are. We certainly appreciate it.

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Rachel:

Welcome back to Wild Talk. This month's All Things Feather segment is about the sharp-tailed grouse and interesting-

Eric:

Sharp tails. Ooh, sharp tails.

Rachel:

We've entered the bonus mug me question.

Eric:

Who knows what famous cartoon, if you're in your late thirties, early forties, you probably can recognize it. So yeah, just throw it in there as a bonus when you go to answer the mug me later. And you can just say, "Oh, by the way, the little cartoon diddy in Weird Al type fashion that Eric sang was from this cartoon."

Rachel:

Let's hear it one more time.

Eric:

Sharp tails. Ooh, sharp tails.

Rachel:

I am every bit of millennial and I have no idea what that is, but if you do let us know. Back to your regularly scheduled programming. We're talking about sharp-tailed grouse here. So this interesting little critter is found in Michigan, but primarily in the eastern counties of the Upper Peninsula law and is most known for its flashy courtship displays and its very unique behavior and appearance. Now, these small birds are described as tubby chicken like birds with small heads, small bill, short legs and pointed sharp-tail feathers, hence the name.

Eric:

Small bill or small beak?

Rachel:

On the spot research through the Cornell lab all about bird's website.

Eric:

A tubby chicken like bird with a small head, small bill. They did say small bill, it's in the description for it. Why would you refer to that as a bill and not a beak, said beak versus bill. The words are synonymous. Ornithologists tend to use the word bill more often than beak. Some people use beak when referring to songbirds and pointed bills and bill when discussing birds like ducks with more fleshy beaks. However, both words are used in reference to a wide variety of species. The more you know.

Rachel:

That is interesting. So bill or beak, you get to choose what you refer to that mouthpiece as. So they do have a small bill or small beak, whatever your preference is. They also have short legs and pointed sharp-tailed feathers, hence the name. So these birds are comparable in size to that of a crow. Physically, they have a modeled overall plumage of brown and gold and white, and then an under tail and a belly that is all white. They do have some really unique physical characteristics such as these large purple air sacks on the sides of their necks. Now, these are an extension of the esophagus and males can inflate them on both sides of the neck. Now, these sacks are not just for decoration, but rather they amplify the male's cooing courtship call during the breeding season and they actually can indicate how overall healthy the male is.

So it's like a barometer for health, and appeal, and appearance during the breeding season. And it's very unusual, it looks like there are two large purple water balloons on both sides of the neck. And if that's not interesting enough, sharp-tailed grouse also grow these fleshy projections on their toes and they're called pectinate or if there's only one pectina. And what they do is distribute the bird's weight as it walks across unstable surfaces, such as in snowy fields. And I think one of the best ways to picture this is having weighted sandbags on the top of their feet that can fluctuate in size and weight to make sure that their feet stay balanced while they're walking across some uneven ground.

Eric:

That's really strange. So it's almost like they've got foot bags and then they've got neck bags.

Rachel:

They have a lot of baggage.

Eric:

Oh.

Rachel:

Now, similar to other grouse species, sharp-tailed grouse will sometimes build tunnels through the snow for their night roosts. The tunnels will provide protection for predators and insulation against the cold. So usually they build these tunnels in the winter months because they do stay here year round. And so sharp-tailed grouse are found here through the winter, and we all know wintertime in the upper peninsula gets a lot of snow. So interestingly, they will build these little adorable tunnels through the snow to be able to move through and stay hidden from predators and insulated and warm from the cold elements. Now, we mentioned they have these really awesome physical characteristics that go on display during the breeding season, but also they have really interesting behavior during this time as well. So sharp-tailed grouse are spectacular dancers, and during the breeding season, which is in the early spring, these birds will gather on their open display grounds.

These are called leks, L-E-K-S. It's this very specific type of grassland habitat that these birds will gather out on, and this is where the grand courtship show will begin. So females will watch intently as males bend low to the ground, they'll raise their pointed tails skyward and stamp their feet so fast they become a blur of feet and feathers, all while inflating those large purple-ish air sacks to make these quiet cooing noises for the females and the males to hear. Now, this dance is usually followed by a resting period called the freeze, where the males will then face each other and dance and freeze in these perfectly synchronized fashions. They are essentially having a dance off.

Eric:

Yeah, it's crazy how fast those feet move. If there was going to be a soundtrack to go along with that, I think She's a Maniac from the movie Flash Dance is what immediately comes to mind because the feet are just going crazy.

Rachel:

Indeed, yeah. Now, males will also dance battle with each other when their territories are crossed. Only a few males, mostly the older males, will be accepted by females for mating. And these males appear to be the most prolific dancers and usually have territories near the center of the dancing ground. After mating, females will select the nest site in a grassland with brushy cover that's usually less than a mile from the lek where the dancing grounds are, in a place where the vegetation is at least three inches high so that it's pretty concealed from predators. Her nest is an oval shaped depression made of mostly nearby vegetation, but occasionally she will also pluck her own breast feathers to include in the nest. And the average clutch size is between 9 and 12 eggs, but they'll only have one brood a year.

Throughout the rest of the year, these plump birds will forage in grasslands, open fields, bogs, forests, pretty much anywhere where they can take to eating from the trees to nibble on buds and berries, and also from the ground where there's other food sources available including insects. During the fall and winter when foods can become scarce, these sharp-tailed grouse will tend to use woodland habitats like aspen, birch, conifers, or they'll even shelter on shrubby stream sides as these spots can provide more shelter from the winter elements. Now, these birds are spectacular to watch, so if you want to see them, there is a particular time in place to have the highest chance of success. And that again, is in the springtime on their leking grounds in the early spring when you're likely to be treated to just an absolutely captivating show of the males dancing, and scuffling, and cooing, and the females watching from the sidelines hoping to select a prime mate.

Eric:

Rachel, I'd like to talk about the sharp-tailed grouse hunting season.

Rachel:

I'm so glad you brought that up. There is a sharp-tailed grouse hunting season in the [inaudible] every year. Now, this season runs from October 10th through the 31st in zone one, and it's mostly in portions of the Chippewa and Mackinac counties. In addition to having a valid base license for hunting sharp-tailed grouse, a free sharp-tailed grouse stamp is also required. You can learn more about hunting seasons in the Michigan Hunting Regulation summary at Michigan.gov/hunting.

Eric:

And Rachel, when we talk about a sharp-tailed grouse stamp, we're not talking about a physical stamp, like a duck stamp, for example.

Rachel:

Correct, it is not a physical stamp, it's just an endorsement that will show up on your license. You'll be able to see that you've acquired the free stamp, but it'll just be like a sentence on your base license. Well, that concludes our All Things Feather segment. You'll want to stick around next because we'll be talking about All Things Fur.

Announcer:

Find a new fishing spot. The family-friendly fishing waters map shows family-friendly fishing locations across the state that are easy to access and have a high likelihood of catching fish. You can filter locations by what type of fish you want to catch or whether you want to fish from a boat, a pier, or the shore. You can even filter by amenities like swimming availability and restrooms as well as entry fees that may apply. To find out more, click on family-friendlyfishingwaters@Michigan.gov/fishing.

Rachel:

It is time to chat about one of my most favorite species we have here in Michigan, the great and powerful, yet oh so shy, black bear.

Eric:

The Ursus Americanus.

Rachel:

Yes, indeed our one and only Ursus species here in Michigan, and it is just a fantastic bear we have here. Now, this time of year bears are active. Bears are chowing down right now to get ready for their overwintering, and so they are putting on the pounds as they prep their bodies to not be able to eat for several months at a time.

Eric:

I can't imagine not being able to eat for several months at a time. I get it that they're sleeping during that period, but I don't know. I get hungry.

Rachel:

I do too. I do love the idea of sleeping for several months at a time though that is very appealing to me.

Eric:

I would be constantly saying get up out of bed lazy bones. I'm an early riser, so I have a hard time staying in bed. I would not make a good black bear. I'd probably starve in the wintertime because I didn't store up enough reserves and I'd be up wandering around and just, yeah, it wouldn't work out great for me.

Rachel:

Natural selection would weed you out, is that's what you're saying?

Eric:

Exactly.

Rachel:

I think I would thrive. Spending all this time eating whatever I could come across and then sleeping for several months at a time that is my ideal state. Now, throughout the next couple of months, bears will be spending up to 20 hours a day foraging for foods rich in calories like acorns, hickory nuts, berries, leafy greens, lots of natural foods that are available this time of year. Basically, bears will eat when they eating is good, and that is mostly during the next couple of months here in Michigan. Now, because bears can lose up to one third of their body weight while they are overwintering it is vital to pack on the pounds, which for some bears means consuming 20,000 calories a day. And I did the math on this, so 20,000 calories is equivalent to 133 cupcakes, or 93 beef sticks, or 285 pieces of baby bell cheese. And if I was a black bear, that would probably be my preferred snacking method, but it is still a shocking amount of calories that they have to put on.

So they will eat 20,000 calories a day, which translates over to about three to five pounds every day that they're putting on, and that's the necessary weight that they have to be able to survive for anywhere from three to five months of not really eating anything.

Eric:

How many Ensure's would that be? If a bear was going to drink Ensure or Boost or one of those other nutrition shakes, how many of those would they have to drink in a given day to take those same calories?

Rachel:

I feel like there's a protein powder marketing trademark that could happen here, black bear protein powder.

Eric:

Bear Milk.

Rachel:

Ew, bear Milk. I don't know that I'd drink that, but I'm sure it'd give you everything you need in terms of protein.

Eric:

Bear Milk stack on the weight so you can be as strong as an Ursus Americanus.

Rachel:

And that's our latest sponsor.

Eric:

This episode of the Wild Talk podcast is brought to you by Bear Milk.

Rachel:

Oh, shoot. Now, while searching for food, they might be inclined to move closer to our homes and into urban areas if there is an enticing meal that is luring them in. Bears have an incredibly powerful nose that can detect the faintest odors, anything that is within five miles bears can generally smell, so it will lead them into areas where they really shouldn't be, like in dumpsters, or our own garbage cans at our house, even onto our patios where we've spent the last couple of months enjoying cookouts. Now, despite the natural foods like acorns, and berries, and leafy greens being abundant, bears can be drawn into those food spills in our backyards, bird seed, and feeders, if you feed pet foods outdoors and leave the food out there, these food sources are extremely appealing and rewarding to bears because they're one, easy to access, and two, they're so rich in calories. In fact, the average bird feeder has about 18,000 calories in it and so that's just the easiest way for a bear to pack on its nutritional requirements that it needs to get before it's overwintering begins.

Now, while there is some nutritional value in bird seed and pet foods, allowing bears to eat from these will teach the bears bad behavior. Now, bears will continue to return to locations where they found a meal, and if they continue to be rewarded with food near homes, the situation can lead to some pretty severe impacts to the bear. Bears can lose their fear of people, they can start to cause property damage, you could potentially encounter the bear in your yard, and all of these things can lead to the removal of that bear or it can become a problem for your neighbors, or a problem for other people who might experience the bear. So highly recommend removing anything that might encourage or lure the bear into your backyard. Now, we have about 12,000 bears here in Michigan with about 10,000 of them in the upper peninsula and the remaining 2,000 bears mostly live in the northern portion of the lower peninsula. But in the last few years, reports of bears have come in from Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Saginaw and they've come in consistently.

So if you're in those areas, and especially if north of those areas, now is really the time to start considering if your property could impact bear behavior. So taking a walk in your backyard, seeing if there's any foods, smells that could lure a bear in, consider bringing them in and cleaning them up, especially if you have bird feeders that have bird seeded in them. A lot of times the bird seed will fall out of the bird feeder and it just collects on the ground, and even that can be enough to lure a bear into your yard. So just do a quick walk around and make sure that you're not doing anything that might potentially lead to issues with bears. Now, believe me, I know it can certainly be exciting to watch bears, but even if you enjoy watching and seeing black bears, it is critical for the health and safety of that bear to not let it eat from these food sources, because bears that seek out these types of food are more at risk to lose their fear of humans. It just will always lead to an unfortunate outcome for that bear.

Eric:

Not to mention it can lead to an unfortunate outcome for your property, especially with bird feeders because a black bear will absolutely wreck bird feeders getting at that seed. They don't tend to be very much like the people who busted into my car and ripped out the steering column in an attempt to hot wire things. They're not overly concerned with treating things gingerly and carefully.

Rachel:

No, quite the opposite actually. A bear is very strong and they'll be very quick to smash your bird feeder to get to the goods inside and even in small dwellings as well. So a lot of times, especially this time of year, folks who have chickens will put the chicken feed inside a small shed in their backyard. Bears can also get into those rather easily, sometimes they'll chew a hole through the side if they think that the food inside is worth it, so just really doing a good job to lock up your food or anything that might have a smell to it. And there are some really awesome containers that you can put chicken feed or whatever into to prevent the odors from escaping and generally those work really well to prevent bears.

Eric:

Probably helpful with the mice also.

Rachel:

Ah, yes, the pesky mice. Now, until bears enter their dens at the end of November or into December, it's best to remove bird feeders and other potential food sources that may attract bears or other wildlife. As we mentioned, mice and voles can be just as pesky. Now you can get additional tips and information about how to prevent potential encounters and conflicts with bears at Michigan.gov/wildlife.

Eric:

All right, folks, stick around because in a moment we'll be back with a question from our mailbag.

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Rachel:

Now let's see what we've got in the mailbag.

Announcer:

1, 2, 3.

Eric:

Well, this month Craig was nice enough to send along this voice memo with his question.

Craig:

What happened to all the rough grouse in zone three?

Rachel:

And with the answer to this question, here's our upland game bird specialist, Adam Bump.

Adam:

Rough grouse in zone three have declined primarily due to habitat loss. Grouse populations in zone three probably were at their highest in the sixties or seventies, most likely due to farming practices changing, and abandoning of less productive ground, and allowing young forests and shrubs to develop. And those habitats were connected throughout zone three, it allowed grouse to spread and thrive. And as those forests and brushy areas matured, it reduced habitat quality and availability for grouse. So we see less grouse now in zone three. In places where we have large state game areas that are forested and actively managed to maintain young forest conditions, and larger blocks of contiguous forest that also have that management we still have grouse and zone three.

Rachel:

Thanks Craig, for submitting that question. To hear your question on air record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at dnr-wildlife@Michigan.gov. Your question could be featured on the mailbag.

Announcer:

Michigan Conservation Officers are working hard to protect and keep the outdoors safe for current and future generations. If you witness a natural resources violation, you can call or text the report all poaching hotline 24 hours a day at 1-800-292-7800 or fill out the complaint form available at Michigan.gov/wrap. If you would like more information on becoming a conservation officer, click on Become A CO at Michigan.gov/conservationofficers.

Rachel:

Now, is your opportunity to win a Wild Talk podcast camp mug. As a thank you to our listeners, we'll be giving away a mug or two every episode. Now, the last episode's mug me question, I slipped and asked the question incorrectly. And to my absolute delight, several of you wrote in and caught me on it. So the question was what are the eight species of squirrels we have here in Michigan, but in fact there are nine species. I don't know why my brain failed me on that one, but it did, and we have nine species here.

Eric:

I think I know why it failed. It's because you had already given them the woodchuck, and so it was basically the eight additional species to the one that you had already given them. And so I bet you that's what happened. It seems like one of those things that a brain would do.

Rachel:

It does. Yeah, we'll go with that. That's exactly what happened. So if you did respond to the mug me and only responded with eight species, then we did indeed include you in the random selection for mugs because, well done. Our September mug winners are George Kelly and Brian Ray. Congratulations, George and Brian, check your email as we'll be getting in touch with you soon. So they answered the question, what are the squirrel species in Michigan and those species are woodchuck, red squirrel, fox squirrel, gray squirrel, northern flying squirrel, southern flying squirrel, the 13 line ground squirrel, and the least chipmunk in the eastern chipmunk, so hodgepodge of squirrel species we have here in Michigan. Now to be entered into the drawing this month, test your wildlife knowledge and answer our wildlife quiz question. I thought we would stick with the squirrel theme for this question as well because I came across this interesting fact while looking into squirrels this past month.

In the northern and southern flying squirrels, what is the technical term for the gliding membrane that connects their wrists to their ankles that allows them to glide? All right, email your name and answer to us at dnr-wildlife@Michigan.gov to be entered for a chance to win a mug. Now, be sure to include the subject line as Mug Me and then submit your answer by October 15th. We will announce the winners and the answer on next month's podcast, so be sure to listen in to see if you've won and for the next quiz question. Good luck everyone. Well, thanks for joining us on this September edition of The Wild Talk Podcast. Remember, if you have questions about wildlife or hunting, you can call 517-284-Wild or email us at dnr-wildlife@Michigan.gov. Thank you for listening to the episode, and we'll see you back here in October.

Announcer:

This has been the Wild Talk Podcast, your monthly podcast airing the first of each month in offering insights into the world of wildlife across the state of Michigan. You can reach the Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 or dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.