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DNR awards $100,000 awarded in U.P. Deer Habitat grants

LANSING — The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has awarded a total of $100,000 in deer habitat improvement grant funding to 12 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 844 acres in Menominee, Marquette, Alger, Gogebic, 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 12 grants is valued in excess of $123,930 (well in excess of the required 25 percent) further expanding the impact of the projects.”

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 thirteenth 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 of projects, we will have made available $750,000 to U.P. partners for 95 projects to improve deer habitat. The value in partner match over the years has exceeded half a million dollars,” Scullon said. “The reach of the program has been to hundreds of landowners, over several thousand acres, involving all of the U.P.’s 15 counties.”

Availability of the grants was announced in January, with a March 13 deadline to apply. There was a total of 16 applicants in this year’s grant cycle. Awardees were notified by April 1.

For more information on the grant program, please contact Bill Scullon at 906-250-6781 or scullonh@michigan.gov.

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