“That was before Animal Planet.”

Beginnings

The DNR celebrates its centennial this year, and Stewart – who recently retired – was there for half of that 100 years. He shared some reflections on the department’s story and his role in it.

Stewart’s introduction to working with the DNR came while he was a student at Michigan State University in 1970, when the university provided some funding for him to help with wildlife research at the Rose Lake Wildlife Pathology Lab in Clinton County.

In 1972, after graduating from the MSU animal technology program, he was hired to work for the DNR as a student assistant at the Rose Lake Wildlife Pathology Lab. As he learned more about the field of wildlife biology, he realized that’s the career he wanted and continued his studies in that field, earning a degree in 1975.

For example, he worked on a project to study attributes of turkey health that involved trapping wild turkeys in the northern Lower Peninsula and taking samples from them.

“I was there when the nets went over the turkeys and I said, ‘boy, that’s really cool, I’d really like to do this in the future.’ And so that was the starting of my very strong interest in wild turkeys. In those days there weren’t many wild turkeys really to speak of in Michigan, so that was a very unique experience.”

In his early days with the DNR, Stewart also was involved in activities to monitor and reintroduce giant Canada geese, which were close to extinction in the 1960s, to Michigan.

He called the Canada goose reintroduction effort “a great success to the point that some may say they are a nuisance. But still, Michigan is ranked as one of the top in the nation for Canada goose harvest and continues to be a leader in Canada goose management.”

“I found out very rapidly that loons are pretty heavy,” said Stewart, who had to walk up dunes with plastic bags of loons weighing about 100 pounds. “It was a lot more work than I expected … I thought I was just a beachcomber … but I loved every minute of it.”

Conservation milestones

Stewart also was involved in the effort to recover the Kirtland’s warbler, a species that was on the brink of being extinct in the early 1970s. He helped Bill Shake, USFWS biologist, on trapping brown-headed cowbirds, which helped prevent these parasitic birds from laying eggs in Kirtland’s warbler nests and causing warbler parents to care for cowbird chicks instead of their own chicks. He got to participate in Kirtland’s warbler singing surveys to help monitor the species’ population.

Today, thanks to the work of many conservation partners including the DNR, Kirtland’s warblers have made a remarkable recovery and no longer need Endangered Species Act protection.

Other interesting assignments while Stewart was working out of the wildlife lab included collecting bats to test for rabies and testing foxes for rabies and taking part in elk surveys and research into winter deer nutrition.

“I had a hodgepodge of great experiences on the front end of my career,” he said. “I was real lucky to have been able to do that.”

He then transferred back to the Rose Lake field office, where he was responsible for Maple River State Game Area and other game areas in Clinton and Gratiot counties.

At the time, the Maple River game area had become overgrown, the water pumps were malfunctioning, and there were holes in the dikes. Stewart helped redesign the area’s units, and now it features “the largest wetland complex in mid-Michigan, with a lot of waterfowl.”

While working out of the Rose Lake office, he applied for a grant to create the first barrier-free blind in Michigan, a duck hunting and waterfowl observation blind at Maple River. He enlisted a huge army of volunteers to help in that effort, including at-risk youth, students at local schools, Boy Scouts and duck hunting organizations.

The project and the outreach that went into it earned Stewart the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Award, which was presented by President George H. Bush at the White House, in 1992.

“I got to have lunch with him – it was pretty cool,” Stewart said.

Nearly 30 years later, making Michigan’s natural resources and outdoor recreation opportunities accessible to everyone is a key DNR priority.

Stewart also submitted one of the first proposals for funding from the Nongame Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund, established in 1983 to help conserve and promote awareness and appreciation of Michigan’s endangered, threatened and nongame wildlife. That proposal, to build a wildlife observation tower at Maple River, became the first nongame fund project ever funded.

“l wrote the original plan for that, and now we have ospreys throughout southern Michigan, so that was really a big plus,” Stewart said.

Another bird Stewart helped reintroduce to southern Michigan was the wild turkey.

Ever since his work with the birds at the wildlife lab early in his career, he was “enthralled by wild turkeys” and said he always had wanted to do something to reintroduce them to southern Michigan and expand their range in Michigan.

He got that chance in 1983, when he, along with many others, brought wild turkeys to Michigan from Iowa and Missouri and established some flocks in the southern part of the state.

Stewart was in charge of teaching DNR staff how to trap offspring of those birds to then move them to other locations in the state to help expand this restoration activity.

“So today, Michigan ranks fourth in the nation for wild turkey harvest … We’ve gone from extirpation of all wild turkeys in Michigan to today we have over 200,000 birds, and you can hunt turkeys in every county in the state,” he said. “That’s a pretty rewarding feeling to know that I was one small part of a project like this. It has brought so much pleasure and enjoyment to people either in viewing wild turkeys and knowing they were there or the ability to hunt in both the spring and fall.”

More accomplishments

After his time at the Rose Lake field office, Stewart transferred to Lansing to become the DNR’s upland game bird specialist and spent over 20 years in that role. He worked on projects like creating Michigan’s grouse enhanced management sites, known as GEMS, for premier bird hunting and Turkey Tracts, public hunting areas with habitat intensively managed for turkeys.

Later in his career, Stewart saw a project he started while working as a biologist at Rose Lake – where one of his responsibilities was the game area’s rifle range – come to fruition. The range started as an old gravel pit where people shot rifles and pistols, and over time, the DNR helped improve it.

“I got responsibility for the range at a time when shooting ranges were first starting to gain more interest from people,” Stewart said. “I applied for some grants and helped to update the range. We completely redid the whole range, moved a lot of earth around, helped make it barrier-free.”

The range improvement was supported with Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund dollars, and the first marker for Trust Fund projects was placed at Rose Lake.

He had plans to build a grant-funded shooting education building at the range, but the plans got waylaid as responsibility for shooting ranges moved between DNR divisions.

Later, through Stewart’s association with the Glassen Foundation, the DNR was able to build the state-of-the-art Hal and Jean Glassen Shooting Education Center, with accessible classroom and meeting space for up to 80 people, adjacent to the Rose Lake shooting range.

“And now I can sleep at night,” he said.

Part of Stewart’s role as the DNR’s upland game bird specialist was studying the American woodcock, and he saw advances in woodcock research methods over the years.

“We’ve been able to expand on that, and Michigan bands more woodcock chicks than anywhere else in the world and has the longest-running database on banded woodcock in the world, with over 34,000 birds having been banded. And there’s no other program even close,” he said.

“Michigan is No. 1 in the world for American woodcock harvest. We’re a leading production state, thanks to the work our biologists and forest management do as far as managing aspen and young forests and working with private landowners to manage their properties. Michigan is a real focal point for woodcock nationally.”

But, as Stewart explained, banding alone doesn’t provide any data between when a bird is banded and when it is recovered.  As technological developments allowed solar satellite transmitters to be made small enough to put on a small bird like a woodcock, Michigan became one of the first places to be involved in satellite telemetry for monitoring the species.

Stewart was invited to work with biologists in England and brought their knowledge of woodcock satellite telemetry back to Michigan and helped other research partners get that project going here.

“It helped us move our knowledge about American woodcock from a lower level to a whole other plateau of knowledge about movement of the birds,” he said.

Michigan hosted international woodcock symposia that brought people together to talk about the status of the birds now and where they want to be into the future and, from that, helped write best management practices for woodcock.

Because of Stewart’s activities with woodcock, he was invited to speak at an international woodcock symposium in Italy and, more recently, at Highgrove House in the U.K., the private residence of Prince Charles.

Throughout his career, Stewart has been known for his leadership, innovative ideas and mentoring skill. He has mentored many prospective and current natural resource employees while they were students and throughout their career. He’s quick to point out how fortunate he feels to have worked with so many devoted resource professionals in his job.

Al Stewart’s journey with the DNR took him not only around the world, but through five decades of changes and advancements in wildlife management.

His dedication help shaped who the DNR is as it heads into the next century of caring for Michigan’s natural resources.

Pollinator species include more than just honeybees – native bees, butterflies and moths, and some kinds of birds, bats, flies and wasps also provide the essential service of transferring the pollen that fertilizes plants and flowers.

We’re losing pollinators for a variety of reasons, including pests and diseases, habitat loss and exposure to chemicals. This is concerning because without pollinators, we can’t have healthy forests, thriving food crops or vibrant landscapes.

Providing pollinators with the nectar, pollen and habitat they need can help them survive. Pick the right trees for your landscape and watch them buzz, flap and flit to your yard.

Need a tall tree? Plant a stately basswood, whose starry, cream-colored flowers and heart-shaped leaves are adored by butterflies, bees and moths.

How about a low-maintenance tree? The hardy black tupelo, a honeybee favorite with scarlet autumn leaves, grows slowly and tolerates sun or partial shade.

Classic eastern redbuds and crabapples provide lots of pink flowers that pollinators and people alike will admire. The unusual tulip tree and northern catalpa, both sporting unique looks for landscaping, are beautiful nectar sources that attract hummingbirds.

Visit our webpage on fantastic flowering trees for more info.

In addition to planting trees and flowering plants to feed pollinators, you can support them by providing fresh, shallow water sources, applying fewer herbicides and pesticides, and using fallen leaves as mulch instead of burning them.

Learn more about helping pollinators from the Michigan Pollinator Initiative, and get tree-planting tips from the Arbor Day Foundation.

Questions? Contact Rachel Coale, DNR communications representative, at 517-930-1283.

The butterfly population has been declining over the last 20 years, primarily due to habitat loss in their summer range – including Michigan – and in Mexico, where they spend the winter.

Monarchs rely on grassland habitats that provide milkweed plants where monarchs lay their eggs, and nectar-producing flowering plants that provide food for the adult butterflies.

“Grasslands provide a diverse mix of plant species that pollinators, like the monarch, need – with both early- and late-blooming plants as well as plants that flower mid-summer,” said Dan Kennedy, endangered species specialist with the DNR. “Grasslands also support milkweeds, which are especially important for the monarch’s reproductive cycle – they are the only species of plants that monarch caterpillars eat.”

While monarch butterflies pollinate many flowering plants, they need milkweed plants to survive. Milkweeds are the host plants for monarch butterfly caterpillars, which feed on the plants as they grow.

Pale swallowwort has been detected across southern Michigan, while black swallowwort has been found across Lower Michigan and at one location in the Upper Peninsula. Swallowworts are perennial vines that have opposite, oval leaves with pointed tips. Small, star-shaped flowers grow in clusters, creating narrow, milkweed-like seed pods. Make sure to report any observations of this invasive species and don’t plant it by mistake.

As you work in your backyard, garden or community garden this year, consider these tips to make it beneficial for pollinators. You can even become a certified monarch waystation.

If you spot monarchs or their larva (caterpillars) this summer, be sure to report sightings to help inform conservation decisions here in Michigan! You can report monarch sightings and track their journey at Journey North.

Due to the declining population, monarch butterflies are listed as a candidate species under the federal Endangered Species Act and their population status is under review annually. Learn more at FWS.gov/SaveTheMonarch.

Information on identifying, reporting and managing invasive swallowworts, including a best control practices guide, is available at Michigan.gov/Invasives.

Find out more about ways you can help monarchs by visiting Michigan.gov/Monarchs or contacting the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453.

Questions? Contact Dan Kennedy at 517-896-2602.

Part of the Pollinator Project program is a Pollinator Project virtual kit, which helps formal and informal educators enhance in-person or virtual learning. The kit includes pollinator presentations for elementary and secondary students, videos and guides that share pollinator-themed activities, resources, plants, bee houses and how to support pollinators at home.

“We are designing a boxed, take-home wildflower garden kit for nearly 50 4-H youth to explore pollinators,” said Alex Schunk, Clare County 4-H coordinator, who is planning to use the kit for a June activity. “They’ll be making ‘pollinator seed balls’ with wildflower seeds donated by the Clare Conservation District.”

In past years, students have participated in the creation of new pollinator habitats, supported by the Gladwin chapter of Pheasants Forever. The program extends to both classroom and community to demonstrate how pollinators are unique and important and explains the challenges they face. Gladwin’s Pollinator Project helps connect the community to the wild world around them and encourages people of all ages to get involved.

Questions? Contact Kate King at [email protected].

The rusty patched bumblebee, the first wild bee to be listed, in 2017, as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is of particular concern for conservationists. Bumblebees are a keystone species in most ecosystems, meaning that they are necessary for native wildflower reproduction, creating seeds and fruits that feed wildlife and pollinating many different crops. Because of their ability to “buzz pollinate,” these bees are very effective pollinators. They rely on hydrangea, locust trees, goldenrod, blueberry bushes, spotted Joe-pye weed and bee balm for food and shelter.

The yellow-banded bumble bee is a USFWS species of concern, and, while not listed as endangered, is relatively rare. They rely on goldenrod, which can be found in abundance in Michigan. Sometimes considered a weed, this plant provides much-needed nutrients to many different species. Instead of mowing over goldenrods or cutting them back, let them grow.

Epeoloides pilosulus, a kind of cuckoo bee – so named for laying their eggs in other species’ nest to offload rearing their young – which was once found throughout the northern and eastern U.S. and southern Canada, was believed extinct until a specimen was found in Nova Scotia in 2002. Michigan State University researchers found a single specimen in 2018, after a 74-year absence in the state. This species relies entirely on fringed loosestrife – a sprawling perennial with yellow flowers that is not related to the invasive purple loosestrife.

The Poweshiek skipperling and Karner blue butterfly are two endangered butterflies found in Michigan. The skipperling, a small orange, brown and cream butterfly, has declined rapidly in the past 50 years due to habitat loss. Once common on native prairies of the Great Plains and Upper Midwest, this species is thought to now be concentrated in only six populations on earth, two of which are in Michigan. It relies on the grass species prairie dropseed and mat muhly to lay its eggs and black-eyed Susan flowers for food.

The Karner blue butterfly is entirely dependent on the wild lupine. Because of habitat loss, it now only is found in remnant oak savannas. The thumbnail-sized butterfly lays its eggs on or near lupine plants, and its caterpillars feed only on lupine leaves and flowers. This butterfly benefits from DNR prescribed burns, which help wild lupine thrive.

All these rare pollinators would greatly benefit by passage of the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act.

There are many other endangered and rare pollinators in Michigan. All are important for our local ecosystems, and their decline has troubling consequences. Losing these species also means losing natural biodiversity and disrupting local environments. Many of the factors driving their decline are human-caused, like intensive farming, climate change, pesticide use and habitat loss.

So, how can you help these important, endangered or rare species? Get involved. Community science is one of the best ways to help revitalize these populations.

• Learn how to identify native pollinators and report your observations.
• Become an MSU pollinator champion.
• Get involved in local habitat restoration and protection projects.
• Plant a pollinator garden with the key plants these species rely on. Even a small patch of pollinator-friendly greenery is helpful.

Questions? Contact Dan Kennedy at 517-896-2602.