A summit sponsored by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) was held earlier this month in Sarasota, FL with a goal of improving relations between businesses and industries involved in outdoor recreation. Unfortunately, many in the outdoor industry had traditionally assumed that they were fighting over the same potential customers and that their success was […]
October 29, 2012
Comments Off on American Eagle Compact – “Because Conservation Doesn’t Have A Party”
October 26, 2012 Regular readers of this site may recall our National Sportsmen’s Organizations Not Exempt from Party Politics post from October 4, 2012. In it, we waxed nostalgic about a time when hunters, anglers and conservationists resisted party politics for the advancement of their collective causes. These issues joined sportsmen (gender-neutral as always) of […]
October 21, 2012
Comments Off on Poaching: The Bigger the Buck, the Bigger the Fine?
By Drew YoungeDyke, NMCN Contributing Editor It would be nice if hunting never got to this point: where the single-minded focus of killing a big buck sometimes overshadows the cultural and culinary experience of hunting an elusive animal and honoring it by sharing its meat with friends, family and the needy. Anyone who watches much […]
October 18, 2012
Comments Off on Wolf Hearings Begin
Following up on an earlier post appearing on this site back in July (Wolf in the Room – https://nmconservationnetwork.org/2012/07/24/the-wolf-in-the-room/ ), legislative hearings have begun in both the Michigan House and Senate on bills which would add wolves to the list of Michigan game species. As we have discussed in the past, this is a necessary […]
October 14, 2012
Comments Off on One Elk Management Plan is Enough
For those that did not happen to see it last Thursday, a video segment of interest was presented on two area television stations. The subject of the story was an Onaway area farmer who has registered complaints about elk-related crop damage. We do not know who initiated the media event, but in addition to the television […]
October 8, 2012
Comments Off on Senate Bill Misses the Forest for the Trees
by Drew YoungeDyke – NMCN Contributing Editor A bill in the Michigan Senate would literally change the definition of conservation and remove biodiversity restoration from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR)’s responsibilities. SB 1276, introduced by Sen. Tom Casperson (R – Escanaba), prohibits the DNR from designating land for biological diversity. The bill is designed […]
October 7, 2012
Comments Off on Reclaiming the Boardman River – Easy? “No” – Worth it? “Yes”
No one ever said that a project which sets out to remove three dams and connect some 150 miles of riparian habitat along the Boardman River corridor in Grand Traverse County would be easy. The recent partial and limited failure of a temporary dam installed at the Brown Bridge Dam pond should in no way […]
October 4, 2012
Comments Off on National Sportsmen’s Organizations Not Exempt from Party Politics
As we approach the culmination of another painful election cycle, it has become increasingly clear that many national conservation and sportsmen organizations have found it necessary to choose sides and align more closely with one political party over the other. It’s not a coincidence our collective voice as sportsmen-conservationists has been weakened in recent years […]
September 30, 2012
Comments Off on “The Call” Returns
As many of you likely know by now, the publication of The North Woods Call has resumed after a 1 ½ year suspension, following the passing of conservation legend Glen Sheppard. This news comes at an especially good time for those of us who have struggled in our attempt to at least partially fill this […]
September 27, 2012
Comments Off on Great Lakes Water Levels – A Wisconsin Perspective
Following up on our July 31, 2012 post Great Lakes Water Level Update https://nmconservationnetwork.org/2012/07/31/great-lakes-water-level-update/ , Dan Egan has written an excellent article which recently appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Pressure mounts to restore Great Lakes water levels. You may recall that in 2004, an engineering firm was engaged by property owners from the northern Lake […]
Northern Michigan Conservation Network 
November 1, 2012
Comments Off on Outdoor Recreation – Finding Common Ground on Our Common Grounds