While you would never go birding without binoculars, you might be surprised at how many people don’t use binoculars when viewing birds at their feeding station or in their yard. We think it’s equally important and even more interesting to have your most important birding equipment within reach – your binoculars. So often, when you least expect it, you get excited and delighted by the surprise appearance of a new bird, and by viewing it through binoculars, you get an even better view of all the details of that special bird. Read more

Safari Club International (SCI) applauds the recent ruling, by the Senate Parliamentarian, that the proposed sale of up to three million acres of public land is non-compliant with the Senate rules, specifically the Byrd Rule. The rule prohibits provisions that are viewed as “extraneous” to the budget. An item is considered extraneous if it does not produce a net positive change in the budget and or increases the deficit beyond the “budget window” and are subject to a sixty-vote threshold if they remain in the bill.

SCI member voices were heard when they applied pressure on lawmakers and as a result, Senator Mike Lee, pledged to reconsider the proposal. Now the Senate Parliamentarian is set to stop it in its tracks.

“This is a victory for every hunter who values and relies on access to public lands. Land access is a resource that once taken away cannot be replaced and effects all outdoorsmen and women.” Said W. Laird Hamberlin, CEO of Safari Club International. “SCI members took action, and Washington listened to our collective voices proving that when we work together, we can stop bad policy decisions.” Read more

EDGEFIELD, S.C. — The Kirtland’s Warbler Festival has been actively celebrating the songbird’s conservation success for over 30 years. This year, the Michigan NWTF State Chapter was invited to be part of the celebration.

For those who may have never heard of the Kirtland’s warbler, it’s because almost the entire population breeds in north-central Michigan.

This warbler shares a similar story to the wild turkey in that it was on the verge of extinction due to habitat loss. In the late 80s, there were only 167 singing males recorded. Thanks to habitat management programs that included managed burns, clear-cutting and the planting of Jack pines, as well as the monitoring and control of nest-parasitizing cowbirds, the number of singing males rebounded to over 2,300 by 2015.

Mike Petrucha, now the festival’s chair, vice chair, treasurer and secretary, was a part of the efforts to reestablish the lost habitat when he was working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Jack pines get in your blood,” Petrucha said. “It makes good deer habitat, and when it’s young, it’s the best snowshoe hare habitat there is. Turkeys certainly use it, especially the openings, which are grassy with lots of grasshoppers and insects for them to eat. Ruffed grouse, spruce grouse and bears use it as well.” Read more

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation strongly opposes a measure placed in the budget reconciliation bill that calls for the sale of 2 to 3 million acres of Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service land.

“RMEF opposes the large-scale transfer or sale of federal public lands,” said RMEF President and CEO Kyle Weaver. “Further, RMEF adamantly opposes the current backdoor attempt in Congress to erase existing law that affords transparency and opportunity for public input prior to the sale or transfer of any federal public land.”

An RMEF delegation is active on Capitol Hill, working with lawmakers as recently as last week. It also shared concerns with Senate leadership earlier this month as it did with U.S. House members in May.

RMEF is more than just an advocate for and voice of public lands. It opens and improves access for the public. Since its founding in 1984, RMEF opened or improved public access to more than 1.6 million acres.

“We call on our membership and all outdoorsmen and women to contact their federal lawmakers and encourage them to remove this provision and support public access,” added Weaver. Read more

Squeezed by disease events, water scarcity, and agency commitment, wild sheep recovery remains a work in progress. 

Excerpt from Fair Chase Magazine Summer 2025
By Andrew McKean, B&C Professional Member

Wild Sheep Foundation matched a $30,000 grant from Spanish gunmaker Bergara to help fund a special guzzler project in the Muddy Mountains in Nevada. The remote location required helicopter transport of all tools, equipment, materials, and manpower to complete the guzzlers. The structure itself has a 100’ X 150’ apron that captures and directs water to eight 2,300-gallon tanks.

Owing to their high-elevation haunts and habit of staying well away from the more disruptive tendencies of humans, bighorn sheep were fairly insulated from our first continental wildlife reckoning.

As deer, elk, wild turkeys, pronghorns, and a whole menagerie of birds got caught in the thresher of American progress, bighorn rams were relatively unaffected by farms, factories, and the firearms of market hunters. The exceptions that paid the price in extinction were our lowland sheep, the Audubon subspecies of the lower Missouri and Yellowstone rivers that fed the crews and woodhawks of the steamboat era. Read more

June 18, 2025
In a case that highlights the importance of Michigan’s bear-baiting regulations, state wildlife biologists in Montmorency County recently removed a plastic lid from the neck of a young black bear that had carried the encumbrance around for two years.

It isn’t known exactly where or how the male bear got its head stuck in a 5-inch hole in the lid. The blue plastic lid is similar to those that fit 55-gallon drums used by hunters to bait bear and by landowners to store materials that can attract bears, such as chicken feed.

While baiting is a legal method for hunting bears in Michigan, bait containers can only be used on private land and may only have holes that are either 1 inch or less in diameter or 22 inches or greater in diameter.

Landowners can do their part by recycling or crushing containers such as empty cheeseball tubs and being “BearWise” about securing garbage, said Cody Norton of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. He pointed to cases in Florida, Wisconsin and Tennessee in which bears got their heads stuck in food containers. Read more

Now through July 29, 2025, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Habitat Grant Program is accepting applications with a focus on projects that restore large complexes of grassland and savanna habitat.

“Grasslands and savannas were once abundant, but are now rare in Michigan,” said DNR Wildlife Division Chief Sara Thompson. “By partnering with conservationists across the state to restore grasslands, we can provide important habitat for wildlife, as well as numerous benefits for Michiganders. Grasslands help prevent erosion and flooding, filter runoff, and pull carbon dioxide out of the air – protecting our water and air.”

Funding for this critical habitat work is available for local, state, federal and tribal governments, and profit and nonprofit groups through an open, competitive process. Minimum grant amounts will be set at $50,000, with the maximum being the amount of funds available for this grant cycle. The 2025 overall available grant amount is approximately $500,000. Read more

Thursday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released their provision of the budget reconciliation bill, the large and comprehensive bill that has been consuming most of the oxygen in the nation’s capital for much of the 119th Congress. Included in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s reconciliation text is the mandate to arbitrarily sell-off at least 2 million acres and up to 3 million acres of federal public lands across 11 western states, which the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) strongly opposes.

Last month, when the House was considering their version of the reconciliation bill, CSF put out a statement expressing our concerns with selling-off and disposing of federal public lands through the budget reconciliation process. The House-passed reconciliation bill contained no public land disposal provisions. To be clear, CSF is not anti-disposal or sale in principle – we recognize there are real challenges facing local communities across the country where federal landownership is high. CSF understands, and in the right circumstances, can support the transfer or disposal of federal lands that are low in both recreational and biological value, and through a process that has leveraged the tools at our disposal to conduct small, thoughtful exchanges or sales that result in a win-win for sportsmen and women, conservation, and local communities. But, the details and process matter when conducting any land sale, transfer, or exchange.

CSF is willing to have serious discussions about how we can leverage the existing authorities in place to provide for the thoughtful and strategic analysis of how we can meet the needs of local communities while ensuring we stay true to one of the core tenets of what makes America unique – our magnificent system of federal public lands that belong to all American citizens. Read more