The following news release was issued earlier today by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
July 15, 2025
Media contact: Lynsey Mukomel, 517-290-1734

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) is reminding Michiganders to be on the lookout for the invasive spotted lanternfly.

“Spotted lanternfly is a persistent nuisance in outdoor spaces,” said MDARD Director Tim Boring. “By staying informed and reporting sightings in areas without confirmed populations, Michiganders play a vital role in supporting our collective efforts to slow the spread of this invasive pest and safeguard the environment.”

As of July 2025, spotted lanternfly populations have been confirmed across southeastern Michigan, including parts of Lenawee, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, and Wayne counties. Residents of these counties do not need to report sightings, but should:

• Stay calm. Spotted lanternfly does not pose a risk to human or animal health.
• Consider contacting an arborist who is a certified pesticide applicator for information about appropriate treatment methods if there is a large infestation on your property.
• Focus pest management in areas where spotted lanternfly is most abundant.
• Be diligent if you choose to apply pesticide yourself. Always follow the instructions on the pesticide label and wear appropriate personal protective equipment.

Michiganders who live in areas without confirmed populations should:

• Take photos. Photos are necessary to verify a report and aid in identification.
• Provide details. Note the date, time and location of the sighting.
• Report it. Submit a report of your sighting online using?the Eyes in the Field tool. Read more

Contact: Nick Van Bloem, 517-388-7043

GW:  Read along to understand how Joe Biden’s plan to grow our national debt has come to fruition.  My favorite park, Rifle River Recreation Area, gets an upgrade to glampers; however, not a dime went toward clearing the fallen ash trees that prevent fishing from the banks.  Dang shame!

As Fourth of July holiday festivities wind down, Michigan state parkgoers have even more to celebrate. Thanks to a historic $273 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, 122 of 168 (73%) planned improvement projects at state parks have been completed or are in progress.

This unprecedented investment, which was outlined in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Building Michigan Together Plan, has been crucial to the state parks system, allowing the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to significantly reduce a decades-long backlog of vital repair and maintenance projects and support the development of a new state park in Flint – the first in Genesee County. Read more

A 9-year-old boy from Livingston County, Michigan, is reportedly home and doing well following an incident Friday in which collapsing sand at the Silver Lake State Park sand dunes, in Oceana County, temporarily buried the boy.

The child, who was visiting the Silver Lake area with family, was digging a hole in the sand, located near the pedestrian access on the northeast side of the dunes, when sand collapsed and covered him in about 5 feet of sand for more than five minutes.

Emergency responders were notified by Mason-Oceana 911 at 9:28 p.m. Michigan Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Logan Turner and Silver Lake State Park Ranger Cody Anscombe were patrolling the public off-road vehicle area of the dunes and were the first emergency responders to arrive at the scene.

At 9:30 p.m., Turner and Anscombe met the group of bystanders who dug the child out of the sand and were carrying the child toward the DNR employees. Read more

By Laura Carlson

There’s a point in every parent’s week where you glance at your kid—shoulders slumped over a tablet, face bathed in blue light—and wonder when they last got dirt under their fingernails. The answer’s often embarrassing. And it’s not your fault alone. Somewhere along the modern parenting roadmap, the natural world became optional. Richard Louv coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” to describe the creeping absence of green space in children’s lives, and it’s a term that hits home like a thud of boots on a trailhead. But this isn’t about guilt; it’s about getting your family out of the glow and into the grit of the real world, one tree climb, one bug hunt, one muddy-knee moment at a time.

Following Curiosity Instead of Calendars

One of the easiest mistakes you can make as a parent is treating nature like a field trip: scheduled, brief, and a little too clean. But the natural world doesn’t run on Google Calendar. It rewards spontaneity and invites detours. When you step outside without a detailed plan and just follow where your kids’ questions go. Read more

The Cabela Family Foundation recently announced a major milestone for their 24 Lions initiative. Back in 2018, the family took on the largest wild African lion translocation in history, moving 24 Lions from South Africa into Coutada 11 of Mozambique. The significance of the move lies in the fact that there was not a viable population of lions in this area due to years of ongoing civil war, poaching, and due to the area being difficult for lions to access to recolonize. In fact, lions were considered “functionally extirpated” as of 2017.

Just seven years later, the initiative has reached a milestone of significant importance, with the family announcing the population has surpassed 100 lions. Worth noting is the fact that all of the funding for the project was raised by the Cabela Family Foundation and a sustainable hunting and conservation model, led by Zambezi Delta Safaris. Read more

More than 900 bald eagle nests documented in Ohio statewide survey

Ohio can celebrate a milestone this Independence Day with 964 confirmed active bald eagle nests, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife. More than 1,800 reports from citizen scientists statewide helped complete the 2025 bald eagle nest census. Division of Wildlife staff followed up on these reports and confirmed nest locations in 87 of Ohio’s 88 counties.

Active nests were counted as those with an incubating eagle, eggs, or eaglets present. Given the high volume of nests, this nest census represents the most complete picture possible of Ohio’s breeding bald eagle population.

“The bald eagle is one of Ohio’s great conservation success stories,” said ODNR Director Mary Mertz. “The eagle’s remarkable comeback over the last few decades, both in Ohio and nationwide, proves how much we can accomplish when we conserve and protect habitat.”

Bald eagles prosper in areas with wetland habitat. Lake Erie and other large waterbodies host the highest number of eagles because of easy access to food, such as fish. The 13 counties with the highest number of bald eagle nests include: Ottawa (112), Sandusky (61), Erie (40), Seneca (36), Wyandot (31), Trumbull (29), Lucas (27), Huron (21), Wood (20), Coshocton (19), Knox (19), Licking (19), and Mercer (19).

Check it out: Map of eagle nests per county

Each spring, the Division of Wildlife uses aerial surveys of a portion of the state to estimate Ohio’s population of nesting bald eagles. A complete nest census, in which every bald eagle nest in the state is counted, is performed less frequently. The last statewide census, conducted in 2020, documented 707 active bald eagle nests. The number of active nests increased 36% from 2020 to 2025. Read more

July 1, 2025

Michigan residents, are you ready to talk (or spot) turkey? The Michigan Department of Natural Resources needs your help to tally wild turkeys this summer.

From July 1 through Aug. 31, the DNR will run its annual wild turkey brood survey – a community science effort for people statewide to report sightings of wild turkeys and turkey broods (hens with their young). By taking just a few minutes to report any turkeys you see, you’ll be contributing valuable data to track the health of the state’s turkey population. Read more

The completion of the new, 10-year State Forest Management Plan will be delayed by at least a year following the devastating ice storm that struck northern Michigan March 28-30, the state Department of Natural Resources announced today.

This historic storm coated trees with more than an inch of ice in some areas, causing widespread damage in the northeastern Lower Peninsula. More than 900,000 acres of state forest land were affected, with trees of many species incurring varying levels of damage.

Damage assessment of stands and existing treatments is underway, and timber salvage harvests have begun. Both are being tracked closely to gauge their impact on the plan. Read more

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