(gentle music) - Well, July is Wildlife Conservation Month.

So on this edition of "Community Connection," we're gonna talk to those in the field.

So let's welcome you.

Jillian Farkas, biologist with the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

Glad that you are here, Jillian, to give your expertise.

Dave Pavlik, research assistant in the Haddad Lab at Michigan State University.

On behalf of John Ball Zoo, I know you do some work as well.

Good that you're here.

Lori Lomoro, Blandford Nature Center Wildlife Manager, with a special friend behind you we'll get to know as well.

So glad that you're all here.

And gotta talk about our wildlife, our precious creatures in our own backyard.

Lori, would you talk a little bit about your center, please?

- Yeah, I am the Wildlife Manager here at Blandford Nature Center.

This is my 19th year at Blandford, so I've been very blessed to have spent a lot of time here at Blandford.

And, with us, we try to do a lot of education for the public and get the public involved in learning more about nature, learning more about our wildlife.

And so, with us at Blandford, we have animals that are educational animals on our property that came to us because they were injured out in the wild.

They had permanent injuries, so they can't survive outside, and that's why we use them for education.

And we use our animals to get the public engaged with nature and learning more about why they want to take care of the animals around them, and care about them, and what they can do to help protect them and keep them in Michigan.

And so we focus on native Michigan wildlife.

- Thank you for that.

Dave, talk a little bit about your specialty, please.

- Yeah, so we're working with the John Ball Zoo and we started a new program this year where we're attempting to help Fish and Wildlife Service, and other partners, save the critically endangered Poweshiek skipperling, once really, really widespread species throughout the Midwest.

And now, in the United States, it's currently only refined to a small, little population in Michigan.

So that's something that, you know, Michigan residents can take pride in and we're hoping that we get 'em on the track to recovery.

- Wonderful, we'll talk more about the skipperling, standby.

But I wanna talk to you, Jillian, introduce us to your service.

- Hi, so I am a Fish and Wildlife Biologist for the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

And so the Fish and Wildlife Service work with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, and wildlife, and plants in their habitat for the continued benefit of the American people, including Michiganders.

And so my specialty is working with endangered piping plover, as well as a few other species, but they're a really treasured shorebird that we have in Michigan and we're the stronghold.

And my office works with several other species, including the Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake, the Poweshiek skipperling with David.

And also we've had some success with the Kirtland's warbler that we were able to help delist with many partners' efforts in 2019.

- On behalf of this month, why the need for active conservation, and this is a very general question, of a wildlife species?

I'll begin with you, Jillian.

- So we are interconnected with these species, so every species has value.

And anything that we can do to connect with nature and wildlife I think has value.

So with Fish and Wildlife Service, we are tasked with protecting threatened and endangered species but also their habitats.

And so, so many rare occurrences that we have in Michigan that it's truly so valuable in just getting the information out there to know what's in your backyard.

We are very special in the number of resources that we have, and we have a unique landscape.

And my species that I work with is the piping plover with many partners.

And it's common along the Great Lakes, the shoreline.

And so we don't have that many pairs left.

There used to be 500 to 700 pairs historically, and we're down to about 75 pairs in the Great Lakes region.

So it's declined down to 12 pairs and when it was listed in 1986.

And so we've been working continuously with many partners, including the Detroit Zoo, University of Minnesota, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, our Park Service, many partners have spent many years dedicated to try to recover these species and it's truly unique.

And we're very ecstatic to see its population extending outward to its more historic range.

For the first time, in 83 years, we had nesting in Ohio.

The grandparents of those plovers are from Michigan.

From Silver Lake State Park we had the grandparent, one of the grandparent plovers were budging some of some of their chicks.

So it's a great Michigan connection, just the invaluable species that we have.

- Hmm, wonderful, thank you.

Dave, would you expand?

Again, being general on this conservation effort, why the need?

- Yeah, so, you know, for the Poweshiek skipperling, the need is there.

There's only a couple of hundred of these things left in the world.

And so we're really on a crunch time here.

Like any year we could go out there and not see these on the landscape.

If it's one rough winter, or if something happens to these populations, they could be gone over, you know, over the course of a winter.

And so it's really important to, you know, not only conserve just that species, but we're conserving the land that those species are on.

We have partners that are doing habitat restoration, keeping invasive, woody vegetation out, so that these places where these skipperlings exist stay natural and they stay how they should be.

And we're also protecting so many other species when we're doing that work.

There's rare orchids out there.

There are other rare insects out there.

And so, you know, it's really critical to save the remaining species that are out in these really rare habitats.

And, you know, if we don't do this work now, they're gonna be lost forever.

- And before I get to you, Lori, staying with you, David, are these disappearances a natural disappearance?

Or are we blaming man and woman?

- Yeah, yeah, we've really done a lot of harm to them over the years.

So historically they were found in native, tall grass prairies.

Their core of their range was in Minnesota, and North and South Dakota, and native tall grass prairies.

And it's estimated there's about 1% maybe of the remaining tall grass prairies that once existed.

I'm imagining it's actually probably even lower than that.

And so when you take away that habitat and you turn it into, you know, agriculture, or human development, or, you know, parking lots, or something like that, those skippers aren't gonna survive.

The other species in those habitats aren't going to survive.

And so, you know, that definitely impacted these Poweshiek skipperlings.

The use of neonicotinoid pesticides, there's evidence that the skippers and the caterpillars can't really survive when those chemicals are sprayed.

And so a lot of this has been, you know, kind of inflicted by us.

And so, you know, the fact that we have the chance to now try to save them and get them back on a trajectory where they're going to recover is, you know, a really unique opportunity that we're, you know, very excited about.

- Great, you know we'll ask about obviously action items before we finish.

Lori, you have a special friend.

Can you continue the conversation?

- I do, so this is our barn owl, Luna.

And so, in Michigan, barn owls are a endangered species.

And so in different parts of the United States they can be more common than others.

In Michigan they are endangered.

And so for us, you know, we work with Luna and we work with the public to get them engaged by seeing her and seeing this cool, beautiful owl.

And then we bring up why she's endangered, why there's less habitat for her, even less farmland that, you know, she would have adapted to to live in.

And how she would eat hundreds, you know, to 1,000 rodents in a year, but if we're putting out, you know, rat poison, that is something that kills barn owls that are eating those poison rats.

And, you know, with barn owls, in 2012, we had a barn owl come in to us from Coopersville.

So we've done rehab in the past.

We don't do a lot of rehab currently, but we work with other wildlife rehabbers in the area.

But we had a barn owl come to us from Coopersville.

And he came in because he had eaten a poison mouse.

And so we use that opportunity to not only, we fixed him up, we were able to release him back out into the wild.

We'll use the opportunity to also educate the public on why you don't wanna put rat poison out, 'cause it kills all different kinds of animals, including people's pets as well.

And I feel like with wildlife conservation, of course, us nature lovers, we want to protect the animals, we wanna see that diversity in wildlife.

But also trying to connect it to the public so that way they care about it.

'Cause they might not care about nature and wildlife in the way that we might as scientists do, but then to get them to go, "Oh, well, I don't want my cat or dog to get poisoned."

Or, "Oh, this is a beautiful owl.

I don't wanna do something that would harm this beautiful owl."

So it's kind of making that connection to get people to care more and do stuff about it.

- Thank you for that.

And that owl, the name again is?

- Her name is Luna and she is a barn owl.

- Yes, yes, and she is available?

You take her out and educate us, the public, about the beauty and the need to conserve other barn owls?

- Yep, she's out on our wildlife trail and we do programs all over West Michigan, and so she's part of our programs.

- Dave, can you talk to me, thank you, Lori, a little bit more about the John Ball Zoo partnership that you have?

And what perhaps our zoos do for conservation?

- Yeah, so this year Fish and Wildlife Service in the Minnesota/Wisconsin office requested that we attempt to create an insurance population of the Poweshiek skipperlings.

And so, you know, the Haddad Lab and John Ball Zoo came together and put in some infrastructure, got people with the expertise that can do this along with the rest of our partners that have been doing this for like over six years.

And so we started a captive breeding program at the zoo for these skipperlings.

So right now we've bred eight individual pairs and, just today, we collected our 500th egg from the bred pairs, which is really, really remarkable.

Those eggs are already hatching into caterpillars.

We're setting those caterpillars up on host plants in our hoop house at the John Ball Zoo.

We've seen evidence that they're feeding.

And so our hatch rate's really high.

I really feel, you know, with the rest of the partners, you know, this could be a turning point for the conservation of that species.

We've never had this many individuals that we've been able to care for.

And, obviously, ultimately the goal is to get them back on the landscape.

We don't wanna keep them, you know, at the zoo indefinitely.

We wanna get them back out on the landscape and get these populations recovering.

That's the ultimate goal.

So, yeah, John Ball Zoo has been really, really fantastic.

And they have some amazing people there with the expertise that we've really been able to put to use and make sure that this project is a success.

- Thank you for that.

Piping plovers.

Expand here with your services more, Jillian, and again, more about your services with your fish and your wildlife, and what makes you different.

- So we, as a federal agency, there are many branches of government that also do conservation or wildlife related work, but they're just kind of different levels of the federal, state or local level.

And a lot of times our duties will overlap, but they're kind of separated due to specific origins or jurisdictions.

And so the Fish and Wildlife Service, in our office, we have the jurisdiction to manage federally listed species and migratory animals that cross the state/international boundaries, such as waterfowl and migratory songbirds.

So the DNR, on the other hand, kind of upholds more of the state laws, regulating migratory animals in the state, but they also kind of manage resident non-migratory animals, such as deer and pheasants, and other local fish, that the federal agencies can't cover.

So the piping plovers, they are a federally listed species and we do work with the Michigan DNR with conservation for that species, but we are kind of the lead at the federal level.

And so we get to work with a variety of partners, including zoos, like the Detroit Zoo, they have one of the captive breeding programs that we've worked with over the past several decades.

When there's ever an abandoned or salvaged nest, we correspond with them and we're able to kind of have their expertise, as well as the University of Michigan Biological Station, up in Pellston, where we have kind of a flight pen that we send.

It's been a weird year with COVID.

We kind of had to switch up some of our normal procedures, but I'm so grateful for our partners are willing to take on different capacities to be able to really step up in this pandemic.

And we had a record-breaking year for captive individuals last year with 39 individuals released.

But we've had a really good year.

This year with piping plovers in the wild we are pledging a lot of three or four chicks from the nest.

And we haven't had as many need to go to captive rearing.

So it's been a really great year and it's great to see those successes.

And we wouldn't have those successes without the engagement of the public and respecting and kind of sharing the shoreline with piping plovers, as well as all of our partners in this piping plover partnership.

- Wonderful, all right, Lori, are you checking on your barn owl there, all as well with your Luna?

What else is behind you?

Is that a vulture?

- That is a common raven.

- Ah, yes, tell me about your raven.

- The raven is with us because he was found up in Copemish, is it Copemish?

I think I'm saying that correctly.

A guy had seen him walking over to the road and pulling roadkill off the road to eat in the field.

And he kept doing that and wasn't flying.

And then, eventually, he was going up to people kind of begging for food, which is not a normal behavior for a raven.

And so he was brought into a wildlife rehabber who took him to our veterinarian that we also work with.

And she saw that his right wing, kind of where the finger area would be, was damaged.

So he'd probably been bumped by a car.

And by the time that he got to the veterinarian, the bones were pretty necrotic, pretty rotten.

And so she had to do a small amputation on the tip of the wing.

But because he's missing part of his arm, he's not able to get good lift, he can't fly very well.

And so we were able to give them a permanent home here at Blandford.

And so he's in my office, 'cause my office is kind of crazy with all the animals, and body parts, and mice food and whatnot in here.

But I have him back here 'cause we're working on training him to get onto the glove, get on and off perches.

We can use him for programs and get the public able to learn more about the cool raven.

Especially, in Grand Rapids where we're at.

We tend to have more crows, not too many ravens.

Ravens are more common north of this area.

And so it will be nice to kind of show people the differences and, you know, why ravens are so cool.

- Thank you for that.

I'll always look at a raven in a positive way now.

Dave, on behalf of MSU, education key to students to future conservationists?

- Yeah, education is definitely important.

I've been kind of surprised at just how few people even know about some of the endangered species that are, you know, in their own backyard here in Michigan.

Some of the people that we interact with over where the Poweshiek skipperling still does exist in the state, you know, we look kind of funky, we're carrying butterfly nets and we're carrying big packs and people are always asking, "Well, you know, what are you doing?"

And, you know, we definitely try to educate them and let them know that, "Hey, you have this really, really critically endangered species right here in your own backyard."

And, you know, we educate them.

We try to get them to take pride in that, and try to get them to, you know, help in any way that they can.

So, you know, that's why it's great to partner with the John Ball Zoo.

You know, they've been doing a lot of outreach about this species.

We have other partners across the state and across the Midwest that have been doing outreach.

And so, you know, just education so people know what they have in their own backyards and how they can help is just critical.

- Thank you for that.

Jillian, what else?

What other action item do you need for us to know about on behalf of your services when it comes to both fish and wildlife?

- Right, so I think it's just great to have the public's participation.

Anybody can be a scientist.

There's many science apps, including iNaturalist and eBird.

We use eBird a lot, especially, when the piping plovers are coming back from their migration routes to see where the piping plovers are located.

There's only so many people that we can have eyes on the birds.

So the more that we have, it really helps us inform our decision-making and being able to do a habitat restoration, or identifying these key sites that piping plovers are using.

And so just really appreciating everyone sharing the shore with these endangered shorebirds, it's just really appreciated.

They love the beach, Michiganders loved the beach.

And so anything that we can do to make sure that both are able to enjoy those circumstances is really helpful from the Fish and Wildlife Service aspect.

And then just kind of in general, I mean, we're conserving wildlife.

So anything that you can do at your own house with pollinator gardens are always great, or bat houses.

We have several federally listed bats, so it's trying to create different habitats along those standpoints.

So you don't have to be part of a Fish and Wildlife Service agency to make a difference with wildlife conservation.

And every act matters, so we just appreciate that.

- Yes, what other action items do you have for us, Dave?

Boots on the ground, just for the laymen.

- Yeah, so I was gonna bring up what Jillian just said about the pollinator gardens.

You know, that's one of the easiest things that you can do if you have a house and you have a yard.

Pollinators can't use your lawn, they can't use grass.

And so that's really taking away from potential habitat for them.

And we know the pollinators are really declining over the past, you know, even just several years, 10, 20 years.

And so transform part of your lawn grass into a native pollinator garden.

That's definitely one easy thing that anyone can do.

Avoid using pesticides in your yard, you know, they can have unintended consequences.

You know, if you're spraying for mosquitoes, a lot of those are just general pesticides that are also going to affect the native bees.

They're gonna affect native butterflies, and you're gonna see fewer and fewer of those around your yard and your neighborhood.

So those are really easy things that you can do to really help these pollinators, these native species in Michigan, you know, recover.

- Lori, you mentioned an injured animal.

If one sees an injured animal on the side, what's the protocol?

- Typically, you know, the best thing to do is to call, you can call Blandford Nature Center to get information.

The Michigan DNR, on their website, they have a list of wildlife rehabilitators.

And on that list, it'll say like what counties they're in, what animals they are licensed to work with.

And so you can go on there and call someone that's close to you.

'Cause ideally you wanna go to someone close to you if possible.

And call to say, "Hey, I'm seeing this, how do I grab it?"

And they might tell you, "Leave it there."

They might tell you it's not injured, it's just a young animal.

Don't kidnap it from its mom type of thing.

Or they might say, "Okay, this is something that we do think probably is injured.

And this is the safest way for you to not get hurt, and not have the animal get hurt, and bring it in."

And when it comes to wildlife rehab, with wildlife rehabbers, a lot of them are taking care of animals right out of their home or right in their backyard.

And, especially, during the summertime, they're very, very busy.

So it's always good to kind of be patient with them when they're getting back to you.

But, I mean, wildlife rehabbers are also part of the public that help with wildlife conservation, and what they do also helps get the public interested because they saved an animal and then they can kind of go, "Oh, it was injured because of this, and these are the things that I could change to protect animals like this."

And then with us being able to work with rehabbers and have some of their animals that they have to place in a permanent home, we can use these guys for education to, again, get people involved, get people caring about wildlife, the environment.

And, you know, Blandford, in general, not only do we have lots of programs and stuff for people that come out and learn more about the environment and wildlife, we have lots of volunteer opportunities.

Whether you're out helping us to restore our Highlands area, the old golf course that we acquired, and then we're turning that back into a natural space.

And then also all the different universities that also use this space to help with their students, getting them involved and learning more about conservation.

- Great, and how do we find out more information about the center?

Yeah, do you have a website?

- With Blandford, we have our BlandfordNatureCenter.org website.

And then, of course, Blandford Nature Center is also on Facebook and Instagram.

And so those are nice pictures and videos to kind of get your attention and know our current events as well.

- Wonderful, picture owl for us.

Dave, how do we find out more information about your services?

- Yeah, so if you're interested in the Poweshieks specifically, you know, you can visit the John Ball Zoo or you could go online.

Fish and Wildlife Service has, you know, a lot of good information about the Poweshiek skipperling, what's been causing its decline, how you can help.

Michigan Natural Features Inventory also has a great website that details, you know, all the information you could want about the Poweshiek skipperling.

And so those are really useful tools.

So, hopefully, you know, if you're interested in learning more about those, just Googling and looking at those different organizations, what they've been doing over the past years to help their conservation is a great way start.

- Great, Jillian, what do you leave us with?

- We have the GreatLakesPipingPlover.org website.

That's where we have everything piping plover.

We also have a Facebook page.

And if you start to really get passionate about the Illinois pair or the Ohio pair, they each have their own Facebook pages as well and a dedicated community.

We also have our Fish and Wildlife Service website, it's FWS.gov/Midwest/EastLansing for more about our federally listed species.

But I highly recommend checking out the piping plover website to see, especially, the chicks, so they're little cotton balls with toothpick legs.

They're hard not to fall in love with.

- Wonderful, well, again, a new conversation for the dinner table when it comes to, of course, conservation, the skipperling and, yes, our piping plovers, we'll be talking about Luna.

And does the raven have a name?

- The raven was named on our Facebook contest.

His name is Poe.

- Poe, so kudos to Poe.

And after our conversation, Lori, will Luna be fed with a mouse because he's done so well?

- I'll put her back in her enclosure on the wildlife trail, 'cause she won't take a mouse from me.

She likes to eat when I'm not looking.

- Okay, well, understood.

All right, thank you all.

Again, July is certainly an important Wildlife Conservation Month, but according to your expertise and your labor of love, every month should be Wildlife Conservation Month.

So protect our critters and certainly protect those endangered species that we now know about.

So back to your work, much to do.

And thank you very much, thanking Luna and Poe, and all the partnerships as well.

So you take care and thanks for what you do, yep.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for watching "Community Connection."

To be considered for a "Community Connection" segment, or you have an event you would like to be added to our community calendar, email your information to irwinsh@gvsu.edu.

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