Welcome to the Kirtland's Warbler GeoTrail (KWGT). This trail will take you in a loop in central Northern Michigan through the Jack Pine ecosystem, breeding home of the Kirtland's Warbler. This tour takes you to a total of 25 caches with an amazing trackable geocoin as a reward. The KWGT Passport can be downloaded here: https://f81c572e-1d95-4026-befc-8c60f69cbcd9.filesusr.com/ugd/31e003_41b2f3aa918442e8b08c880e746e6946.pdf
The Kirtland's Warbler Recovery Team was formed in 1975 and was the first team established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Team membership was chosen to represent the three managing agencies (Michigan Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Forest Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and private interests to contribute the essential expertise in natural resource management for recovery of this critically endangered, highly specialized, migratory songbird.
The Team wrote a recovery plan in 1976 that provided goals and objectives for the management of the Kirtland’s Warbler. The primary objective of the plan was “to reestablish a wild self-sustaining population of Kirtland's Warblers throughout its known former range of a minimum level of 1000 pairs.” It gave the past and present distribution, habitat requirements, limiting factors, and conservation efforts. Included were sections on nesting habitat management that optimized multiple use of managed habitats for recreation and timber production, migration and wintering conditions, and factors adversely affecting reproduction and survival. The Kirtland's Warbler Recovery Plan was revised and updated in 1985.
Over the years, the Team grew to include representation from Ontario, Wisconsin, The Bahamas, and academia. The Kirtland's Warbler Recovery Team was regarded as one of the best teams ever assembled and was often used as a template on how a recovery team should operate. However, meetings were not always harmonious. Occasionally, heated arguments broke out between agencies and individuals, but by the end of the day, parties came together to do what was best for the bird.
In March 2016, the Kirtland's Warbler Recovery Team transitioned into the Kirtland's Warbler Conservation Team to facilitate Kirtland's Warbler removal from the Endangered Species List and guide it into the future.
Cache
This is an experimental planting area. While this is not a Kirtland’s Warbler Management Area, there were a few years that Kirtland’s were found here. While color-banding Kirtland’s, I captured and banded a Black-capped Chickadee. The bird was found the next year in a northern suburb of Milwaukee, WI showing that chickadees in Michigan migrate. Across the road is the DNR Conservation Airport.