Welcome to the Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center!
With permission from Michigan State University, I have placed several geocaches here to help others discover and enjoy this place. If you wish to read more about this marsh, I have added information regarding the history of the marsh and
If you see any birds at this marsh, feel free to share what you may have seen in your logs. If you can’t identify the bird you saw, describe what you think you saw, or you can use Audubon.
This is a low-terrain cache and you should not have any problems finding it. Corey Marsh is a 400-acre park and research center for prairie/marshland reconstruction, bird banding, and research.
Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center, or CMERC is a 400-acre reconstructed marshland ecosystem in Clinton County between Bath and Laingsburg. CMERC opened in 2018 following the close of the Muck Soils Research Farm
History
The Muck Soils Research Center was established on the Michigan State University’s Bath Township property in 1945. Interest was growing in the four million or more acres of muck land in Michigan, and the State Board of Agriculture approved $5,000 to start a new experimental muck farm. Corey Marsh was a natural choice for the location of this new experimental muck farm, as Ernest Anthony, the Dean of Agriculture, describes in his address to the 23rd annual MMFA convention: “Fortunately the College has had in its possession since 1855 over 200 acres of undeveloped, excellent muck land, located in the Corey Marsh near Bath in Clinton County. The land is the last of the original grants of land made when the college was first established. It is located in a larger body of muck of more than 1,000 acres that forms the Corey Marsh. It is quite uniform, running from four to twenty feet in depth, with a large proportion more than twelve feet deep, and it can be drained without difficulty." Early developments included clearing twenty-five acres of light brush cover, installing a pumping station, and establishing electric power. Arrangements were made to tile drain at least twenty-five acres that year, with more to be cleared and tiled as needed. An improved road was constructed to the center of the operations. It was also planned to build a house for the farm foreman and necessary tool sheds and other buildings to house the equipment. The initial 25 acres were broken and fallowed in the spring of 1941, and experiments began in 1942.
Information from https://www.canr.msu.edu/cmerc/history
Per the rules, please do not bring pets, bicycles, or motorized vehicles anywhere past the main gate, due to the extremely sensitive nature of the ecosystem. If you decide to go closer to the marsh, stay on the trails at all times. The marshland surrounding the ponds is a prime habitat for secretive marsh birds and this can be damaged by pets or off-trail bushwhacking.
The cache is a nano in a signpost that you should not have problems finding.
FTF: dotdotdash
STF: terrifrog
TTF: bigtom5776