MDNR Beaver Island Implementation Plan, 2022

Summary

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ 2022 Beaver Island Implementation Plan is an addendum-style landscape-management document for state-owned Beaver Island lands. It describes three management zones—Special Conservation, Selective Management, and Habitat Maintenance and Restoration— whose boundaries were developed with a GIS model and assistance from the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. The plan connects natural communities, wildlife, timber stands, and compatible management uses.

Forest and habitat evidence

The plan reports a 2017–18 Michigan Natural Features Inventory inventory of 12,348 acres of Beaver Island state land. Within the inventoried state lands, it reports 88% forest cover; the most common forested cover types are Northern Hardwoods (33%), Lowland Coniferous (15%), Lowland Deciduous (15%), and Lowland Mixed Forest (12%). It also identifies wetlands, old fields, shrublands, water, and open dunes as non-forested cover categories.

The plan describes conservation-zone objectives in terms of mature forest, rare or high-quality natural communities, shorelines, streams, large trees, snags, and downed logs. It names ruffed grouse, white-tailed deer, American woodcock, and piping plover habitat in its wildlife-management context. These are plan-level management statements, not a complete species inventory or proof of an occurrence at any particular public or private location.

Evidence and limits

This record preserves an official web source and its scope, but the PDF is not yet held locally because Michigan.gov rejects the project’s standard downloader. The plan’s percentages describe surveyed state land, not the entire island and not all ownerships. Its zones and proposed management outcomes do not establish current implementation, timber harvest completion, parcel ownership, access, or the location of sensitive cultural or biological resources.

Added 2 August 2026. Recent changes