Michigan Islands National Wildlife Refuge (Lake Huron Islands Managed by Shiawassee NWR)
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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Michigan Islands National Wildlife Refuge (Lake Huron islands managed by Shiawassee NWR) Habitat Management Plan October 2018 Little Charity Island 2013. (Photo credit: USFWS) Michigan Islands NWR: Shiawassee NWR Habitat Management Plan Habitat Management Plans provide long-term guidance for management decisions; set forth goals, objectives, and strategies needed to accomplish refuge purposes; and, identify the Fish and Wildlife Service’s best estimate of future needs. These plans detail program planning levels that are sometimes substantially above current budget allocations and as such, are primarily for Service strategic planning and program prioritization purposes. The plans do not constitute a commitment for staffing increases, operational and maintenance increases, or funding for future land acquisition. The National Wildlife Refuge System, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is the world's premier system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife, and plants. Since the designation of the first wildlife refuge in 1903, the System has grown to encompass more than 150 million acres, 556 national wildlife refuges and other units of the Refuge System, plus 38 wetland management districts. Michigan Islands NWR: Shiawassee NWR Habitat Management Plan Table of Contents Signature Page .................................................................................................................................ii Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Scope and Rationale ......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Legal Mandates ................................................................................................................ 2 1.3 Relationship to Other Plans.............................................................................................. 3 Chapter 2: Background ................................................................................................................... 6 2.1 Location and Description of Islands ................................................................................. 6 2.3 Climate ............................................................................................................................. 9 2.4 Historical Perspective ....................................................................................................... 9 2.5 Current Land Classification and Plant Communities ...................................................... 10 Chapter 3: Resources of Concern ................................................................................................. 17 3.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 17 3.2. Comprehensive Resources of Concern .......................................................................... 17 3.3. Biological Integrity, Diversity, and Environmental Health ............................................. 19 3.4. Priority Refuge Resources of Concern ........................................................................... 20 3.5. Relationship between Refuge Habitats and Priority Resources of Concern .................. 23 3.6. Priority Habitats and Relationship to Resources of Concern ......................................... 28 3.7. Conflict Resolution ......................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 4: Habitat Goals, Objectives, and Strategies ................................................................... 30 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 30 4.2 HMP Goal, Objectives, and Management Strategies ..................................................... 33 Habitat Management Goal ................................................................................................... 33 HMP Objective 1: Baseline Habitat Inventory ...................................................................... 33 HMP Objective 2: Species and natural features inventory and monitoring ......................... 34 HMP Objective 3: Colonial waterbirds .................................................................................. 35 HMP Objective 4: Alvar / Shore Communities ...................................................................... 36 HMP Objective 5: Pitcher’s Thistle and Dwarf Lake Iris ........................................................ 38 HMP Objective 6: Wilderness Area (Scarecrow Island) ........................................................ 39 HMP Objective 7: Northern Mesic Forests ........................................................................... 40 Literature Cited ............................................................................................................................. 41 Appendix A: Plant Lists .................................................................................................................. 46 Michigan Islands NWR: Shiawassee NWR Habitat Management Plan Appendix B: 1910 Mershon Expedition: Mammals and Birds ...................................................... 61 Appendix C: Colonial Waterbird Survey Results ........................................................................... 66 Appendix D: CCP Goals and Objectives ......................................................................................... 68 Appendix E: ROCSTAR Comprehensive list of species for Great Lakes Islands NWR .................. 70 Appendix F: ROCSTAR: Resources of Concern Selection Tool for Americas Refuges .................. 86 Appendix G: Invasive Species Habitat Management Strategies .................................................. 96 Appendix H: Measure attributes for Michigan Islands Wilderness Character Monitoring ....... 105 List of Figures Figure 2.1. Locations of islands within the Michigan Islands NWR. Islands within Lake Huron are managed by Shiawassee NWR and islands within Lake Michigan are managed by Seney NWR. .. 8 Figure 2.2. Land cover classification of Scarecrow Island. Scarecrow Island is located in Lake Huron and is part of Michigan Island NWR. ................................................................................. 13 Figure 2.3. Land cover classification of Thunder Bay and Sugar Island. Thunder Bay and Sugar Island are located in Lake Huron and are part of Michigan Island NWR. ..................................... 14 Figure 2.4. Land cover classification of Big Charity Island. Big Charity Island is located in Lake Huron and is part of Michigan Island NWR. ................................................................................. 15 Figure 2.5. Land cover classification of Little Charity Island. Little Charity Island is located in Lake Huron and is part of Michigan Island NWR. ......................................................................... 16 Figure G.1. Phases of strategic and adaptive invasive plant management .................................. 98 Figure G.2. Phases of invasive species invasion and control (from Rawlins et al. 2011). ............ 99 List of Tables Table 2.1: Habitat types and plant communities of MI Islands NWR: Lake Huron. ..................... 11 Table 3.1. Resources from which potential resources of concern were identified. .................... 18 Table 3.2. Selected priority ROCs and reasons for selection for MI Islands NWR: Lake Huron. .. 21 Table 3.3. Summary of habitats and ROCs associated with ......................................................... 23 Table 3.4.: Priority Resources of Concern habitat requirements for MI Islands NWR: Lake Huron, as of 2018. ..................................................................................................................................... 24 Table 3.5. Priority resources of concern and other benefiting species for MI Islands NWR: Lake Huron as of 2018. .......................................................................................................................... 27 Table 3.6. Priority I and II habitats for MI Islands NWR: Lake Huron. .......................................... 28 Table 4.1. Crosswalk between the goals and objectives identified in the Great Lakes Islands CCP (Appendix D) and the objectives developed for MI Islands NWR: Lake Huron. ........................... 31 Table A.1. Vegetation survey results from the 1991 survey on [Big] Charity Island’s West shore. ....................................................................................................................................................... 46 Michigan Islands NWR: Shiawassee NWR Habitat Management Plan Table A.2. In McAvinchey et al. 2005, Appendix 4: Plant species list for Thunder Bay, Scarecrow, Big Charity and Little Charity Islands. Sugar Island was not included in this inventory. ............. 51 Table B.1. Mammals (Wood 1911a) ............................................................................................. 61 Table B.2. Birds (Wood 1911b; 1912) ........................................................................................... 61 Table C.1. Little Charity Island colonial waterbird nesting survey results, 1997, 2002-2017. ..... 66 Table C.2. Scarecrow Island aerial colonial waterbird nesting survey results, 1997-2017. ......... 67 Table G.1. Wilderness