Wildlife Habitat Enhancements in Central MN

These two units both fall within the Swan Lake WMA Project Area. 1.) The North Star Unit is 441 acres. For this unit, we plan to remove 35 acres of sparse trees in the grassland areas followed by a large burn of 137 acres that would encompass the newly cut areas, previously planted grassland and approximately 8 acres of remnant prairie where the trees have been previously been removed through a Heritage Grant. 2.) The MacKenzie Unit is just over 150 acres in size located on the north shore of Swan Lake. This site was newly acquired in 2010. 91 acres of the grassland was planted under a previous Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contract. The DNR partnered with Pheasants Forever to enhance the seeding mix on the area enrolled in CRP. A small portion of the site was not enrolled and thus was not planted. We proposed to plant this 2 acre site to a highly diverse forb mix for pollinators and brood rearing cover.