As heard Friday, June 15, 2012 …

1 –
The beach season is off to a cleaner start in the Great Lakes.

Volunteers in the Adopt-a-Beach program say the two months of work this year, in April and May, netted more than 8,000 pounds of debris.

The spring kickoff involved 81 teams at 102 locations on all five Great Lakes, including on Saginaw Bay.

A total of 2,400 volunteers helped remove and catalog 8,059 pounds of debris along the shoreline.

At the beach at the Bay City State Recreation Area, trash collected during a May event included plastic bags, plastic bottles, beverage cans and cigarette butts.

The Adopt-a-Beach program, run by the Alliance for the Great Lakes, is done in part to help pinpoint potential pollution sources.

An upcoming Adopt-a-Beach event is planned for June 22 at the Bay City State Recreation Area, with a team leader from Saginaw Valley State University. (Register here)

Another is being organized for Sept. 21 at the Recreation Area, located in Bay County’s Bangor Township.

2 –
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is taking public input on Kirtland’s warbler management.

The DNR will host a public meeting on June 27 in Roscommon. Comments also are being taken by email.

Officials are working on a Kirtland’s warbler operational plan to direct future management of the bird and its habitat on state lands.

A multi-agency conservation strategy is also being completed.

The Kirtland’s warbler is a federally endangered species.

The birds arrive in Michigan from the Bahamas in May and nest in a few counties in Michigan’s northern Lower and Upper peninsulas.

The Kirtland’s warbler nests in young stands of jack pines.

Most nesting sites are on state and federal land.

Habitat is managed mostly through logging, replanting or seeding.

Besides the DNR, other agencies that manage Kirtland’s warbler habitat include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service.

-30-