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[sounds of chainsaws followed by falling tree]
Well, this is a cooperative venture, I guess you could say mostly it's being done by volunteers.
It's on DNR land, it's on the Gratiot-Saginaw State Game area,
so, the wildlife division of the DNR is heavily involved here,
but MUCC coordinated getting the volunteers out here.
Drew Youngdike, among other things, is a volunteer coordinator with MUCC,
and he put the word out to various clubs and so on around here, got a bunch of volunteers out here today,
and we've got about six different chainsaw crews. Some are cutting and
some are piling and so they're making good habitat out here.
We're doing a couple of things, mainly we're building habitat for wildlife
these particular brush piles will probably be used from a game species stand point mostly by rabbits,
sometimes pheasants will use them, sometimes even grouse or woodcock will get in along the edge of them.
On top of that there are lots of non-game species that use them, robins, cat birds, thrushes,
brown thrashers, towhees, all kinds of stuff use these brush piles,
and they like these edges of these woods and where it's going into these fields.
It provides habitat. The second thing we're doing is getting rid of some invasive species.
Part of this over here is getting rid of some Scotch Pine, in other places
it's Autumn Olive that we're cutting down, so we're trying to do those two things mainly.
Because the law changed last year allowing people to do more work with us in voluntary ways,
using some of our equipment, things like that, coming out here to assist us,
and we've even got a boy scout troop out here today, so pretty neat thing.