Michigan is home to more than 1,700 islands, many of which are remote and difficult to access. While their isolation can be helpful to protect biodiversity and reduce invasive species introductions, Great Lakes islands often have sporadic, incomplete, and outdated biological inventories. This lack of data was apparent across several islands in Lake Huron, underscoring the need for collaborative data collection to better inform local conservation and management efforts. Through funding from the USFWS Coastal Program, Huron Pines has been working with state, federal, and NGO partners to monitor populations of threatened and endangered species on eleven Lake Huron islands. In this presentation, we will share a glimpse of how we monitor everything from Pitcher's thistle to piping plovers, as well as a highlight reel of some of our interesting finds.
