Monique has recently been awarded a Wildlife Habitat Restoration grant from the DNR to improve a property in south east Gratiot County! The property serves as a connector between the Maple River State Game Area and the Gratiot-Saginaw State Game Area. To complete the project we are doing the following: planting cool season grasses as food & cover, planting switchgrass as nesting cover & winter cover, planting a food plot of corn, removing several trees that are being used as perches for predator birds (the trees will be re-used on the property as brush piles), removing a line of invasive shrubs & re-planting with native shrubs, and preparing the property as a demo site to be used as an example of quality habitat restoration. She is also working on similar projects in both Saginaw and Clinton Counties to be considered for the next round of DNR funding. If you see Monique, give her a high-five for her hard work in restoring wildlife habitat!
Monique Ferris has been working for the Gratiot Conservation District for almost a year and has fit right in to the community! Previously she worked as a seasonal Ecologist surveying state game areas, as naturalist interpreter and parks program director for the DNR, interned with the National Wildlife Federation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and studied abroad in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. She graduated from CMU with a Bachelor’s in Biology & Earth Science, and got her Master’s in Biology at EMU.
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