It is axiomatic with Audubon members that public lands are essential to the spiritual and recreational needs of all of our citizens and affect their health and well-being.
Demographers project that northern lower Michigan will experience unprecedented growth and development pressure in the next twenty years. Quality, unfragmented, wildlife habitat is decreasing everywhere.
Places of natural beauty, inhabited by a variety of wildlife, greatly enhance the quality of life for all who live in and visit this region.
As more people move northward seeking a better quality of life, it is imperative that action be taken to prevent the destruction of the very things area residents value and this northward moving population seeks.
The Cedar Run Creek Natural Area contains a variety of habitat types that sustain a wide spectrum of more common avian species. Additionally, according to member observations, there are whip-poor-wills, common loons, and red-shouldered hawks which, due to habitat loss, have disappeared in many parts of southern Michigan.
Extensive, varied, less fragmented forested areas like this that buffer littoral and riparian wildlife corridors can provide necessary habitat for valued and often rare animal and plant species. The numbers of some of these has decreased due to habitat loss and habitat fragmentation which increases the vulnerability of these species to the prospect of disappearance from this area, if not of extinction.
Therefore, be it resolved that the Grand Traverse Audubon Club, on March 23, 2006, supports acquisition for preservation by GTRLC and Long Lake Township of the Cedar Run Creek Natural Area for the reasons listed above, to slow the rate of the earth’s diminishing biodiversity, and for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations.
Cindee Dubey, President – Grand Traverse Audubon Club 3/23/06
Bob Carstens, Vice-president – Environment