GEI Beaver Island invasive-species survey and control evidence, 2017

What is securely documented

The public record identifies a GEI Consultants project for Antrim Conservation District, partnered with The Nature Conservancy, carried out on Beaver Island from June 22 through June 28, 2017. MNFI describes it as an update to 2012 and 2013 shoreline surveys, covering the Lake Michigan shorelines and parabolic dunes and adding control work for high-priority species or areas.

A GEI project profile reproduced in a 2019 public meeting packet reports approximately 43 miles of shoreline and 996 acres of coastal wetlands and parabolic dunes. The Beaver Island Association’s winter 2018 newsletter repeats the 996-acre figure and reports 16 nonnative species found in that surveyed area. These figures are useful evidence of project scale, but they are downstream descriptions rather than the original field sheets.

Target taxa are not occurrence records

The official MNFI case study says the expanded Beaver survey targeted 31 named categories, including autumn olive, baby’s breath, black locust, black and pale swallow-worts, bladder campion, blue lyme grass, bush honeysuckle, crown vetch, Dalmatian toadflax, false baby’s-breath, garlic mustard, glossy buckthorn, Japanese barberry, Japanese hedge parsley, Japanese knotweed, kudzu, Lombardy poplar, marsh thistle, multiflora rose, narrow-leaved cattail, non-native Phragmites, oriental bittersweet, purple loosestrife, reed canary grass, Scots pine, spotted knapweed, St. John’s-wort, sweet woodruff, white sweet-clover, and wild parsnip. The exact source spellings and scientific names are preserved in the structured index.

That list describes the survey design and management concern. It is not proof that every category occurred on Beaver Island, and it must not be confused with the separate report of 16 nonnative species found in the 996-acre survey area. The 2024 MNFI landowner guide’s later confirmed invasive-plant list is a different time slice and remains linked rather than silently merged.

Treatment logic and ecological connectivity

The MNFI case study says treatment priorities incorporated available resources, identified natural areas, and occurrence size. It describes the EGLE Phragmites Treatment/Management Prioritization Tool as a flexible quantitative aid, with local management needs able to override a score. It also emphasizes protecting threatened, endangered, and otherwise vulnerable species by choosing treatment methods and timing that avoid impacts.

The local newsletter reports that five species were selected for immediate treatment with 2% glyphosate because their populations were small enough to treat and could spread rapidly in shoreline and dune habitats. It says all invasive plants found at McCauley and McFadden Points were treated because of the high intrinsic value of those dune systems. This connects invasive control to dune geology, coastal wetlands, rare plants and animals, and bird habitat, but the held sources do not identify the five species or provide treatment polygons, application records, permits, or follow-up success measurements.

Spatial and evidentiary limits

No occurrence or treatment geometry is emitted from this pass. Named points, approximate shoreline mileage, and narrative treatment descriptions are not enough to infer coordinates or polygons. The original GEI report is described as 13 pages plus figures and appendices in MNFI’s 2024 bibliography; the 2019 MNFI case study cites it as 35 pages including appendices. That discrepancy is preserved as a retrieval clue, not resolved by guessing which package is right.

The next high-value records request is the complete GEI Project 1702835 package from Antrim Conservation District, The Nature Conservancy, or GEI itself, including the 2012/2013 predecessor maps, 2017 field forms, species-by-site table, treatment prescriptions and permits, rare-species buffers, and all GIS figures/appendices. Until those are obtained, the index is a reliable crosswalk of project scale and decision logic—not a current invasive-species map.

Added 3 August 2026. Recent changes