Beaver Island Wildlife-Stocking Program from 1922

Event

Date

1922

Kind

Conservation

Where

Beaver Island

Carried out by

Beaver Island Game Club

Eras

Modern era

Concepts

conservationcommunityfishingtourismheritage

Within

Beaver Island

Summary

A November 1951 Charlevoix County Herald report says the Beaver Island Game Club’s wildlife-stocking program began in 1922 with ringneck pheasants, on an island the article describes as then “virtually without wildlife, having no resident game save snowshoe rabbits.” It describes later releases of gray and black squirrels from neighboring High Island, 13 deer in 1927, sharp-tail grouse in 1940, ruffed grouse in 1948, and cottontail rabbits in 1950. The article says the program transformed the island’s game population and was carried out with state game officials.¹

The 1922 release and its aftermath

The 1951 account says the pheasant release “later disappeared as a result of severe winter weather,” but that the initial success of the attempt — before that loss — encouraged Beaver Island sportsmen to try other species. That sequence, as reported, positions the 1922 pheasant release as the program’s origin point even though the pheasants themselves did not persist. The gray and black squirrels obtained from High Island are reported as the next species tried, followed by the release of 13 deer in 1927; the deer herd, the article says, “did so well” that the first open hunting season was declared eleven years later, in 1938 — the 1938 reopening documented separately in this knowledge base.

Later releases and the club’s own assessment

The 1951 report continues the chronology with sharp-tail grouse stocked in 1940 “with the co-operation of the Conservation Department,” ruffed grouse in 1948, and a planting of cottontail rabbits in 1950. It characterizes all of the imported game as having “taken hold successfully” and as still increasing at the time of writing, crediting the club, working with state game officials, with transforming Beaver Island “from a wild-life vacuum into one of the most widely known hunting areas in the state” in under thirty years. The same report announces that Ben East, field editor of Outdoor Life and described as one of Michigan’s veteran outdoor writers, would relate the club’s stocking projects and results in that magazine’s November 1951 issue — a fuller account not held in this corpus. The chronology appears in the same Herald article that announced the club’s 1951 National Conservation Award, awarded for what the sponsoring magazine called thirty years of work stocking the island with wildlife.

Evidence and limits

This record is a retrospective source-bounded program history, not a complete stocking register. Its deer figure and chronology differ from the July 1938 report, which says 17 deer were placed in 1927 and 1928; both accounts are kept. Its sharp-tail and rabbit claims also sit alongside the October 1950 report’s more immediate description of introduced game and planned observation. The 1951 article does not provide release dates beyond the listed years, counts for most species, source records, survival measurements, or a complete account of the club’s work.

The later Conservation Commission orders are separate regulatory evidence: they preserve closure instruments for sharp-tailed grouse and prairie chicken in 1941 and cottontail rabbits in 1952, but do not prove that the orders describe the club’s stocking chronology or that stocking succeeded.

Read the document

6 pages, rendered from the held scan.

All 6 pages

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6

Added 1 August 2026 · revised 3 August 2026. Recent changes