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Cook County board approves five‑year work agreement with USDA for beaver removal and wolf research
Summary
The board unanimously approved a five‑year Work Initiation Document with USDA Wildlife Services to allow responsive beaver damage management and wolf research on county property; staff said non‑identifying project data can be shared with the county on request.
Cook County commissioners on Jan. 13 unanimously approved a work initiation document (WID) with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services to allow beaver damage management and wolf research on county property.
The WID — described to the board by Dwayne “Pete” Sager, assistant district supervisor for USDA Wildlife Services in Grand Rapids — grants permission for Wildlife Services personnel to access county‑owned land when complaints or requests are received. “We're totally responsive to complaints,” Pete said, describing the program as complaint‑driven rather than proactive.
Commissioners asked whether project information would be available to the county. Pete said summary information and counts of projects could be provided but cautioned that specifics that could expose landowners’ identities would not be released. “If at any time you wanna know... how many projects have you done where you trapped on Cook County property? We could certainly provide anything like that,” he said.
The agreement is valid for five years and may be canceled by either party. Commissioners moved and approved the WID without dissent. The approval authorizes Wildlife Services to continue responding to beaver and wolf issues on county land and supports possible cooperative research tasks such as radio‑collaring at local requests.
Next steps: staff will file the executed WID and coordinate data‑sharing requests with USDA if commissioners seek aggregate project statistics.
