Upcoming Special Events
PJ Hoffmaster State Park T-Shirts
The Gillette Nature Association has partnered with the Grand Haven High School art program to select a design for a new T-Shirt celebrating wildlife at PJ Hoffmaster State Park.
Visit the Gillette Nature Center to purchase your limited edition T-Shirt for $20. Every purchase helps support future programs at PJ Hoffmaster State Park.
Welcome to the Gillette Nature Association
New Piping Plover Display
Thanks to a donation from the John J. Helstrom Memorial Fund of the Community Foundation of Muskegon County, the Visitor Center has a new lobby display that highlights the endangered Piping Plover. Plovers are small shorebirds that nest in the open beach. In 1986, there were only 17 pair of Piping Plover in the Great Lakes region. Today with considerable conservation efforts, plovers have increased to 75 nesting pair in 2015. They are still critically endangered but there are positive signs of recovery. For the past few summers a pair at Muskegon State Park have successfully nested and raised young. Piping plover had not been seen at Muskegon State Park since the 1950s, so there return has been encouraging.
The goal of the new display is to raise awareness to the Piping Plover and its needs. Human activity can disturb plovers and cause them to abandon their nests. We want people to know that unleashed dogs, predators, diseases like Type E botulism, shoreline development, fireworks, kite flyers and ORV’s are all a threat to these rare birds. We are grateful to the Helstrom family and the Community Foundation for making this display possible. Over 40,000 people will see it each year…and that is a lot of potential partners in conservation!
Upcoming Events
Recreation Passport
On October 1, 2010 the $11 Recreation Passport replaced the state park sticker. The Recreation Passport is your $11 ticket to Michigan’s pure outdoors. If you like to explore the hundreds of ways to relax and play in Michigan’s outdoors then the Recreation Passport is for you!
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