Happy Summer!
A celebrity family on Douglas Lake has stolen our hearts this year and captured the attention of wildlife lovers around the world. I’m pictured here with MLive environment and climate reporter Sheri McWhirter, on the right, and Adam Schubel, UMBS resident biologist, driving the pontoon boat. We’re watching something highly unusual play out in our neck of the woods: loons are raising goslings. Just when you start to think not much can surprise you anymore, the natural world says, “Challenge accepted.”
As we head into the Fourth of July weekend, I have a few sweet treats for you.
My favorite is an immersive look at life at a field research station. Our photo gallery features 115 photos and captions full of highlights of the four-week spring 2026 term. It’s fun to see what our students are doing in this paradise of place-based learning — climbing research towers, creating quill artwork, square dancing, spotting Kirtland’s warblers, assessing carbon stock in tree stands, swabbing frogs to test them for diseases, sampling macroinvertebrates in rivers to study patterns in species compositions as flow rate changes, performing “Mammalton: The Musical” (a UMBS student version of the Broadway musical “Hamilton”), and on and on. We’ve also included recaps of our incredible summer lectures by distinguished guest speakers so far.
We’d love to see you too. If you’re in northern Michigan next week, U-M biologist Dr. André Green will give two free, public talks about monarch butterfly migration July 7 at Charlevoix Public Library and July 8 at the U-M Biological Station in Pellston. It’s an opportunity to explore one of nature’s greatest mysteries.
As always, join us on Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. through July on the Pellston campus for our 2026 Summer Lecture Series. Each event is followed by an ice cream social along the lake.
Plus, you have an opportunity to tour the historic campus, meet scientists and students, and learn about their research at the annual UMBS Open House on Sunday, July 19, from noon to 2:30 p.m.
If you can't get here in person but still want to show your UMBS pride, check out the UMBS online store. We added a new t-shirt this month celebrating the work of researchers, zookeepers and conservationists caring for Great Lakes Piping Plovers at the captive rearing center on our campus.
Please enjoy reading this particularly robust newsletter’s dive into our world!
Read the July 2026 newsletter.
Sincerely,
Dr. Aimée Classen
Director
