April 20, 2007 - TOP STORIES
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In usually high-water season, Minn. lakes are low after drought
Grant lets Red Lake band open commercial fishery
Refuge manager looks back on river rules battle
Non-game wildlife fund has supported critters for 30 years
Possible credit card fraud identified at call center handling state parks reservations
In usually high-water season, Minn. lakes are low after drought
Minnesota lakes lower than normal
ST. PAUL (AP) – Twin Cities-area lakes and ponds are normally at high levels in the spring season, but after several months of drought in the metro area, lake levels are playing a game of catch-up this year.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is trying to find out how the state’s waters will fare this spring. Last week, workers were dispatched to shorelines across the state for the annual task of setting water gauges.
“We can’t say for certain right now because we have no data from ice-in through ice-out,” said Sandy Fecht, of the agency’s Water Services Division.
Parts of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are either abnormally dry or seeing extreme drought, according to a federal assessment released last week. Recent rain and snow have helped shrink the drought’s footprint, but it’s been ongoing for more than a year.
Lakes in northern Minnesota are expected to be much lower than normal, but experts say droughts are natural – and temporary.
Ron Auger can tell by sight that Birch Lake, in the suburb of White Bear Lake, is low. He’s got a personal “beach” – in a spot on his lawn that would normally be filled with water.
“Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be like this,” he said. “Ordinarily this time of year, the water would be up to the grass.”
Friday morning, Fecht stood in Auger’s back yard, shouting numbers to DNR worker Ted Pedersen, who waded waist-deep into Birch Lake. Officials have monitored the water there since 1930. Auger, a lakefront owner, reads the gauge, which looks like a large ruler poking out of the water. Auger reports the figures to the DNR.
“One-point-one-oh!” Pedersen yelled – noting the first Birch Lake reading of 2007.
“That’s a good foot down from the fall,” Auger said.
Workers will repeat the practice at 1,050 lakes statewide over the next two months, pushing their way north as ice clears. Once they reach the drought-stricken north, they’re expecting to find lower and lower lake levels.
“Anecdotally, in the northern parts of the state people are saying it’s the lowest they’ve seen in three decades,” Fecht said, but cautioned that memory isn’t the same as a scientific measurement.
Still, the DNR’s Office of State Climatology expects the drought took a toll through the winter.
Assistant climatologist Greg Spoden said no one’s sure when lake levels will return to their long-term normal levels. But he’s confident they will.
“Droughts have happened before, and they’ll happen again,” he said. “In the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, some people thought Minnesota would become a desert, but the rains came in the ‘40s.”
People like Auger know this, and he wasn’t particularly worried.
“I’ve been here 40 years, and I’ve seen it lower than this. It’ll be all right.”
Grant lets Red Lake band open commercial fishery
RED LAKE, Minn. (AP) – The Red Lake band of Chippewa is planning to open a commercial walleye processing plant in June due to a $1 million grant from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.
Red Lake Chairman Floyd “Buck” Jourdain Jr. said the band will open the Redby plant where tribal members will fillet and freeze the catch themselves.
The operation would be part of Red Lake Foods, which already sells wild berry jams and syrups and wild rice.
Jourdain said only hook-and-line fishing would be allowed for at least the first two or three years. The walleye catch limit, which was 10 fish per day on tribal waters in 2006, may be raised, but the harvest would not exceed the band’s total quota, he said.
The band controls all of Lower Red Lake and roughly 60 percent of Upper Red Lake. Only band members are permitted to keep fish caught in tribal waters.
In the mid-1990s, walleye populations in Red Lake declined dramatically, leading to a ban on commercial fishing. In 1999, the band entered a 10-year agreement with the state of Minnesota and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to restore the fishery. Walleye fishing on Red Lake resumed last spring.
Refuge manager looks back on river rules battle
By Todd Richmond
Associated Press Writer
ONALASKA, Wis. (AP) – Don Hultman has a big job.
As manager of the Upper Mississippi National River Refuge, he must protect 260 miles of river from southeastern Minnesota to northern Illinois.
Perhaps his biggest challenge since he took the job in 2002 has been crafting the refuge’s new Comprehensive Conservation Plan, a sweeping package of long-range refuge regulations. The plan, which closes more areas to hunting and creates more no-wake and electric motor-only zones, has been a flashpoint of contention for river lovers.
Hultman and his staff spent nearly four years attending dozens of public hearings up and down the refuge, listening to complaints and revising the document before U.S. Fish and Wildlife Midwestern regional director Robyn Thorson gave the plan final approval last summer.
Hultman’s work on the plan helped earn him the refuge manager of the year award in January. But the controversy might not be over.
State game wardens in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois can automatically enforce the new federal regulations. But Wisconsin state officials must draft rules to match the plan before the state’s wardens can enforce it, and several Wisconsin lawmakers have said the plan infringes on the state constitution, which gives Wisconsin the right to govern its waters.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Hultman, 54, reflected on the battle to finish the plan and how it’s gone over so far.
AP: A lot of people were up in arms about (the plan). Has that anger subsided?
Hultman: I think it’s a mixed bag. There’s probably a large number of people that have ... just moved on. They’ve accepted it, whether they agree with it or not. Others, there’s still some people that are vocally opposed to the final decisions in the plan. And there’s others that are very supportive of the plan. ... But I can say as I travel up and down the river and the district managers that I supervise work in their communities, it has really died down. Except for maybe in the La Crosse area, (which) has always been a hotbed of interest and discontent on the plan and that continues, not with everyone, but certainly with certain individuals.
AP: You scaled the plan back in December of ‘05. Was that made in concession to some of the criticisms?
Hultman: Well, it was. But I don’t think it was unexpected. ... We knew things in the plan were going to get people riled up. ... But we thought we need to have this stuff aired in the public and let’s let democracy work. So, it wasn’t a surprise that we sort of took a step back. ... I focus on getting to the endpoint and there’s lots of different ways to do that. You can just try and bull the thing through and maybe that would have been successful. In my experience it wouldn’t have... The public is telling us so strongly one direction that we’d better modify. And I think that was in the spirit of making their input meaningful to us. Nobody likes to get yelled at. I don’t care, your kids don’t like to get yelled at. None of us do. Going night after night to some of these things where there’s so much animosity, it does wear on a person. It certainly wore on my staff.
AP: Final approval came during the height, in Wisconsin, of the governor’s race. Mark Green and some of his Republican allies said this was never going to happen. Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch threatened to call for state DNR wardens to arrest federal wardens if they try to enforce any of this ... Was there any kind of distress or disappointment to see this thing turn into a political football?
Hultman: You like to do things so it doesn’t get mixed up in a political cycle, kind of like it did. But I’m not surprised. The political process, they have to answer to their own constituents. And I never really worried about it too much because I take it for what it is, the season it was. A lot of this is rhetoric and what do they really mean by it? So we just kept forging ahead.
AP: Are you anticipating trouble with Wisconsin as they go through the state rules?
Hultman: Well, I’m not sure. I know there’s a lot of noise right now about their rule-making process and I think it’s uncertain at this time how that’s going to play out, whether Wisconsin will adopt the closed areas that we’ve set forth in the plan or not. So it’s too early to tell. ... We do have the authority to establish these areas and we will enforce them with our federal people. So these things are going to happen regardless of the state rule-making but we’d hope it all comes together and matches.
AP: What are some of the long-term effects?
Hultman: A big part of the plan that was never controversial was the habitat enhancement. I think we’ve raised awareness of the habitat needs on the refuge. So in 10 years if the habitat portion is funded, I think people will see a healthier river, more fish and wildlife. That in turn improves the quality of recreation on the river. I think you’ll see more of a balanced use, a refuge that offers opportunities for the whole spectrum of different users. And not that it doesn’t to some degree now. But we do know that there’s been conflicts with different user groups. So I think, as I like to say, however you like to use the refuge, we’ve got a place for you.
Non-game wildlife fund has supported critters for 30 years
West-central Minnesota bird habitat will get a $3.3 million boost
By Doug Smith
Star Tribune
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – From butterflies and bats to loons and eagles, Minnesota’s non-game wildlife program, 30 years old this year, has been an advocate for the state’s 700 non-game species.
The program, funded primarily by donations from a “chickadee checkoff” on state tax forms, is credited with helping boost the populations, habitat and awareness of such high-visibility non-game wildlife as trumpeter swans, bluebirds and peregrine falcons.
And it’s also helped low-visibility critters such as frogs, toads and turtles.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resource’s non-game wildlife program has been so successful that other states have copied it.
“Minnesota’s program has been regarded for years as one of the best in the country, no question about that,” said Roger Holmes, retired head of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Division.
The state’s fish and wildlife habitat and programs long have been funded primarily through hunting and fishing license fees. Little money ever was allocated for non-game.
“There was virtually no funding at all for anything that wasn’t either hunted, fished and trapped,” Holmes said. “And that’s the way it was all over the country. There was a tremendous need for research and management for non-game species.”
So in 1980, the Legislature added the voluntary donation checkoff on state income tax forms, and the non-game wildlife program took off. At the helm for the past three decades has been Carrol Henderson, 60, an affable biologist with a passion for wildlife, big and small.
He is credited by many for being instrumental in the program’s success.
“He’s done a great job,” Holmes said.
Henderson has been a very visible advocate. He has authored or co-authored five books for the DNR that have sold 250,000 copies. They include “Woodworking for Wildlife,” “Wild About Birds,” “Traveler’s Guide to Wildlife in Minnesota,” “Landscaping for Wildlife” and “Lakescaping for Wildlife and Water Quality.”
All intend to help people connect with conservation and wildlife, whether by putting up a backyard bird feeder or landscaping a lakeshore lot to help fish and wildlife habitat.
“We put a high importance on getting people personally involved in what they can do in their own life,” Henderson said. “All of these things connect people with nature. If you can get people enthusiastic about bluebirds, that can be the foot in the door to get them involved in broader areas of conservation.”
Added Henderson: “I’d say we’ve been a catalyst for conservation.”
Besides working with high-profile species, Henderson and his staff of six field biologists scattered around the state also do conservation work for bats, rare blandings and wood turtles, frogs and toads, butterflies and even mussels.
This work has been funded primarily by the goodwill of contributors. In 2005, taxpayers donated nearly $1.2 million to the program. It also gets funding from a state wildlife grant program and the state conservation license plate program.
“For every dollar someone donates, we get about 67 cents in matching funds,” Henderson said.
But the number of people donating has fallen dramatically over the years, from a peak of about 200,000 to about 82,000 in 2005. Fortunately, Henderson said, those contributors are donating more – an average of $14.53 in 2005. And total donations have been growing slightly.
The situation is both encouraging and frustrating.
“Only about 3 percent (of taxpayers) are donating on their tax forms,” Henderson said. “A lot of people who really love wildlife aren’t donating.”
But Henderson will carry on, often speaking to about 50 groups yearly, “sharing the news that everyone can make a difference,” he said.
After 30 years, he remains enthusiastic.
“When your salary is paid by donations, it makes you work harder,” he said.
The program has worked with other partners to boost the state’s non-game wildlife. Among the successes:
Trumpeter swans: Once nearly absent from the state, they were reintroduced in the 1980s and now thrive. Today there are more than 2,000 swans in Minnesota.
Peregrine falcons: The raptor was nearly wiped out. Restoration efforts and banning of pesticides have brought the bird back. The non-game program brought in chicks from other states and Canada and released them here. Now there are more than 50 breeding pairs.
Bluebirds: Loss of habitat and nest competition from house sparrows and European starlings caused dramatic population declines. Restoration efforts, including placement of bluebird houses, have helped bluebirds recover.
Loons: The program has been surveying and monitoring the state bird, whose populations have remained steady, although lead poisoning from lead fishing tackle has been a concern.
Possible credit card fraud identified at call center handling state parks reservations
DNR News
InfoSpherix, the company that handles camping reservations for five states, including Minnesota, has notified Minnesota state park authorities that it is investigating possible credit card fraud at their call center in Carmel, Ind.
“InfoSpherix informed us April 11 about their rapid detection and containment of this incident,” said Chuck Kartak, deputy director of state parks for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). “The company also told us that their computer reservation and security system was not involved.”
Although the investigation is ongoing, the early indication is that three to six Minnesota individuals may be affected. The alleged fraud appears to have involved several InfoSpherix employees who took phone reservations and were hired within the last month.
According to InfoSpherix Indiana Call Center General Manager Sue Clevenger, “This ongoing investigation has revealed possible credit card fraud from information that was revealed during verbal conversations with customers. An internal personnel matter has been dealt with immediately and details of the investigation have been turned over to the proper authorities.”
Kartak said the DNR would cooperate with its vendor and law enforcement authorities in the investigation. “This is the first time our vendor has encountered such a problem, and they know that we have zero tolerance when it comes to anything less than total customer security,” he said. “We will be working with the company to notify any individuals whose personal data may have been compromised.”
A centralized reservation system operated by private vendors has been used by state park campers since 1991, with online reservations added in 2001 so customers can reserve campsites or lodging facilities at Minnesota state parks 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Concerned users who made a recent state park reservation may direct questions to :Jeff Lowe, InfoSpherix, vice president of corporate communication at (301) 419-7835.
© 2007 Outdoors Weekly Corporation