November 23, 2007 - TOP STORIES
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Concerns: Disappearing prairie potholes
Minnesota on pace for third-highest deer harvest
Federal biologist sentenced for hunting violation
Motorized watercraft restriction on Towner Lake
80-year-old woman bags a deer during her 50th season
Concerns: Disappearing prairie potholes
Concerns grow about disappearing prairie potholes ecosystem
By Tom Meersman, Star Tribune
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The humble name given to “prairie potholes” – the ponds, wetlands and small lakes dimpling Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas – belies the mounting concerns here and nationally about their disappearance from the landscape.
Potholes are considered key habitat for almost 200 species of migratory birds. But with federal inducements to plant more crops and the financial rewards of renting out the land, many farmers are ending land-preservation agreements.
With a federal report warning of the need to protect them, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is doing flyovers to investigate whether potholes are being drained illegally.
At stake is “arguably the most endangered ecosystem in the world,” said Rex Johnson, a wetlands expert and wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Fergus Falls.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office warned last month that the Fish and Wildlife Service is falling behind in protecting the pothole region. The study estimated that it will take 150 years and billions of dollars for the agency to acquire enough land to sustain healthy bird populations.
The study also noted that land prices have quadrupled in many areas in the past decade and that landowners can do better renting their land than letting it stay in a natural state.
“The pressure is immense right now,” said Brent Olson, who owns about 1,000 acres near Ortonville. “Even for people who are making a decent living by farming, it’s hard to leave that amount of money on the table.”
Millions of prairie potholes were drained during the past century, but those that remain – an estimated 420,000 in Minnesota and 2 million in the Dakotas – still store and purify vast amounts of water that would otherwise overload rivers with runoff and sediment.
Olson, a Big Stone County commissioner and writer, farmed for three decades and now rents his land.
Farmers in the area signed 10- to 15-year conservation agreements in the 1990s to set aside grasslands and prairie potholes for wildlife habitat, he said, but many are converting the land back to crops as soon as those contracts expire.
Conservation programs pay farmers to set aside grasslands and potholes for wildlife, but commodity programs encourage farmers to use as much cropland as possible – offering disaster payments, crop insurance and other subsidies.
With corn in demand for ethanol and wheat prices spiking because of drought, farmers are converting more of the potholes to cropland.
“It’s a perfect storm of events that are going to be detrimental to waterfowl,” said Jim Ringelman, director of conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited in the Dakotas and Montana.
“Farmers want to protect nature,” Olson said. “But if it interferes with providing for their family, nature’s going to come out second.”
The decline of potholes will hurt more than duck hunters, said Steve Delehanty, wetland district manager for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Morris.
Potholes are nature’s best filters, he said, preventing floods by holding vast amounts of water until it evaporates or seeps into the soil to regenerate groundwater supplies. Draining more of them into rivers and lakes will worsen water quality and increase flood severity, he said.
Potholes most at risk are temporary wetlands that may hold only a few inches of water for a few weeks each spring, Delehanty said.
During that short time they unleash a rush of nutrients that provide a rich diet for nesting birds and their newly hatched offspring, he said.
Once the wetland dries up for the year, said Delehanty, the waterfowl move to larger and permanent wetlands for summer feeding and growth.
Driving across the landscape of Pope County, DNR conservation officer Kurt Nelson can find a small marsh or some form of wetland vegetation beyond almost every dip in the road.
But the view is deceiving. Most of the ponds have poor water quality because too much fertilizer or feedlot wastes have drained into them from nearby fields.
“It’s horrible to say, but the water looks like chocolate milk, and there’s no vegetation growing in it,” Nelson said. “Birds need something to eat, so that’s why you won’t see ducks here.”
To illustrate, he stopped at one wetland and lowered a saucer-size white disc on a string into the water. Four inches below the surface, it could no longer be seen.
Nelson and others don’t blame farmers for the problems but question the federal farm programs that seem to work at cross-purposes.
Doug Hertz, a rancher and farmer in the heart of pothole country in central North Dakota, said he understands the importance of wetlands and has enrolled nearly 1,000 acres in various conservation programs over the past two decades.
When those contracts expired last month, Hertz said he didn’t renew any of them. Weeds have overtaken much of the land, he said, and it needs to be reseeded with hay or converted to grow wheat.
Hertz said that he respects the concerns of duck hunters who are alarmed about losing waterfowl habitat, but that he and many of his neighbors are ready to return their land to crop production.
“The economics of farming and ranching dictate that you’ve got to do this,” he said.
Minnesota on pace for third-highest deer harvest
ST. PAUL (AP) – Minnesota is on pace for its third-highest deer harvest ever.
The regular firearms season was due to end Sunday in Zone 1, which includes most of northern Minnesota. The muzzleloader deer season ends Dec. 9, and the archery season ends Dec. 31.
Minnesota hunters had registered about 164,000 deer as of last week, down about 3 percent from the 169,000 registered for the same period last year.
Lou Cornicelli, big game program coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources, said he expects hunters will kill 250,000 to 260,000 deer this season.
Most of the decline is attributed to fewer permits issued in Zone 4, which covers most of southern and southwestern Minnesota, where the DNR is trying to boost the deer population. Numbers are up in Zone 1, where the DNR is trying to reduce the northern deer herd.
Federal biologist sentenced for hunting violation
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist has lost his hunting privileges for a year and paid $2,000 in restitution for illegally shooting a moose in Bottineau County.
Mike Olson says the moose was first shot by his wife, Hope, who is the director of the state crime lab. She had a moose license.
But the moose didn’t die, so Mike Olson says he shot it to end its suffering. He says he knows he was wrong, and calls the violation the low point of his career.
He’s been a Fish and Wildlife Service employee for nearly 20 years.
Motorized watercraft restriction on Towner Lake
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has adopted a year-round restriction on the use of motorized watercraft on Towner Lake in Grant County near the town of Herman. The DNR commissioner may restrict the use of motorized watercraft on lakes designated for wildlife management under Minnesota Statute 97A.101. The management plan for the lake was amended to include the restriction on motorized watercraft after the DNR hosted a public informational meeting and solicited comments from the public concerning the proposed restriction.
Towner Lake was legally designated as a wildlife management lake in May 2003. The designation allowed the DNR to partner with Ducks Unlimited to install a permanent electric pump station and new outlet structure. These improvements and the wildlife lake designation allow the DNR to actively manage water levels in Towner Lake to improve aquatic habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife species. Towner Lake remains open to hunting and other recreational pursuits with nonmotorized watercraft.
80-year-old woman bags a deer during her 50th season
Maple Lake, MN woman hasn’t missed a season
By Doug Smith
Star Tribune of Minneapolis
MAPLE LAKE, Minn. (AP) – Celette Couette remembers the reaction she got when male hunters spotted her in a deer stand back in the 1950s: “They’d do a double-take; some would talk to me, but others would move off without saying anything,” she recalled.
Hunting was mostly for men.
But that didn’t bother her, and for more than a half century she never felt out of place toting a shotgun or rifle afield with her husband and son to pursue ducks, pheasants, ruffed grouse or deer. For the family, hunting, fishing and a love of the outdoors has been an integral and essential part of life.
And she was always a full-fledged participant.
That’s why Couette, a spry and lively 80-year-old, of Maple Lake, was in the north woods with her son, Bill, 48, rekindling a cherished family tradition. Though her husband, Russ, died seven years ago, mom and son keep the tradition alive. It was her 50th deer season. Shortly after 10 a.m. on opening day, perched alone in her chair on a ridge near Northome, she squeezed the trigger of her 30.06 rifle, bagging her 52nd deer.
Later, back in their motel room, mom and son celebrated, as always, with a sip of apricot brandy.
“That’s another tradition,” she said, chuckling.
She never felt like she didn’t belong out there.
“I love being outside. I still do. I’ve got to be with nature,” she said the other day in her rustic home overlooking Maple Lake, west of the Twin Cities. Her family room is testament to that: It resembles a hunting lodge, with mounts of deer, caribou and elk, a pheasant, goose and duck, and a bearskin rug.
Outside on the lawn, cement deer welcome visitors.
She knows that, as an 80-year-old female hunter, she’s a rarity. And she feels she was a pioneer of sorts.
“Oh, I was, yes, very much so,” she said. “There’s a lot of women out there now.”
Today, about 9 percent of the state’s 700,000 hunters are women, but that’s likely far more than hunted in the 1950s, when she started.
Celette grew up in south Minneapolis, and fished with her brothers. But she didn’t start hunting until she married Russ Couette in 1953. He was a lifelong hunter and catalyst for the family’s love affair with hunting. She started hunting ruffed grouse.
“He taught me how to handle a gun.”
A few years later, he persuaded her to try deer hunting. She declined a new deer rifle, and used her .20 gauge shotgun with slugs for her first hunt in 1956. And what a first hunt. She bagged her first deer ever on opening day, and four days later shot a 10-point buck that weighed 260 pounds, field dressed.
“I got two deer and my husband never fired a shot,” she said, laughing. “He was elated. He was always happy, even if he didn’t get one.”
An astonished neighbor called the Minneapolis Star, and a photo of her and her big deer resting atop their car was published. The deer, the largest she has shot, still graces her family room. Her 50th deer, a small buck, is mounted next to it.
They have plenty of other deer hunting tales to recall.
There was the time bow hunting when she witnessed a buck and doe in heated embrace. “THAT was something to watch,” she said, laughing. “But they were too far away to shoot.”
And the time a buck and doe moseyed toward her stand. She shot the buck, but when Bill arrived, he found two dead deer.
“When she shot the buck, the bullet went completely through and hit the doe, killing it. She got two with one shot,” he said.
And the time she had colon surgery a week before the deer opener. With staples still in her, she headed north again.
“I hobbled her out to her deer stand,” Bill said.
Several days later, after returning home to have the staples removed then driving back to the woods, she got her deer.
“That’s what you call a deer hunter, isn’t it?” she said, laughing. “The doctor couldn’t believe it.”
They also chuckle when recalling the time Russ was bent over searching for his lost wedding ring where he had gutted a deer the day before when another deer appeared.
“I up and shot the deer, and Russ laid down on the ground and said ‘What the hell is going on? What are you shooting at?’ I told him I got a deer,” she laughed.
Son Bill has been a part of her hunting tradition almost since the beginning.
“There was no choice,” he said.
“We had him up deer hunting when he was 6 weeks old,” his mother said. “We got a baby sitter, and she took care of him; I only hunted half days. I didn’t get a deer that year.”
He became hooked, too, and the threesome hunted together for years.
Said Bill: “It was always something we looked forward to. It was tradition. It really bonded us. It was something so meaningful and deep – something you never wanted to disturb.
“It was a fantastic way to grow up. It made our family very tight. We’ve had fun whether we shot anything or not. It goes way beyond getting venison.”
Russ died in 2000. He and Celette were married 48 years. But Bill, an airline pilot who works for the Airline Pilot’s Association in Washington, D.C., continues the family’s hunting tradition with his mom every fall.
They return to hunt the Chippewa National Forest near the Blackduck-Northome area. They go for the week.
“No matter what it takes, I make it home to be sure we go hunting,” Bill said.
They stay in a small motel, play some cards, sip apricot brandy and reminisce about past hunts. Bill’s buddies know that the deer season is exclusively a mother-son tradition.
“They know we hunt together as a family. They never ask to go hunting with us, or ask me to go hunting with them. They know this is a family thing – a sacred thing. It’s extremely special. This it our time together.”
Each morning, Bill walks his mom out to her spot in the woods.
“I get her all set up, make sure everything is OK, kiss her goodbye and say good luck.
“When I hear her shoot, I come back.”
Which, over the years, has been often.
The hunt means so much, that when it ends, it leaves them melancholy.
“It’s pretty quiet in the truck on the way home,” Bill said.
But there’s always next year. The pair already are planning a moose hunt to British Columbia. And, of course, the trip back to northern Minnesota for deer.
Celette’s health is good. And the desire to get outside remains strong. How long does she plan to hunt?
“As long as I can get into the woods. I’m going to keep going out there as long as I can.”
© 2007 Outdoors Weekly Corporation