January 23, 2009 - TOP STORIES
Subscribe and get the full week of news delivered to your mailbox every week!
Temporary hunting rules to become permanent
DNR, partners, restoring three SW Minnesota lakes
Groups work to prepare sturgeon spawning grounds
DNR CO has the right stuff to save a young man's life
Auditor: DNR had poor control of its policies
Join our subscribers and be informed in the outdoors!
Temporary hunting rules to become permanent
Comments accepted through Wednesday, Feb. 25
DNR News
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is accepting comments through Feb. 25 on a number of hunting regulations, including many temporary rules that would added to state game and fish laws this year.
The proposals cover a variety of areas pertaining to deer registration; deer licenses, deer zone descriptions, deer hunter selection, bear hunter selection and prairie chicken area designation.
“The majority of these rule changes are technical and have been in effect as temporary rules for the past several hunting seasons,” said Jason Abraham, DNR season setting specialist. “We are completing a process to make these rules permanent.”
A copy of the proposed rules will be published in the State Register and available online at http://www.comm.media.state.mn.us/bookstore/state_register.asp after Jan. 20. A copy of the proposed rules is also available on the DNR Web site at http://mndnr.gov
Comments may be submitted to: Jason Abraham, Box 20, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 500 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN 55155-4020 or by e-mailing Jason.Abraham@dnr.state.mn.us.
Many of the rule changes were a result of simplifying deer hunting regulations. Those scheduled to be made permanent are:
• deer licenses for military personnel
• seasons and zones for taking deer by firearms
• zone descriptions for deer
• special hunt procedures
• either-sex permits and preference drawings
• taking deer by firearms or archery with early antlerless permits
• youth deer hunts
• youth special deer seasons
• bear permit procedures
• allow bear hunters second choice on application
• registration blocks
• prairie chicken permit area descriptions
DNR, partners, restoring three SW Minnesota lakes
DNR News
Work is underway on three more southwestern Minnesota shallow lakes to improve water quality and waterfowl habitat.
In a partnership effort between the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Ducks Unlimited (DU), and local conservation organizations, Lake Augusta in Cottonwood County, Teal Lake in Jackson County, and Hjermstad Lake in Murray County are undergoing reclamations.
“These degraded lakes are typical of most of the remaining shallow lakes basins here in the prairie pothole region of Minnesota,” according to Windom Area DNR Wildlife Manager Randy Markl. “For the DNR and numerous other organizations such as DU, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Minnesota Waterfowl Association and local clubs, restoring these basins is a high priority.”
Destruction of aquatic vegetation caused by carp and black bullheads is a common cause of impaired water quality and eliminating them is essential, Markl said. Carp, in particular, root up lake bottom sediments, resulting in turbid water that reduces sunlight penetration necessary for vegetative growth. Aquatic vegetation helps improve water quality by tying up nutrients that contribute to algae growth and also provides an important food source for waterfowl.
The DNR is banking on a winterkill to eliminate fish from these waters. To encourage such an event, the DNR used a recently installed water control structure to lower Lake Augusta. Teal Lake is currently in a naturally low water condition and appears ripe for a winterkill. In the event a complete winterkill does not occur, the DNR could apply a fish toxicant (rotenone) later this winter to eradicate any remaining fish.
Hjermstad Lake, which is one of several interconnected basins, poses a more difficult challenge, according to Wendy Krueger, DNR Slayton Area Wildlife Manager. Water from these basins eventually flows into Currant Lake, a 377-acre fishing lake with a fixed crest dam. That dam contributes to chronically high water in the upper basins, allowing fish to over-winter and causing wave action that stirs up bottom sediments and erodes shorelines.
To counter effects of the dam, the DNR worked with DU and other organizations to install variable crest structures at Hjermstad and its’ connected basins to allow for water drawdowns that would encourage a winterkill. However, the relative depth of Hjermstad Lake poses an additional challenge, Krueger noted.
“We’re not sure whether enough water can be removed from Hjermstad to result in a complete winterkill,” Krueger said. If only a partial winterkill occurs, Krueger said the agency would have to follow up with a rotenone treatment.
Once fish populations have been eliminated, preventing them from re-entering the treated basin is critical to the long-term success of a reclamation project. Toward that end, a fish barrier was recently installed in the outlet downstream from Lake Augusta in a cooperative project between DNR and DU. A recently added water control structure downstream of Teal Lake acts as a fish barrier there and two fish barriers have been installed on the Hjermstad basin outlets.
“We have a lot of work to do in this region of Minnesota to significantly improve water quality and habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife,” Krueger said. “But by forming partnerships and working together, we are making progress.”
Subscribe to Outdoors Weekly Today!
Groups work to prepare sturgeon spawning grounds
By John Myers
Duluth News Tribune
DULUTH, Minn. (AP) – Somewhere in Lake Superior there’s a sturgeon that should be smiling.
Crews this week are stockpiling 400 truckloads of boulders that later this year will be poured into the St. Louis River just below the Fond du Lac dam in hopes lake sturgeon will use the area for spawning beds.
It’s an effort by the Nature Conservancy and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to kick-start sturgeon spawning as the prehistoric fish continues its comeback in the St. Louis River and western Lake Superior.
“We think they’re already doing it. But they don’t have very many good places to do it,” said John Lindgren, Duluth-area fisheries specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Sturgeon were wiped out of the St. Louis River and Lake Superior watershed by the mid 1900s, the victim of overfishing, massive logging runs down the river, habitat destruction and terribly polluted water.
But better treatment of municipal and industrial sewage cleaned up the water starting in the 1980s. And nearly 150,000 sturgeon from Wisconsin hatcheries were stocked since 1983 to support their comeback.
Some of those fish have grown to nearly 5 feet long, and the sturgeon is starting to reclaim its niche in the St. Louis River estuary.
Now, the last element needed for the return of the lake sturgeon is successful spawning.
Sturgeon can live to be 100 years old and grow to more than 100 pounds. But it takes female sturgeon about 25 years to reach reproductive maturity. Some of the earliest-planted fish should be ready.
For the past two years, Wisconsin and Minnesota DNR officials say they’ve noticed sturgeon that appear to be spawning. But, so far, there’s been no confirmation.
“We haven’t officially verified yet. But people are reporting catching fish 12 and 13 inches long, and that would be a 4- or 5-year-old fish. We haven’t stocked for eight years,” Lindgren said. Any sturgeon caught must be released.
It’s hoped improved spawning conditions below the dam – as far up the river as sturgeon, walleyes and other fish can migrate – will help. Walleyes also are expected to benefit.
The man-made river channel just below the dam often is too shallow, and the water at times runs too fast for successful spawning. The DNR in August will spread the boulders, about 3 million pounds, to recreate a more natural setting, with deeper water where sturgeon can tuck in behind boulders and deposit their eggs on rubble.
The Nature Conservancy landed a $50,000 federal grant to move the rocks and the DNR will rework the channel.
“This is going to return the habitat to what it was like before the dam, before the logging runs before the river was altered so much,” said Daryl Peterson, Northeastern Minnesota field representative for the Nature Conservancy. “Other than the Pigeon River, the St. Louis is really the only river on the Minnesota side of the lake where sturgeon can reproduce very well. So this is a big piece of their return.”
DNR CO has the right stuff to save a young man's life
DNR News
While Minnesotans hunkered down last Monday evening for the coldest night of the season thus far, a Minnesota conservation officer braved dangerous temperatures, wind chills and freezing water to rescue a teenage boy from almost certain death.
Adam Bolkert, 19, of Winona was taking a shortcut home from Riverway Learning Community School when he fell through the ice of the Mississippi River backwaters near Minnesota City, Minn.
Bolkert was able to pull himself from the river and found temporary refuge on a nearby island where he made a 911 call from his cell phone to the Winona County Sheriff’s Office. They contacted Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Conservation Officer Tom Hemker of Winona, who knew the area the call came from, and possessed the right equipment to make a rescue.
“The sheriff’s office has a program that brings up an address and a GPS location on all calls, so they pinpointed the location near Minnesota City, which I know real well,” Hemker said. “With that vital information, and an airboat in tow, I knew we were in business.” Hemker made his way to the Pool 5-A landing on the river.
But with 4-6 inches of fresh snow, the airboat was frozen to the trailer. Hemker tried to free the airboat by driving backwards and then slamming on the brakes, but it didn’t work.
Two Winona police officers helped push the airboat off the trailer while Hemker worked a pry-bar. “I could not have removed the airboat from the trailer by myself, I can’t thank those officers enough.”
With the sun beginning to set, temps dropping fast and the wind starting to pick up, Hemker put the airboat into the river and about 20 minutes later, found a cold, soaked, disoriented Bolkert.
“It was completely dark when I brought him in and the snow was swirling to the point where if the rescue had started a half-hour later vision would have gone from 50 yards to 10 feet,” Hemeker said. “You couldn’t see anything. Absolutely amazing that Adam is alive.”
A waiting ambulance at the landing met the conservation officer and Bolkert. The teen was taken to Community Memorial Hospital in Winona.
“I was almost afraid to hear what the news was going to be when I picked him up, but last I heard he’s going to be fine,” Hemker said
Hemker said it’s just another example of DNR having the right equipment for the job.
“Airboats are the only things can get you into and out of a situation like that,” he said. “If DNR didn’t have them, I have no idea how we would have rescued him. What an unbelievable piece of equipment.”
Subscribe to Outdoors Weekly Today!
Auditor: DNR had poor control of its policies
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – The legislative auditor says the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources exercised poor controls over some policies and spending over a three-year period ending last spring.
In a report last Thursday, the auditor cited 17 inadequate or inconsistent ways of handling policies dealing with revenue and payroll transactions, special expenses or cell phone use by employees.
For example, the report noted the agency hadn’t fully repaid money to its game and fish fund that had been spent on a game warden conference in 2007.
The agency said it has fixed some of those problems, partially corrected others and will make other fixes by mid-year. Commissioner Mark Holsten said personnel and policy changes within the DNR between July 2005 and May 2008 led to some of the issues.
© 2009 Outdoors Weekly (PK Outdoors, Inc.)