Hunting council will advise Interior Department
Hunters and those who appreciate wildlife have a new voice in Washington, D.C. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced recently the creation of the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council (WHHCC), an official advisory group to the federal agencies.
The new federal advisory council will help promote and preserve America’s hunting heritage for future generations. The council also will provide a forum for sports men and women to advise the Federal government on policies related to wildlife and habitat conservation endeavors that do the following:
- benefit recreational hunting;
- benefit wildlife resources; and
- encourage partnership among the public, the sporting conservation community, the shooting and hunting sports industry, wildlife conservation organizations, the States, Native American tribes, and the Federal government.
“Theodore Roosevelt understood the vital role that hunting plays in American life, as well as the importance of protecting lands and wildlife to sustain that tradition,” Secretary Salazar said in a prepared statement. “The early efforts of America’s hunters and anglers to preserve our nation’s wildlife heritage fueled the modern conservation movement and left us the natural bounty we are now entrusted with protecting."
The new federal advisory council will help to promote and preserve America’s hunting heritage for future generations. The new council replaces the previously existing Sporting Conservation Council and expands membership to include the archery, hunting and shooting sports industries, as well as including broader representation from the nation’s major hunting organizations.
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Posted by: samcook on 2/09/2010 at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Sax-Zim Birding Festival this weekend
Duluth bird bander David Evans holds a great gray owl he was nursing back to health in 1997. (News Tribune file)
When the great owl invasion of 2004-2005 occurred, residents in the Sax-Zim Bog area near Meadowlands were overwhelmed. And a little irritated. They didn't like hundreds of birders peering into their yards looking for great gray owls, northern hawk owls and other species. And they got a little tired of birders parked all over their roads.
But Meadowlands resident Helen Abrahamson, seeing what it could mean to have hundreds -- even thousands -- of birders around, asked Duluth birder Mike Hendrickson what people in the area could do to attract birders in future years.
The result is the annual Sax-Zim Birding Festival. This year's event, the third annual, runs from Friday through Sunday with headquarters in Meadowlands. It's modest by festival standards, said Hendrickson, who organizes it. About 120 people have registered for this year's festival. They'll go on birding field trips, browse vendors' wares and hear speakers Friday and Saturday night, Hendrickson said.
Because of the bog habitat, birders can come with reasonable expections of seeing great gray owls, hawk owls and winter finches such as boreal chickadees, Hendrickson said. Local residents have put out deer-carcass feeders or sunflower feeders to help attract the birds. Birders come mostly from the Midwest, but also from the East and West Coasts, Hendrickson said. They stay in Meadowlands, Floodwood, Cloquet and Duluth.
"It gives people the opportunity to see these birds and spend more time up there," Hendrickson said. "They see birds they'd normally have to go to Alaska to see."
Registration is now closed, but birders are welcome to come up and go birding all weekend. There hasn't been an invasion year since 2005, when hungry owls from Canada moved south by the thousands to find food.
The Sax-Zim bog is bounded by St. Louis County Highway 5 on the west, 27 on the north, 7 on the east and Minnesota Highway 133 on the south.
For more information, go to http://moumn.org/sax-zim/
Posted by: samcook on 2/08/2010 at 12:55 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Phenologists' conference scheduled at Wolf Ridge
The first annual conference of the Northwoods Phenologists of Minnesota and Wisconsin will be held Feb. 26-28 at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center near Finland, Minn. Phenology is the study of patterns of natural events, such as bird migrations. Other classes at Wolf Ridge will be available to those who attend. Cost is $120. For more information, contact Peter Harris (Wolf Ridge) at (218) 353-7414; John Latimer (Grand Rapids) at (218) 326-8433; or Larry Weber (Duluth) at (218) 384-3851.
Posted by: samcook on 2/05/2010 at 2:19 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Statistics from Duluth's bowhunt for deer
Here are some interesting statistics about Duluth's bowhunt for deer, as compiled by data guru Brian Borkholder for the Arrowhead Bowhunters Alliance. A fisheries biologist by trade, Borkholder donates his time to keep statistics for the Duluth hunt. If you want more details than I provide here, go to www.bowhuntersalliance.org. Believe me, there's more there.
Some facts about the 2009 hunt:
A record 586 deer were taken in the hunt. That tops previous years' totals of 533 (2008), 567 (2007), 564 (2006) and 331 (2005, the hunt's first year).
Of those 586 deer, 492 (84 percent) were antlerless, and 94 (16 percent) were antlered bucks.
A total of 316 hunters were placed for the hunt. Of those, 246 shot at least one deer.
The average number of deer killed per hunter was 1.85 if you count all the hunters placed, and 2.38 per hunter if you count just successful hunters.
A total of 18.4 deer were harvested per square mile.
A total of 59 deer were reported wounded, and most of those had only superficial wounds (called "haircuts" in Borkholder's data). The wounding rate was 10.9 percent (wounded deer compared to total harvest).
Fifty-five percent of deer harvested came from public land. Forty-five percent came from private land.
Posted by: samcook on 2/05/2010 at 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Think about those St. Louis River walleyes
Fishing has been good for walleyes on the Duluth-Superior harbor for the past couple of weeks. So good that at least one angler has called John Lindgren, a fisheries specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources at French River, with a concern that a lot of larger walleyes are being taken home.
Lindgren, who does a lot of work with the St. Louis River fishery, is also concerned. He wants anglers to think about killing those large walleyes, which are important to the river's spawning population.
"The population of large walleyes that comes from the western arm of the lake up into the St. Louis River estuary is very vulnerable because they're so slow-growing," Lindgren said. "To kill a 28-inch fish could take over 20 years to replace."
The walleye limit on the river -- and in the harbor -- is just two walleyes, and the minimum size is 15 inches. However, the river does not share the limit of one walleye over 20 inches that is common throughout the state.
Posted by: samcook on 2/05/2010 at 11:50 AM | Comments (4) | Permalink
Minnesota DNR appeals to Coast Guard on fishing guide issue
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Mark Holsten has written the U.S. Coast Guard asking for its continued "discretion in enforcing the 'six-pack'" license requirement until May of 2011.
The so-called "six-pack" Coast Guard license is required of anyone operating a boat for hire with up to six passengers. For years, the Coast Guard has generally not enforced the six-pack license requirement on inland lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin, although it does enforce the requirement on Lake Superior, Rainy Lake and some other bodies of water. The license requirment also applies to canoe guides with paying clients in their canoes and to towboat operators commonly used by canoe outfitters.
The Coast Guard began enforcing the license requirement selectively this past summer on the St. Croix River and has indicated that it might enforce the requirement on U.S. "navigable waters" such as Mille Lacs, Lake Winnibigoshish, Lake Vermilion and many more inland lakes where the rule has not been enforced before. In his letter to Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad W. Allen, Holsten said immediate enforcement of the license requirement "could impose immediate financial hardship for the guides and long-term impacts on the tourism and resort economy."
He estimates the licensing requirement could affect 500 to 700 guides in the state.
Holsten, in his letter dated Feb. 3, asked the commandant for discretion in enforcing the license requirement until May 2011 "to allow for my office to work with yours to develop an implementation plan for Minnesota waters."
Many guides have expressed concern in recent weeks that the Coast Guard will begin enforcing the license requirement. Because guides would have to take an extensive test, usually preceded by a week-long study course, and because the tests are not administered at many sites in Minnesota, guides are concerned they would not be able to get the licenses before this summer. Also, costs associated with taking the test and meeting other requirements of the license could total more than $1,000.
Holsten also wrote to Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken asking them to support a Senate bill that would exempt fishing guides from being required to have TWIC (Transportation Worker's Identity Card) cards. The cards are now required with anyone obtaining a "six-pack" license but are meant primarily for workers in larger ports.
Posted by: samcook on 2/04/2010 at 9:25 PM | Comments (3) | Permalink
Furbearer registrations up, except for fishers
Furbearer registrations in Northeastern Minnesota for the 2009 trapping season increased 13 percent from 2008, according to a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources news release.
Jeff Lightfoot, DNR regional wildlife manager at Grand Rapids, said trappers registering 154 more marten, 118 more otter, 240 more bobcat and 112 fewer fisher. Totals for all species were 1,625 pine marten, 719 fisher, 712 otter and 362 bobcat.
The 2009-2010 season for marten and fisher was a nine-day season. The shortened season was instituted in 2007 to reduce the harvest of these two species due to a high harvest in 2006. Although the marten harvest was up slightly, the similar harvest to 2008 suggests that the shortened season length is producing the desired result of a reduced harvest level on these two species.
Wildlife managers and biologists will assess the 2009 furbearer harvest and population levels this winter before determining the 2010 season for furbearers.
Posted by: samcook on 2/04/2010 at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Voyageurs NP will collar moose, too
A bull moose moved through Voyageurs National Park during a recent survey of the park's moose population. (Voyageurs National Park photo)
A couple days ago, I posted an item about a moose satellite-collaring project that's taking place this week on the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation.
In addition to that project, Voyageurs National Park plans to capture up to 14 adult moose this month so they can be fitted with telemetry collars. Purpose of the study is to investigate the potential effects of climate change and other factors on the long-term viability of moose in the park, according to a park news release.
The project is a collaborative effort among scientists from Voyageurs National Park, the Natural Resources Research Institute at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Nine females and five males will be captured using netguns fired from a single helicopter. Netted animals are carefully restrained to allow handlers to safely attach collars and collect data related to animal health. Blood and fecal samples will also be collected from each moose as part of a collaborative effort with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to assess moose population health throughout the State. The capture operation will be conducted by a private company that specializes in the capture of wild animals from helicopters. Wildlife veterinarians from the Minnesota Zoo and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will also be on-site.
Posted by: samcook on 2/04/2010 at 10:20 AM | Comments (1) | Permalink
Gilbert man finds two moose locked in death
Tim Bradach of Gilbert found these two moose in the woods near Brimson on Jan. 18. Their antlers had become locked together last fall while the bulls were fighting, and one moose had its chest punctured by the antler of the other moose. Bradach managed to cut the antlers off the moose to take them home, although it took several hours of work. (Submitted photo by Tim Bradach)
Tim Bradach showed the two pair of moose antlers after he got them home and cleaned them up. One set had just under a 48-inch spread, and the other pair was just over 55 inches. He hasn't decided how to display them yet. (Tim Bradach photo)
Posted by: samcook on 2/03/2010 at 5:02 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Sad news from Ely
Henry Held, long-time maker of moosehide chopper mitts and an Ely icon, died Sunday at age 61 while vacationing in Mexico. Held, who worked from a hole-in-the-wall shop called Henry's Shoe Repair on Ely's main street, apparently drowned while swimming in the ocean.
Held also made leather belts "stronger than a hog's breath" and other leather goods, in addition to repairing leather gear. He was an irascible character, full of strongly held opinions that he was happy to share in any setting.
"He broke the mold. He loved to have people think he was a real rough, grizzled old man," said his friend Nancy Piragis of Ely, "but he was such a sensitive softie. It was like he didn't want anyone to know it, but everybody knew it."
As yet, no memorial service is planned for Held.
I have been talking to several people who knew Held and plan to write a story about him, possibly for Thursday or Friday's Duluth News Tribune. Henry's Web site is www.henrysshoerepair.com.
For now, here's a story I wrote about Henry's choppers in 2005:
I hated to do it.
But I knew, going into this winter, that I had to replace my choppers.
My old ones were at least 15 years old, maybe 20. They were weather-beaten and rough.
The outsides were the color of smoked herring. The moosehide in the palms was wearing thin. In a couple of places, the leather had torn, leaving small holes.
They had been given to me by a friend at Christmas long ago, a guy who knew that every Minnesotan ought to have a pair of choppers. I would like to say I know the complete history of choppers, but I don't.
I imagine they grew out of the logging era in the north woods, when men worked outside all winter, cutting trees by hand.
I thought I could Google up a history of choppers, this being the era when every bit of information known to man is online somewhere. But if you do a Google search for "choppers," you'll learn only about motorcycles. In a more specific search, I found that "chopper's mittens" were listed among items for sale in the 1902 Sears catalog. I found no other historical references to choppers.
That's OK. Everything I need to know about choppers, I've learned by wearing them in the past couple of decades. Gloves and mitts have become very high-tech during that time, and there's certainly a place for those with Thinsulate and Primaloft and other synthetic insulation.
But choppers remain the perfect mitt for much of what we do here in a northern winter. The leather is tough enough and grippy enough for most work, and supple enough to offer moderate dexterity.
Mine are lined with two layers of wool mitts, handmade by a friend. Wool remains an excellent insulator. Most of the moisture from perspiration passes through the wool and the leather, but if the mitts do get damp, you simply pull out the liners and dry the whole works over a woodstove or a radiator.
So, I asked for new choppers at Christmas, and I got them. They are the same kind as my last ones, made by Henry at Henry's Shoe Repair in Ely, from the hide of a moose.
They came as I knew they would, creamy yellow and just a bit on the stiff side. I'm happy to say they're already well broken-in, soft and pliable, though still a little on the clean side. They'll be making a winter camping trip soon, however, and I hope they come back looking more seasoned. I kept the same wool liners and just transferred them to the new leather mitts. If this set lasts as well as the last ones, I should be needing a new pair when I'm about 75 or 80. I hope Henry's still around.
Posted by: samcook on 2/02/2010 at 3:49 PM | Comments (9) | Permalink
