Losing cover

[HC Eye Hunter]

I live in the Lac Qui Parle area and alot of the cover on these State and Federal lands have been tore out by the DNR for Prairie Chickens. The DNR is also purchasing more land and tearing out the existing cover and groves on them. This action is supposed to rid the area of perches for avian predators like hawks. In the mean time our deer hunting in this area is nothing like it used to be and if we have a bad winter our pheasant population on these State/Federal lands will lack the protective cover needed to survive a bad winter.

I am not a game biologist so maybe this is a good thing but in my view it makes no sense!

What's your feeling on this topic? How would you react?

[BLACKJACK]

You're probably going to have to get some legislators in that area involved, the DNR in that area has prairie chickens on their brains and thats what they're trying to manage for. Point out to them that if its in an area that has a yellow sign on it that says Wildlife Area, doesn't that mean ALL wildlife?? I once had a Fish and Wildlife guy say to me, "talk your neighbor into putting a plug on that 5 acre cattail slough, it would make a nice open water duck slough". I pointed out to him that there was plenty of other open water in the area and that that cattail slough was the best thing the pehasants and deer in the area had going for them. He had ducks on his brain, and I'm sure it looks nice on their yearend reports that they restored x acres of water - no matter what it did for other wildlife.

Good luck. Maybe get pheasants forever and other area sportsmans clubs involved. The more voices in opposition the better.

[Perch Jerker]

We have plenty of deer, we have plenty of phesants. They're now working on P.Chickens.

PJ

[B. Amish]

The problem is that they are trying to restore the area back to it's original state, which was prairie. People in the area got used to the wood lots and don't want to see them go. The wood lots and trees were never there 150 years ago. Fire controlled the trees on the prairie before the arrival of settlers, now trees have the chance to grow freely and they are a major reason to the devastating decline of the prairies chicken throughout MN. The native prairie that is left is less than 1/10 of 1% of what used to be here. People are very sensitive about trees and they have the right to be, but trees and the prairie don't mix well. I think the DNR and other agencies have finally decided that trying to restore the prairie is a better choice than having all of these small wood lots scattered across the landscape

Although Pheasants are great to hunt and have a great economic impact, they are an exotic and they shouldn't be given priority over native species for habitat.

[HC Eye Hunter]

The fact is that this area is no longer virgin prairie it is an intensly farmed area. With this kind of change over time we have lost thousands and thousands of acres of wetlands and have dug up and farmed the prairies. With time things change and we need to adjust for the changes. As cover like trees moved into the area we were blessed to gain an abundance of wildlife like deer and pheasants.

Now, I am not saying that the prairie chicken isn't important but I think there should be a much larger emphasis on wetland restoration than ridding the prairies of trees and thickets.

After all this country used to be as much about wetlands as it was prairies.

[Eric Wettschreck]

I live in the prairie. I've planted a lot of trees around me. They at least slow down the darn wind that is always blowing.

[Powerstroke]

I have to completely support B. Amish on this one. The DNR should be more concerned with restoring wetlands and native tallgrass prairie.

States like NoDak and SoDak have no problem mainting habitat that support many types of wildlife.

I just don't understand why people cant understand that different portions of our state have different ecosystems. If you want to live in the woods then you need to move north and east. If you want more deer in woods and shelter belts then you should move to the areas of the state that have that type of cover.

It annoys me that people can find cheap land out west. They move out there, plant a bunch of trees and complain about the wind and lack of trees.....go figure, you moved to the prairie.

Deer aren't even native to 90% Minnesota. 150 yrs ago the woods were too dense and the prairie had little to offer deer in the form of nourishment.

Pheasants are an exotic from asia.

Now that family farms are on the decline and we are a smarter and more conservationly minded people, don't you think we should try to reverse the damage that was created by nieve and unknowing sodbusters. Things like wetland, prairie, waterway and shoreline restoration should really be a greater priority than making sure that the deer population continues to rise to unhealthy and uncontrollable levels.....oh wait, it already has. Pheasants do poorly because of the extreme weather varients in our state, not because there aren't enough cattail sloughs.

SOrry about my little rant. I see this all the time now ever since my gramma moved to the SoDak border. She lives out there so I've heard and seen both sides of this issue.

I could go on forever. I can't wait to see more turkeys and prairie chickens in that part of the state.

[mechanictim]

I look at restoring native prairie in southwest Minnesota the same as restoring a 60's muscle car. It costs ten times as much as the car cost new and you end up with a car worth one tenth one that is all original in pristine condition.

South west minnesota is now farm country with the wildlife forced to live in the edges such as along rivers,lakes, fencelines,groves and roads. The cost to restore "native prairie" in this area is enormous,and you end up with small fragments of grassland that support lots of rodents and songbirds, but little in the way of huntable game.

When I buy my deer license I hope that the money goes to buy some deer habitat close to my home. I don't mind if a little goes to getting some prairei chicken habitat, just don't like it when they chainsaw my treestand trees while leaving the trees close by standing that are not good for deer hunting and then tell me they are protecting ground nesting birds from birds that use trees as a hunting perch. What next, going to use license money to reroute power lines and then put up signs bragging about the new native prairie(if you have ever seen a raptor sitting on a sign it wasn't hunting,just resting.)

I love to bowhunt deer and have had many hunts interupted by pheasant hunters. I don't get too upset about it because I know that the chicken chasers contribute a lot of money to habitat that I use for my hunting.(did get a little bent when they lengthed the pheasant season to the end of december,was nice to pattern deer after the pheasant season and put a doe in the freezer if the big guys somehow evaded me.)Anyways it sure would have been nice to have had some say in how my license money was spent. The money they spent sending crews out to clearcut the manegment areas could have bought some bare farmland for there prairie restoration instead of screwing up existing hunting areas.

One last thing,sure wish the DNR would have cleaned up the mess from the trees instead of leaving them for us to trip over for the next ten years.

[skunk-ape]

This past weeks Outdoor News has a story about this very topic. I would suggest reading it to see the DNR's stance. I'm neutral on this subject but I can understand being upset if this area is one's deer hunting spot.

[PikeTipper]

I am far from versed on this subject but I have to agree with mechanictim on this. It seems like the vast majority of land purchases by the state are lands that have already been put into CRP or were someone's private hunting land. By buying this land sure we get another spot to hunt but we don't get any more cover for wildlife because it was already there. I would prefer these land purchases to be farm land and then converted into wildlife habitat instead of just buying land that is already managed for wildlife. I suppose this may be more costly to try and convert these properties so maybe it just isn't feasable.