MINNEAPOLIS — In the darkness before sunrise on Saturday morning peering out of my hunting perch, it was hard to believe I’d be able to spot a deer in my path.

I had never hunted before. Up until a couple months ago, I’d never even held a shotgun, much less fired one. But when I was asked to join the orange-clad ranks this past weekend ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota’s North Woods are being sold to the state’s timber products industry, and deer and deer hunters will pay the price with lower populations and lower harvests for years to come.

Ruffed grouse populations also are at risk, as are less visible forest species such as fishers and martens, woodpeckers and songbirds.

The ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota’s ruffed grouse hunting — widely considered the best in the nation — appears to be holding up this fall despite signs of natural population decline for the state’s most popular game bird.

Participants in the annual National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt around Grand Rapids in early October bagged an average of .93 ...Read more

BOISE, Id. — At a lunch earlier this month, two Idaho officials, a project engineer and an invasive species expert, walked along the shore of the Snake River, eating hard-won slices of pizza. They’d been at the bottom of the canyon near the Twin Falls Dam for two weeks, often working 18-hour days in the state’s fight against e that had ...Read more

GRANTSBURG, Wis. — Sandhill cranes came in by the dozens, and then dozens more, to the grassy marsh of Crex Meadows Wildlife Area. They had spent the day feeding in nearby fields and now were arriving in large numbers at a favored roosting spot.

They announced themselves with nasally, bugling bursts, outnumbering about 40 people gathered on ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — They’re big. They’re beautiful. And there’s lots of them.

Perhaps too many?

Trumpeter swans are now reproducing at a rate no one predicted when 150 fragile eggs were transported to Minnesota from Alaska, beginning in 1987.

Carrol Henderson was the Department of Natural Resources non-game wildlife chief at the time, and ...Read more