MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota’s peak deer season ended last Sunday with a plentiful harvest that assured state wildlife biologists that whitetail populations are still rebounding and being kept in check by hunters.

The final tally for the nine-day, statewide firearms season was 123,634 whitetails, up 8% from a year ago and comfortably ahead of ...Read more

WACONIA, Minn. – As light drained from the sky, conservation officer Alexander Birdsall bumped along in his Silverado 2500, crisscrossing isolated farm fields and patrolling for trouble.

His focus west of town was “outlaw area,” as he called it. This time of year, shining deer and shooting from this stretch of gravel are common offenses, ...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut hunters generate around $1.6 million in revenue for the state, yet despite relatively steady hunting license sales over the past few years, finding a hunting spot can still be a problem for many sportsmen.

According to the financial ranking site 247WallSt, Connecticut comes in at No. 45 on their list of states ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Forest Industries executive vice president Rick Horton gave me a strong counterpoint to the views expressed in my Oct. 31 column, which highlighted the charge by some retired Department of Natural Resources experts that the agency is managing the state’s wildlife management areas “to satisfy the logging industry.”...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina hunters are killing more black bears than ever as restrictions are eased on stalking and shooting the animals, a trend that concerns animal welfare groups but one that reflects state efforts to preserve the sport and keep the bear population in check.

Since 2000, sportsmen have killed more than 2,200 bears in ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly 100 cases of chronic wasting disease were documented in Minnesota deer last year, the highest number on record and surpassing the previous high by about a third.

Since the first case of the neurodegenerative disease was confirmed here in 2002, about 400 deer have been catalogued with CWD, according to the Minnesota ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Recent license sales indicate about 14% of Minnesota deer hunters are women, with a larger portion — about 29% — of youth licenses going to girls.

More tellingly, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, about a third of all new hunters are females — a trend that, if it continues, might fill the license-sales gap ...Read more

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

MINNEAPOLIS — Before Isaiah Osborne signed up for the military at age 17, before he went into active duty after graduating from New Ulm Cathedral High School, and before he was a crew chief on a Marine rescue helicopter, he was his own bird dog in southern Minnesota.

“In high school, after football practice, one of my buddies and I would ...Read more