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Destruction of Habitat on WPAs


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I've been amazed with the flooded sloughs we have how the birds here in Douglas County survived the foot of heavy snow we got last week. Where they are roosting I have NO idea.

Some Native Tall Grasses I burnt last spring are standing tall but I'm not sure how thick that is for thermal protection and thats only about three acres.

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Be glad you have trees at all. But on the otherhand out here in MT we have very few trees if any at all. In the example below you can see the small grove around a ranch house along a creek bed. Then in the back ground it is miles of open range w\o trees. The Deer and Birds do just fine. More than I have ever seen in MN.

The "Real Problem" with MN is hunter population!

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Regards,

Chris

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I say we let the USFWS do their jobs. Go talk to some of those folks sometime. They are dedicated, knowlegable people who take alot of pride in their work. We are all quick to criticize the USFWS and the DNR. (I admit, I have been guilty of it too) I have learned over the last couple years though, that most of these individuals, who work for the above agencies, are sportsmen too, who do what they have studied and proven to be what's best for thousands of different situations. I would hate to see what hunting or fishing in this state would be like without them. (Oh yeah, and alot of them are volunteers, or college kids doing internships for little pay.)

I would be glad to listen to all of you who oppose what they do after you show me YOUR completed field studies including data from decades of research. Until then, I'll trust the experts.

I will end my rant by saying this. There is never a perfect solution to most problems, but I'm pretty sure these guys did their research before they just started hacking down trees and "destroying habitat".

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Well said SapperAce. It amazes me to read some of these forums and have people complain about how things are handled by the agencies. The complexity of ecosystems and the responses to various forces is barely understood by those with good educations and years of experience. It's always easy to throw stones especially if you don't consider the impact on the folks that catch them.

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The "Real Problem" with MN is hunter population!

I'd have to agree with you there!!! Used to be you could take a Friday off and have your pick of public hunting spots, nowadays you better get there early or someone else will already be there.

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Very seldom a poster, waiting for some info to arrive, watching a pond with duck broods hatched in grassy hybrid poplars. This topic strikes a nerve. Trees are the disease? If they harbor predators then we better raise the limit on marsh hawks. The DNR and FWS have stripped all trees from many wildlife areas in LqP,Swift counties and many other counties. The dollars spent is often outrageous in the process. Areas that held birds in tough past winters held no birds this year, the snow blows and blows. Dense thickets are cleared out in the name of prairie management. What happened to the woodcock that would frequent those thickets on migrations? Pheasants and deer used many of those thickets that surrounded cattails as wintering areas? Now they graze cattle on the many areas to "simulate bison". Where are the nest density drag studies on those areas comparing thicker cover with no grazing and the thinned out aresa that have been grazed? Want pheasants? Go to the SD GFP site, check their pheasant management site. They suggest 10% woody cover, thats 64 acres of woody cover acres in a 640 acre section. In our area they want all prairie. I wonder when they will restock the bison and open a season. Since pheasant hens parasitize the prairie chicken nests, I suppose they will be eliminated like the trees to help native species. Support the DNR and FWS? They do what they want. I agree with putting in some food plots. Ever check on how the pheasant habitat stamp dollars are spent? Mostly no increase in foodplot acres, just paid for from a different pot of money. I even bet those dollars pay for a lot of tree elimination. Manage for ducks? The boreal forest and prairie parkland areas of Canada produce a pile of ground nesting ducks in tree areas. Fires do have a place in management. If that is the case and they are managing for prairie then they better burn some in the fall too. Next round will be the FWS annual thistle cutting. Then they will fall spray for 3-5 years in a row saying it works best? Lets see, there are a pile of CRP fields of warm season grass that look great without cutting, maybe get sprayed once or twice, and burned once every 5-10 years. How about they actively manage for pheasants and deer rather than just having them as a bi-product of prairie management.

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It is the hunters?!? How about looking at the annual precipitation in MT verses MN? Wet cold springs take a toll on MN pheasants. When have you seen a wet cold spring like MN has had in MT. MT precip is less than half of MN. I have hunted the wooded draws of MT after a early snow storm. The pheasants aren't there, they are in the feedlots. As far as LQP County in MN, aren't they removing trees to reestablish the native prairie chicken? Wouldn't it be nice to have more of them around to hunt? If you want trees, hunt north and east. Let me know how many pheasants you see. My opinion of course. Bash away, I have thick skin. Life doesn't revolve around just pheasants. Sorry, government agencies get blamed for everything.

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One of the WPA's that the original poster is talking about I believe is the Weber in Kandiyohi Co. From the deck of one of the houses I run on the north WMA I didn't see one duck in after opening weekend. That big slough is tough to get to and I didn't see one duck hunter even hunt the WPA at all. I did see some geese use it often. As a member and volunteer to PF we worked with the DNR on a wildlife area south on Penock and cut down all the tall trees out of the nice evergreen growing there. I also like Duck hunting but the migration has moved and it isn't in my neck of the woods any more.

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It is my opinion that the wildlife problems in western MN came about years ago with all the drainage and the removal of the wetlands that used to be so abundant in the area. I don't fault the farmers for the drainage as they have to make a living, but none the less, it has reshaped the wildlife landscape more than anything else in this part of the state.

The cover we have left in this part of the state is not enough to sustain all the hunting preasure we recieve anually. For example: I have seen the same tract of public lands walked and hunted for pheasants as many as six times in one day. Though an extreme case still, most of the public stuff gets hit multiple times in one day. Now can you see the problem?

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