 November/December 2000 | |
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Minnesota’s Sturgeon Resurgence Where have all the big pike gone? Where are Minnesota’s biggest bucks? Conservation plates net $2 million so far Slot limits measure up on Winnie Antlerless-only permits not a solution
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On My Mind The other day I met the future of fish, wildlife, and native plant management. The encounter came in Joe’s Sporting Goods in St. Paul, as I was buying my deer license. A young woman behind the counter handled my transaction and two others, while taking phone calls. She told one caller when the DNR would mail antlerless permits, then switched lines and explained to another that the new all-season buck license allowed hunting in any season with bow or gun but only one deer, a buck, could be tagged. Then she punched in dozens of numbers on the new electronic licensing machine to produce my deer tag. Intrigued by her aptitude, I stood aside while she handled more calls and customers. She was able to explain hunting regulations better than many hunters I know. I commented on this and she replied that it was part of the job. She didn’t hunt but she’d grown up in the country, and her dad hunted, so she knew about it. The customer rush died down and we got to talking. She’d just graduated from the Universary of St. Thomas with a degree in environmental studies and had spent her summer as an intern with the DNR MinnAqua Program and the Hennepin Parks Conservation District. “In a few weeks I’m going to the Philippines for the Peace Corps,” she told me. Among her duties would be convincing indigenous peoples not to use dynamite for offshore fishing. “It destroys the coral reefs and the food chain that supports the fish they are trying to catch,” she said, adding that it would be “a real challenge.” I wished her luck. A few days later I ran into Roland Sigurdson, a MinnAqua aquatic education specialist. I mentioned that I’d met one of his charges from the previous summer and had been impressed by her competency, enthusiasm, and dedication to natural resources. Sigurdson said she was typical of the interns hired by the MinnAqua Program: bright, idealistic, computer literate, and broad-minded. He’d seen the same type a few years ago when he’d taught at the University of Minnesota Biological Research Station at Itasca State Park. About half the students were women. Ever the paranoid, I asked if these resource managers of the future hunted and fished. Most don’t, he replied, unless they grew up in the country, which was becoming increasingly rare given the changing demographics of Minnesota. “But when they get into a biology program they see pretty fast that death is a part of the big picture and can see where hunting and fishing fit into the overall scheme of things,” he added. As a hunter and angler, I’d prefer that natural resources managers hunted and fished so that I’d feel certain that they understand my passion for these activities. But I know of many managers at the DNR who don’t hunt or fish and still do a great job conserving fish, wildlife, and native plants. The important thing is that future resource managers care about the land, water, plants, and critters, and that they can get things done. If they are anything like the capable, idealistic young woman I met while buying my deer license, the state’s natural resources will be in good hands. --Tom Dickson (Comments? Let me know.) |
