 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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Reality Check Rumor: The DNR stocks mountain lions throughout Minnesota. Reality: “It has never happened,” says Bill Berg, DNR wildlife biologist at Grand Rapids. “We don’t stock predators. Not mountain lions, not wolves, not coyotes, not any of them. Every one of those critters traveled to where it is on its own four legs. End of story.” And yet the rumors persist. Steve Merchant, the DNR's new Forest Wildlife Program leader says he regularly heard rumors of cougar sightings in western Minnesota when he was area wildlife manager at Madison. “The people perpetuating the rumor were convinced that ‘The DNR’ had released the cougars,” he says. “I recall one ‘sighting’ by a family that had heard these rumors and had frantically called the local conservation officer, Pat Joyce, to report that they’d seen one enter their barn. They had bravely closed the barn door and called Pat. He immediately responded to save the friendly farm family from certain harm. Pat agreed to set a large live trap at the barn entrance, and the next day he’d captured the neighbor’s big brown tomcat. I guess the cougar had made a clean getaway.” |
