Today will be the first of two half-days of annual meetings in St. Cloud at which the Department of Natural Resources will meet with its key constituents and constituent groups to discuss matters important to both. Or, more accurately, important to the governor and therefore the agency. To wit, this year, bioenergy will be the hot topic -- a word that appears on the DNR "roundtable" agenda at least 13 times.
Items not on the agenda, meanwhile, include:
• What happened to Mille Lacs walleyes, and what are their chances for rapid recovery?
• What can conference attendees do to ensure passage in the Legislature this year of the most important conservation measure ever proposed -- dedicated funding -- and to ensure the constitutional amendment idea also is approved by voters in November?
• How will proposed wind farms (particularly in western Minnesota) impact wildlife populations? And: How will wind farms affect hunter access, in that "no shooting" zones typically are established in a wide swath around them?
• The DNR had zero buy-in by Minnesota sportsmen and sportswomen of its long-range duck recovery plan. Is that it? Are we done? Should state duck hunters sell their stuff?
• What circumstances led to the falloff of the state's farmland deer population? And, will the reduced hunter harvest in that area last autumn lead to a larger whitetail population there in one year? Five? Ten?
• Were experimental deer hunts held in state parks in recent years successful -- specifically, those hunts in which a buck could be taken only after a hunter killed a doe, or in which only bucks of certain antler sizes could be killed? Will such hunts be expanded? Will they lead to broader Quality Deer Management (QDM) experiments in Minnesota?