Hello: On Friday evening the night before all the day trips in Sax-Zim Bog the DNR decided to remove all the deer rib carcasses off all the feeders in the bog because of some complaints from people that the deer carcasses were attracting wolves and other mammals to them and supposedly they were breaking some laws. The DNR left the sunflower feeders, scooped up some some of the seed & dog food on the ground and put up some warning signs. The feeders were erected by two men who live in Hibbing and also another man from Wrenshall. Because of the warning the men decided to remove the all the seed feeders off Admiral Rd, Arkola Rd and McDavitt Rd. So in other words all these deer rib carcass feeders and seed feeders will be a thing of the past. If you disagree with the DNR decision I would suggest calling them and get some answers because at this point I was not aware these men were doing anything wrong because these feeders attracted so many photographers and birders from all over to view the birds like Boreal Chickadees and all the winter finches. So to find a Boreal Chickadee in the remaining winter months, birders are going to have to go back to the old ways of pishing thru flocks of chickadees and hope you find a Boreal Chickadee among them. Also all those photographers who enjoyed these feeders in the bog and finding this depressing news.. you still have residential feeders to photograph birds at the Abramson, Morse and Mueller feeders in the Meadowlands vicinity. Also all those feeders were placed on public land ( county land ) and in the past week I heard from a birder who had an encounter with a logger on the McDavitt Rd that he found these deer carcass feeders a problems because these feeders attracted wolves and he was quite upset with them. I am sure those same sentiments were true with some of the locals who get annoyed by seeing birders enjoy themselves on the Arkola Rd as they sped by. For me I was deeply sadden by this news because of the timing of it -- Thanks DNR ( you could of waited till Tuesday ) but thankfully most people were able to see a Boreal Chickadee on the Admiral Rd feeder area as it dined on the last small tidbits of deer suet on the ground on the Saturday trips. I do not know if there were laws broken but its like the law about keeping the tag on your mattress.. its not issue until it becomes an issue. I talked to a birder today who met a DNR worker on the Admiral Rd. this winter and he did not find at the time any problems with the feeders but I guess if you have enough complaints .. something has to be done to answer those complaints. I guess when something as wonderful as these feeders were to us .. its not going to last forever because someone or some people just did not like seeing birders or photographers enjoying themselves at these feeders. They won and we lost!
Mike Mike Hendrickson Duluth, Minnesota Website: http://webpages.charter.net/mmhendrickson/ Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/ ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
