Personally I think the DNR has lost a lot of birder and outdoor folks' support for trying to ramrod this hunting proposal through the process without a series of statewide series of hearings. Those are not just birds that live in Roseau or Kittson Counties. Many of those birds are Mississippi flyway birds that come through C and S Minnesota and many are NW MN birds that fly down the Great Plains. The natural resorces of this state belong as a common to all Minnesotans and as such all taxpayers should have a say in the matter. The prairie chicken season was well thought out and the DNR had a prolonged period for comments. Protection of the resource came first and both hunters and many nonhunters accepted the season as a management tool and as support for continued habitat improvement. This proposal smells of cronyism and smoke-filled rooms and the public be damned. If the intention is to shoot Lesser Sandhill Cranes which arrive in October why does the season open so early? Why impact a still expanding Greater Sandhill breeding population? There may be good reasons, perhaps to control crop-depredating cranes (who used to breed in these boreal forests before they drained the bogs, cut the forest, and tiled and ditched everything in sight right up to the boundaries of Roseau River State Wildlife Area and other local refuges). I think the public has a right to know what led up to these decisions and they have a right to air their views when things don't quite smell right. Bob Russell
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