Minnesota’s governor-turned-presidential-candidate is taking some flack in the local hunting community for his hunting ethics.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has taken a drubbing from hunters for not tracking down a deer he shot on opening day of Minnesota’s firearm deer season.

A headline on deerhuntingchat.com calls the possible presidential candidate a “slob hunter” for wounding a deer on Nov. 7 and then leaving for a Republican fundraiser in Iowa before the animal could be found.

After the governor shot the deer at 7 a.m. from more than 200 yards away, he and his brother Dan, an accomplished hunter, went to where they last saw the animal.

Finding blood but no deer, they returned to base camp for breakfast and to consider their next move.

We all know these politician out hunting things are staged events, part of a campaign itinerary, and Pawlenty can’t be blamed too much for having another appointment to make, especially if there were other hunters in the party able to search for the deer.

But that part about finding the blood at 7 A.M. and then retiring for breakfast to consider the next move is a bit problematic. When you’ve taken your shot and found blood, the next move is to find the deer, no consideration needed.

Today’s the opening of deer hunting season here in Minnesota, and for once it looks like the lawmakers and wildlife officials are a step ahead of the hunters when it comes to the advantages of new technology.

Tweet this: No, you can’t use Twitter to help take a whitetail beginning Saturday, when the state’s 2009 firearms deer season begins. Nor can you text your buddies, saying, for example, that the deer of a lifetime is ambling their way and that they should GET READY.

Minnesota law has long prohibited the taking of game by hunters with the use of two-way radios and, more recently, cell phones. And while the statute doesn’t specifically address written communication carried over the airways, the Department of Natural Resources said this week its interpretation of the law covers all communication using radios and phones, regardless of its form.

Of course, hunting is starting just as I’m typing this, so there isn’t much chance any Minnesota deer hunter is going to read it before heading into the field. Maybe if I sent it out on twitter…

One less coal plant being built to darken midwestern skies.

A power plant ran out of steam Monday as developers announced that they have decided not to build the $1.6 billion Big Stone II project near South Dakota’s border with Minnesota. The joint announcement by four utilities brings to an end one of the larger environmental debates in the state in recent years because of mounting public concerns about global warming and energy policy.

The proposed plant was also seen as a major potential pollution source for the Minnesota River. With one of the companies involved already stating that it can meet it’s requirements by expanding wind power, this looks like one of those cases where what isn’t happening is good news all around.

It was noted here a couple of weeks ago that wolf hunting near Yellowstone Park in Montana had been suspended due to a greater than expected number of wolf kills. Now it turns out that one of those wolves had a Minnesota connection.

In life, 527F was reclusive — even for an alpha-female wolf. Her territory was so remote that researchers studying wolves in Yellowstone National Park rarely saw her. But they knew a lot about her because for five years she wore a radio collar disclosing her travels, her mating and her kills.

In death, though, 527F is making an uncharacteristic publicity splash.

A hunter shot 527F on Oct. 3. She had strayed nearly a mile outside of Yellowstone into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, where Montana had opened its first legal wolf-hunting season in decades. In all, four of the 10 Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves in Yellowstone’s Cottonwood Pack, including one other radio-collared female, were shot.

The loss of 527F leaves a hole in research that had been under way at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere, said Daniel MacNulty, a U of M research associate.

The whole article, from MinnPost, is well worth reading. It goes in to some depth regarding the relationship between the Yellowstone wolves, elk, and local ranchers and hunters who tend to blame the wolves for everything that goes wrong with either their livestock and one of their, and the wolves, favorite game animals. The re-introduction of wolves in Yellowstone may look like a resounding success from a ways away, but it’s evident that the locals are still having some problems with it. Given ranchers and other inhabitants of the American West’s traditional attitudes toward wolves that’s hardly a surprise, but it’s still a fair bet that enthusiasm for killing wolves goes well beyond the limits set by wilflife managers on the scope of the wolf hunting season in Montana.

It’s snowed two out of the last three nights, enough to leave a mark this morning on the tree outside my living room window. it’s a little early to be saying that, even for Minnesota. Maybe we should just make up some reason and turn it in to a three day weekend.

There was a time, locals residents will tell you, when you could hardly travel through northwestern Minnesota without seeing a moose. Now the moose have almost entirely disappeared from that corner of the state, and there is fear that the population of moose in the northeast may also be in danger of declining.

Moose in Minnesota are likely to become more rare with the broader introduction of climate change, researchers said Monday.

Last month, experts issued a special advisory that found the moose population at risk of becoming less prevalent in the US.

The August report from the Moose Advisory Committee noted that more research was needed to determine why Minnesota’s moose population is on the decline, and what measures could be taken to preserve them.

According to the Associated Press, Maine holds the most moose in the lower 48 states, with about 60,000. Alaska has an estimated 150,000 moose, Idaho has about 15,000, Wyoming holds an estimated 7,700, Vermont and New Hampshire hold around 4,000 each and Minnesota has an estimated 7,600.

However, the moose population in northwestern Minnesota has dropped from at least 4,000 in the early 1980s to about 100 today.

The majority of moose in Minnesota reside in its northeastern forests due to the bountiful lakes and streams. But they face threats from warm weather, which could leave them more susceptible to deadly diseases.

“Almost without exception all of the indicators are that the population is declining,” Mark Lenarz, of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, told the AP.

Moose are one of those animals that tell you, when you encounter one, that this is indeed wilderness. I confess to never having seen one in Minnesota, but I’ve been up close to moose in Montana and Wyoming and the effect is very much the same as encountering any large animal, awe, respect, and a bit of nervousness. The nervousness comes from a Yellowstone Park ranger lecture on how a moose was the least predictable large animal when encountered, and the most likely to charge without warning.

Nevertheless, meeting a moose while out on a backwoods trail is one of the real wilderness experiences that give people lasting memories. If they completely disappeared from Minnesota’s forests and swamps, the loss would be as much ours as theirs.

They’re talking water this week in Duluth.

Advocates for a massive Great Lakes cleanup gather in Duluth this week energized by increased support in Washington.

Nearly 250 activists, scientists and government officials will gather today through Saturday at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center for the fifth annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference. A plan in Washington includes $475 million in the 2010 federal budget for Great Lakes efforts — including cleaning up toxic pollution hotspots, stemming the invasion of exotic species, stopping sewage overflows, and restoring and protecting habitat along the shores of the Great Lakes.

The U.S. House already has approved the Obama administration’s plan. The Senate is expected to begin considering the issue this month, said Jordan Lubetkin, spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office.

“It passed the [Senate] Appropriations Committee at $400 million. But we’re optimistic we’ll still get the full $475 million after conference committee,’’ he said.

President Obama pledged support for the Great Lakes during his campaign, and it looks like they’re actually coming through. $400 million is a good start, but it’s only a start towards cleaning up and protecting North America’s largest bodies of fresh water. It does, however, provide reason for optimism and gives everyone at the conference something to talk about.

Here in Minnesota the topic of water quality has more to do with our streams, wetlands, and those ten thousand and more lakes we like to talk about. Perhaps this conference on the Great Lakes, plus the Nobel Conference on water in Saint Peter next month will help inspire our local politicians to seriously address the problem in our own state. That would be an outcome worth celebrating.

The machinations of suburban high schools in Minnesota is becoming as much a part of the end of Summer as high school football itself.

The MSHSL board of directors will hold a special meeting Tuesday to put the final stamp of approval on the placement of Edina, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Wayzata into the Lake Conference, beginning in 2010-11. But that will not be the final word on the matter.

As noted in a previous post, this thing has legs. In fact, it could turn into a never-ending cycle of 1) placement; 2) unhappy schools withdrawing from placement-expanded leagues; 3) the remaining schools dissolving their shrunken league; and 4) the process starting all over again.

That’s the fear here. All the Lake schools except Eden Prairie are threatening to leave the Lake. That would leave EP and the four Classic Lake schools in a five-team league, and there would be no way to stop that league from dissolving on its own accord. Then, of course, the placement process would start again, all five schools would be placed in the Lake South/Dakota County (or whatever that league will be called), and the whole mess rolls around again.

The root of the problem here is the size disparity amongst many of the schools. Eden Prairie has about 3500 students, there are cities nearby with nearly as many students in their system, but they’ve split into two or more high schools. Eden Prairie has one.

You can bet that during half times this Fall the conference problem will be at least as big a topic as health care and the economy. When you mess with a town’s football team, you’re messing with their lives.

Wow. I have to admit I’m surprised by this one.

Brett Favre will be a Viking after all.

Three weeks after the future Hall of Fame quarterback told the Vikings he had decided to remain retired, he arrived in Minnesota and prepared to sign a contract at Winter Park.

On TV they’re showing scenes of people mobbing Favre’s care as he arrived at practice. One thing remains true, Vikings fans will put up with almost anything from their team and the players on it. No professional team in town treats its fans with more contempt, and has more players who get in trouble than the Minnesota Vikings, yet they remain the most popular team in town.

You can understand the Viking’s willingness to put up with whatever Favre wants, they truly believe they’re a quarterback away from making a serious run at a championship. What’s being mostly overlooked in all this though is that the Vikings pursuit of Favre is tantamount to an admission by the head coach that the quarterback he traded up in the draft for and hand-picked to lead the team is never going to be good enough to do it. The team may now have all the players it thinks it needs, but the haed coache’s judgement has already been found wanting once in one of the biggest decisions an NFL coach can make, and the players know it. If Favre doesn’t work out and the Vikings don’t live up to expectations, the fans just might figure it out, too.

Moose only live in the northeastern corner of Minnesota, so their population is pretty closely monitored, and the rules regarding hunting of moose, especially regarding number of licenses issues, is a yearly question. This year, despite some reservations, the hunt is on.

Despite fears that the population is crashing, a special committee reporting to the Department of Natural Resources recommended today that the population will hold its own “for the foreseeable future.”

And despite the threat to the species posed by what the committee called “the long-term threat” of climate change, it recommended that moose hunting can continue in the northeastern part of the state.

The committee was formed, in part, because moose numbers have declined dramatically in northwestern Minnesota during the past two decades and appear to be dropping in northeast Minnesota.

Earlier this year, the DNR reported that the 2008 survey of the animals found a statewide population of about 7,600 animals.

A couple interesting things going on here. First, the future of moose hunting season may depend in part on an expaned deer hunt in the same part of the state. There’s a parasite that passes from white-tailed deer to moose, so fewer deer, fewer moose with parasites.

Second, it’s a good bet that many of the members of the committee are hunters, so it’s good to see them recognize climate change as a factor in the future of the moose population in Minnesota.

Committee chairman Rolf Peterson said committee members recognize climate change as a clear long-term threat to the persistence of moose in Minnesota but weren’t able to quantify the extent of the threat during the next half-century.