Monthly Archives: December 2011

Outdoors now has home page link

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For those of you outdoors readers who haven’t noticed, navigating to the outdoor content on the Herald’s website just got a whole lot easier.

Accessing the outdoors now is as simple as going to GrandForksHerald.com and going to the Outdoors menu tab, located just to the right of the UNDSportsZone link. Clicking the Outdoors link opens a scroll-down menu with subsections for Birds, Fishing, Hunting, Minnesota DNR, ND Game and Fish, Outdoors Columns, Parks, Trophy Room, US Fish and Wildlife and Wildlife.

The new tab is much easier to find and faster to navigate than the old setup, which required clicking the Sports tab and scrolling down to find the Outdoors link . You can still find Outdoors listed under Sports, as well — at least for the time being.

To check out the Herald’s outdoors content, click here:

Enough already! I want snow

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Is it just me, or is the lack of snow on the landscape unsettling?

I just returned from a trip to the Twin Cities for Christmas, and everywhere I looked, brown dominated the horizon. In my half-century on this planet, I can’t remember a completely brown Christmas.

Or, perhaps, I’ve blocked it out of my mind.

Much as I hate driving in snow or on icy roads, I’m a snow guy. My two snowmobiles continue to collect dust on the trailer, where they’ve patiently rested since I parked them for the season last March.

Another sign of what a weird winter this has been so far surfaced Tuesday, when the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources issued a news release warning people to be careful when burning because the fire danger is so high. There’s even a requirement that anyone planning to burn vegetation or other debris first obtain a burning permit.

If we had some snow, that wouldn’t be an issue.

Ice conditions also are dicey, at best, and authorities continue to warn people to stay off the west side of Lake of the Woods, where a large crack that extends from Springsteel to Swift Ditch, Rocky Point and Long Point will remain dangerous until we get enough cold weather to freeze the open water.

Also Tuesday, a video surfaced on YouTube showing the danger on Manitoba’s Lake Winnipeg, where a vehicle went through the ice near the access at Balsam Harbor on the east side of the lake. You can watch for yourself here:

Sportsmen’s groups respond to federal wolf delisting plan

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Here’s what a couple of sportsmen’s groups had to say today about the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove wolves in the Great Lakes region from federal protection under the Endangered Species Act:

 “This announcement is a major victory for sportsmen, conservation, and wildlife management. We applaud the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for their decision to recognize the scientific facts regarding wolves in the Great Lakes region. This is how the Endangered Species Act is supposed to be implemented. When animal populations recover, those species should be removed from the list and returned to state management. This has been a long, hard fought battle and is not likely over as we expect the animal rights lobby to turn to the courts to stop the delisting. We will be ready.”
— Rob Sexton, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation senior vice president.   

 “Barring any legal holdups from animal rights activists, we should see science-based wolf management and control measures go into effect by February, and that’s great news for conservation overall in the Great Lakes region.”
— David Allen, president and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.