MINNEAPOLIS — Mistrustful of the Department of Natural Resources' oversight of mushroom hunting and berry picking, a group of Minnesota foragers has turned to the Legislature for creation of a new task force.

Their bill, recently introduced in the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, would require the DNR to establish by ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The most memorable scene from the 1975 movie “Jaws’’ isn’t when its star mutant chomps partygoer Chrissie while she skinny-dips.

Nor is it when the great white shark is blown up when police chief Martin Brody shoves a pressurized tank into the shark’s mouth and explodes the tank with a rifle shot.

Those scenes lurk in...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — For the first time, the Department of Natural Resources is slapping a special fishing regulation on perch caught on Mille Lacs Lake, lowering the daily bag limit from 20 to five.

The reduced limit, in effect through Nov. 30, is meant to slow down a runaway harvest that drew many anglers to the big lake this winter, catching ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — They departed northern Minnesota on Feb. 13, powering their motorized sleds across a bare minimum of snow before entering Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

Now in Quebec, the three “Old Guy” snowmobilers, as they’re known, are hoping that in coming days they’ll cross into Newfoundland, the destination of their latest ...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — Nearly every legislative session, Connecticut state Sen. Eric Berthel, R-32, introduces a bill allowing for the hunting of black bears in certain areas of the state, but each year the bill fails to find support in the legislature.

This year was no different, as his bear hunting bill failed to advance out of committee.

...Read more

PITTSBURGH — There was an unusual silence Friday at Seggond Chance Farm in Cranberry, Pa., a sanctuary once home to many unwanted, abandoned and abused domestic birds and animals.

The state Department of Agriculture quarantined the site recently after HPAI, highly pathogenic avian flu, annihilated many of the birds; the agency put down the ...Read more

MOAPA VALLEY, Nev. — Valley of Fire State Park’s desert bighorn sheep are thirsty. Thirstier than they’ve been in a while.

Though Las Vegas’ 214-day dry streak — the second-longest on record — ended this month, the park’s population of bighorn sheep has been among the hardest hit by drought, requiring intervention from state ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Annexing Canada to make it our 51st state, as President Trump has suggested, is never going to happen. Not because it’s a dumb idea. But because our Canadian friends like their lives the way they are, and won’t allow it.

That doesn’t make the proposal any less frightful, because exporting our particular brand of resource ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A grand plan to reintroduce wild elk to northeastern Minnesota will be delayed at least another year after organizers hit a pair of stumbling blocks, state and tribal officials confirmed last week.

Mackenzie Henk, elk biologist for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, west of Duluth, said last Thursday in an interview...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Verified improvements in Mille Lacs Lake fish populations could significantly increase this year’s walleye harvest when the 2025 season opens May 10.

State Fisheries Chief Brad Parsons and members of his staff at the Department of Natural Resources said last Tuesday they will give consideration to suggestions for a two- or ...Read more

ATLANTA — Gun enthusiasts could soon get an 11-day sales tax holiday in October to coincide with the beginning of hunting season, which Republican senators say would cut down on Georgia’s overpopulation of deer.

Senators approved the measure last Wednesday by a 31-21, party line vote. The bill would remove the sales tax for the purchase of ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Visitors to Lake Murray are attracted by the copious varieties of fish under its blue waters, and officials are aware of this fact. That’s why they are taking steps to keep the aquatic population of the lake as high as possible.

Twenty-three “reef balls” — fabricated bits of concrete meant to stimulate fish habitat �...Read more

Three men hunting hogs in a Texas forest were rescued after getting stranded by floodwaters, game wardens said.

Rescuers responded Feb. 17 at about 3 a.m. to a distress call from a hunter who said he and two other men were trapped in the Big Slough Wilderness Area of Davy Crockett National Forest, according to a Facebook post from Texas Game ...Read more

AMBERGRIS CAYE, Belize — Wednesday morning of this past week broke a long way from the Stillwater Dome, but the routine was the same. Assembling an 8-weight fly rod, I looped line through its guides while feeling the outfit’s familiar heft in my right hand. A lot of things change over time, but as comforting as an inanimate object can be ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Like a boomerang more than an arrow, the crossbow controversy is coming back to the Legislature.

Some background:

In May 2023, near the end of that year’s legislative session, a conference committee deal was struck to allow any licensed Minnesota archer to hunt deer with a crossbow.

The proposal never was heard in a ...Read more