The contention that Minnesota hunters and anglers roll over too easily to public policy edicts and other circumstances that diminish the state's fish and wildlife populations, or their access to them, is not without merit.
The most recent example is the closing of night fishing on Mille Lacs this summer and fall by the Department of Natural Resources so walleye anglers won't exceed the state's harvest quota on the lake.
That much seems fair. But also banned from Mille Lacs at night — if only for the convenience of DNR enforcement officers — are other anglers, including bowfishermen and muskie fishermen, two groups that might not kill a walleye between them in a year.
Yet, being the compliant bunch we are, we adhere to the DNR's overarching ban obediently, with nary a whimper, losing, in this case, nighttime access to one of the state's best bowfishing and muskie fishing lakes.
Now, soon, comes mid-June and the phenologists among us turn a peeled eye to the state's few remaining grasslands. These and the relatively few untrammeled ditches that remain in southern Minnesota represent the mother lode of habitat upon which a pheasant rebound in the state depends. Obviously, they can't offset recent Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) losses in the state, which tallied a net 153,328 set-aside acres between 2012 and 2013 alone. But it's what we have left.
Or is it?
In fact, many lands in Minnesota that should remain reserved for soil conservation and wildlife habitat also have been lost, thanks to the meek acquiescence of the public at large, and particularly the acquiescence of sportsmen and women, whose responsibility should be to remain alert for such threats.
Example: To fatten their bottom lines, some southern Minnesota farmers are illegally planting crops in roadsides owned by the public, especially along rural township roads. This robs all taxpayers, but perhaps particularly pheasant hunters, because pheasants often nest in undisturbed roadsides.