Anderson: DNR says ‘no’ to leading a Duck Summit this winter, but outdoors groups endorse the idea

A few weeks ago I proposed a Duck Summit be held this winter in Minnesota, and suggested the Department of Natural Resources lead it.

I can report now a Summit will be held, though where and when haven’t been decided.

I can also report the DNR, whose job it is to manage ducks and duck hunting in the state, and sell licenses and stamps to waterfowlers, isn’t interested in leading this important meeting.

Nor will the agency dedicate its Roundtable, held in January each year, to ducks and duck management, according to DNR wildlife section chief Dave Trauba.

Trauba also nixed a proposal to hold a Duck Summit the day before the Roundtable, which typically is offered on a Friday.

The idea for a wintertime gathering among duck hunters isn’t novel.

The former Minnesota Waterfowl Association (MWA) held similar convocations annually so everyone concerned about these birds and what they represent to Minnesota, the Mississippi Flyway and the nation could discuss their status and future.

Now, more than ever, a similar symposium is needed.

Ducks are scarce and waterfowl-hunting license sales have plummeted. Worse, there appears to be no cohesive strategy to return Minnesota to its once lofty status as a major duck producer.

Yet the DNR continues to offer liberal bag limits and hunting opportunities to duck hunters, including an over-water early goose season, an early teal season, a youth waterfowl hunting weekend and a regular duck opener — all in September, before the state’s duck season historically began.

That’s not all. Opening day shooting now begins one half-hour before sunrise, rather at 9 a.m. or noon, as was previously the case in Minnesota.

The earlier shooting prevents hunters from distinguishing between male and female ducks, especially hen from drake mallards.

I spent a lot of time in duck blinds with the late Bud Grant, who in his long life saw duck populations rise and fall many times.

“When someone says these regulations don’t affect ducks” Bud would say, “they’re lying. Of course they affect ducks.”

Funny, because that’s what the late Art Hawkins, the preeminent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, also said.

“Hunting ducks in early September before some them are even fledged makes no sense,” he would say.

Which is why more and more hunters are wondering whether the DNR is primarily concerned about peddling hunting licenses and less so about conserving these birds and their habitats.

Maybe they’re not.

No one knows, because the agency’s waterfowl committee meetings are held out of the public eye, with no input from hunters or outside professionals.

There’s no shortage, after all, of retired DNR and federal waterfowl biologists and managers who oppose Minnesota’s duck hunting regulations.

But the DNR doesn’t ask them. Or anyone else.

Discontent about duck management has been prevalent among the state’s waterfowlers for a generation and more. Year after year, liberal hunting regulations are handed down by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the DNR. Yet too often in the field hunters see mostly empty skies.

Yet a Duck Summit would be more than a venue for hunters to whine about limits and season lengths.

The bigger issue is how we conserve the wetland habitat we have while adding more.

To that end, hunters ask:

Leaders of the Fergus Falls Fish and Game Club support a Duck Summit and will bring the idea to their membership in the coming days.

Another big outfit, the Nicollet Conservation Club, also supports a Summit, as does the Swan Lake Area Wildlife Association, which approved the proposal last weekend.

Readers of a certain age will recall that in 1988 the “Ikes” provided the tax-exempt conduit through which readers of my column, then in the Pioneer Press, ponied up $650,000 to buy federal wildlife agents a helicopter to stop duck poaching on the Gulf Coast.

Yet even if every conservation and wildlife club, and every duck hunter in Minnesota, backs a Summit, it doesn’t mean the DNR, the Fish and Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl or any of the other big players in state waterfowl management will sign up to present their opinions and ideas.

Different as they are, these outfits represent a brotherhood of sorts, and in some cases are business partners. Doubtless their leaders will consider carefully the positives and negatives of meeting with Joe and Jane Hunter before they commit.

So maybe a “Duck Summit” will end up being little more than a dozen or so waterfowlers meeting in the back room of a VFW somewhere. If so, I’m buying.

Or perhaps the Summit will be held at a university or an environmental learning center or similar facility and represent a watershed moment not only in Minnesota duck management history, but in wetland and shallow-lake conservation — the latter of which is critical to everyone.

That event was organized by an amalgam of hunting and environmental groups — a joining of “guns and greens,” as it were.

A Duck Summit is worthy of the same support.

We’ll see what Minnesotans — especially Minnesota duck hunters — want to do.