Public access to newly protected Washington County land stirs debate over use for dog training

Austin Jordan and his wife envisioned quiet country afternoons and long hikes through the nearby public nature areas when they bought land near his childhood home in northern Washington County.

Then the gunfire began.

“It’s been heartbreaking, honestly,” Jordan said.

Home to loons and hawks, turtles and remarkable leaping frogs, the public lands near his house are the newly created Keystone Woods Wildlife Management Area.

The property’s heirs sold the land, the longtime Kelley Land and Cattle Co. ranch, to the county, and last fall it became the state’s newest WMA, but one with an asterisk: The Kelley family had long hosted the local hunting club, which included the training of hunting dogs. The DNR agreed to grandfather the dog training into the deal, and today the WMA is one of just two statewide that allows such training.

The decision was hailed by hunting dog groups who have fewer spots to run their hounds in the metro area as farmland has been plowed under for housing. But critics showed up at a public meeting earlier this year, and then again in a petition sent to the DNR, to decry a lease agreement between the DNR and the Minnesota Federation of Field Trial Clubs that allowed dog training from April 15 to Aug. 31.

This past week, the DNR said it had reviewed the petition and decided to allow the dog training to continue, but both sides say they’re not done lobbying — and the dog trainers’ lease will eventually come up for renewal.

“People in the Twin Cities are starving for areas to train their dogs,” he said.

The 2,600-acre Kelley land is being sold to the public in two chunks, one 1,840-acre piece for Keystone Woods, and the rest as an addition to the Big Marine Park Reserve, a Washington County park.

In an email this week, the DNR said it saw no evidence that dog training was harming wildlife at Keystone.

“There is a decades-long history of these activities at Keystone Woods ... and claims of damage are not supported by the nearly 50-year history of dog trialing on this property,” wrote DNR spokesman David Tauchen in an email.

The dog training area uses about a fifth of the wildlife management area and is away from known locations of vulnerable species, Tauchen added.

The club’s lease requires the use of non-toxic ammunition. From April 15 to May 31, no training can take place before 12 noon, and no live fire is ever allowed before 8 a.m. The lease says the land remains open to the public. A dirt road into the leased area has a locked gate so hunters alone can drive in.

But Laurie Schneider, a Stillwater Township resident and executive director of a nonprofit environmental group called the Pollinator Friendly Alliance, said she’s concerned by the number of hunters who show up at Keystone.

The public doesn’t feel welcome on the land when they can hear gunshots or see people walking through a field with a gun, she added.

“These guys have all sorts of places to go,” she said. “This is a really special chunk of land that should be preserved and protected.”

On a recent afternoon, a German short-haired hunting dog pushed through tall grass on edge of a lake at Keystone Woods, its head low, following a scent, as its owner Travis Bischof watched from a distance.

This is the sequence a dog must learn to become a reliable partner for a bird hunter, a tricky combination of detection and patience, instinct and learned behavior.

The use of a dog while hunting is about conservation, John Zeman, the dog trainer, added.

“If you don’t kill [the bird] stone dead there’s no way you’re going to recover that bird without a dog,” he said.

He grimaced when asked about the petition from people who oppose the dog training at Keystone Woods.

Critics might think hunters are “playing games with their dogs,” but it’s a serious matter when it comes to ethical hunting, he said.

John Siekmeier, president of the Minnesota division of the Izaak Walton League, created the petition calling for an end to the lease. It’s not the hunting that bothers the Ikes, who said half of the group’s members are hunters or fishers: “What’s weird about this is that the DNR chose to restrict public access and lease land to a private club.”

Travis Bischof said he’s urged other hunters to be good stewards of Keystone Woods.

“We make it clear to our members: don’t mess this up,” he said.