Purple Loostrife & SaltCedar – Noxious Weeds in the Outdoors

Jim McAllister
Sportsman, are you aware of noxious weeds that can limit habitat in wetlands for wildlife. In the last 10 years, the state of North Dakota has had two noxious weeds move into our wetlands. They both can have devastating effects if not properly controlled. They are purple loosestrife and saltcedar.
Purple loosestrife has been in [...]

Wildlife and Habitat Management: The Joint Venture Concept of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan

By Robert A. Langager
Introduction
Migratory waterfowl have traveled the North American continent for thousands of years. They have awed many who have seen their great winged migrations. Waterfowl inspire many to watch them, hunt them, and study them intensely. As a resource, waterfowl and other birds generate nearly $20 billion in economic activity and create more [...]

The Value of Temporary Wetlands

By Doug Leier
A recent rainy spell has rekindled somewhat the time-worn debate over the value of wetlands, small ones in particular.
North Dakota has hunreds of thousands of these small, shallow wetlands. They’re often called temporary wetlands because they typically only hold water for a few weeks after spring snow melt, or after heavy summer rains [...]

Alternative Land Use Services Moving Forward

Federal, provincial and territorial Agriculture Ministers meeting in Kananaskis Alberta approved a four point policy agenda which would include testing of an ecological services plan called Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS). Often referred to as the “Farmers Conservation Plan”, ALUS was designed by the farm community across Canada. ALUS has been widely recognized as the [...]

PLOTS

By Doug Leier
We’re building on a generation of hunters who grew up with the Conservation Reserve Program. Just about half of that generation has never known a North Dakota landscape that did not have at least a few fields marked with a triangular yellow Private Land Open to Sportsmen or PLOTS sign encouraging walk-in hunting [...]

CRP Loss Equals Less Wildlife

By Doug Leier
It’s no secret that Conservation Reserve Program acreage continues to decline in North Dakota. This is not a surprising development, as for many years agencies and conservation organizations have been pointing toward economic factors that could potentially influence landowner interest in CRP.
The reality of the situation in 2008 is that accelerated CRP loss will [...]

Prairie Habitat

By Doug Leier
It’s July but I’m thinking of fall. And with good reason.
Last year’s pheasant harvest was likely higher than in any year since the mid-1940s. The past winter was relatively mild which should have meant fairly good carryover of birds. While abundant rains over much of the state could inhibit nest success and brood [...]

Praise for the PLOTS Program

Our Outdoors
Nick Simonson

 
900,000; that’s a big number. In terms of acreage its 5,625 quarter sections of land or about 1,406 full sections of land. 900,000 is also the total number of acres enrolled in the North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s (NDG&F) Private Land Open to Sportsmen Program (PLOTS).
For the past several years, the yellow [...]

The Truth Behind Feeding Wildlife

By Doug Leier
Wildlife management is pretty good science, but it is not always an exact science. We do the best we can with the knowledge and research we have, but sometimes, we don’t have all the answers. And sometimes, the answers change based on new research and knowledge.
Such is the case with the historical practice [...]

The Importance of the North Dakota PLOTS Land

By Doug Leier
North Dakota does not have much public land, compared to our neighbors to the east and west. While Minnesota is about 30 percent public ownership and Montana about 40 percent public, more than 90 percent of North Dakota is privately owned.
So it makes sense that much of our resident wildlife, such as pheasants, [...]

The Importance of the CRP Program

By Robert A. Langager
 

 I grew up in Fargo, ND and Marshall, in southwestern MN. I have spent many autumns chasing waterfowl in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of MN, ND, and SD. I currently reside in Durham, NC and attend North Carolina State University and am pursuing degrees in Watershed Hydrology and Wetlands Assessment. I [...]

The Importance of CRP

By Doug Leier
In 2002, for the first time since the 1950s, North Dakota hunters bagged more than 500,000 pheasants. While 2003 statistics are not yet complete, based on anecdotal reports, it is possible the pheasant harvest for last fall will again top a half-million birds.
If that happens, it will be the only time since 1945-46 [...]

Pheasants Forever

St. Paul, Minn. – March 15, 2005 – Today, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) announced a long range plan for Minnesota’s ring-necked pheasant population. The plan, which Pheasants Forever (PF) wildlife biologists helped develop, focuses on the addition of 1.56 million acres of habitat. Those additional habitat acres are projected to translate [...]

How To Educate Hunters About Predators – Predator Management

By Bruce Hemming
Researching how predators effect game population can be difficult and time consuming. These days, it appears that everyone has an agenda and the Sportsman is the loser. This is not apparent at first. It seems like the first excuse is always the cycle of the prey species. While it’s true that all species [...]

Battling Aquatic Nuisance Species

By Doug Leier
A few months ago I wrote about the expanding concern regarding aquatic nuisance species and their current and potential impact in North Dakota waters.
While North Dakota doesn’t yet have ANS as significant as, say, zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, unwanted plants and animals continue to steal time and money away from state [...]

Aquatic Nuisance Species

By Doug Leier
You’ve made your list and are checking it twice, anticipation for fishing is growing faster than your lawn this spring. Current license – got it. Life jackets – check. Next stop, open-water fishing 2004. The only thing holding you back from a day on the water is Mother Nature, but that’s spring in [...]

The Realities of Winterkill

By Doug Leier
When it comes to violence and death, nature is not G rated by any stretch of the imagination.
If you’ve spent time outdoors, you understand that red fox will efficiently kill plenty of hen ducks keeping watch over a nest. Cormorants will eat many fish. There is no doctor to prevent disease, and battles [...]

Undue Burden – Interesting Facts About Wolves

A review by Chris Hustad about a new DVD
 I have to admit on the surface, I knew very little about the wild wolf situations taking place across many states in the United States. I knew there was a conflict, but I was completely unaware of what was the real issue.
I can say after watching an [...]

PLOTS Map – Opening Access

By Doug Leier
The State Game and Fish Department has had programs that cooperatively involve private landowners since the 1950s. But it’s been less than 10 years since the first inverted yellow triangular sign went up on tracts called Private Land Open to Sportsmen.
The PLOTS has its roots in legislation passed in 1997. The new law [...]

The Importance of PLOTS

By Doug Leier
Next to sunflowers, Private Lands Open to Sportsmen signs are probably the most visible yellow found across the prairies of North Dakota this autumn.
Over the past decade, PLOTS signs have become synonymous with quality habitat open for hunting access. The signs mark the boundaries of parcels of private land that landowners have opened [...]

“A Career Outdoors? Keep your options open”

By Doug Leier

As spring gradually thaws the frozen tundra and ice on area lakes becomes mush, I can count on a couple of things. First, I’ll be itching to hear the first song of a western meadowlark. No matter in which part of North Dakota I live, the meadowlark is my quintessential sign that spring [...]

The Lewis & Clark Expedition in North Dakota

There is a great piece of history located right here in North Dakota that until recently, I really knew nothing about. A year ago, outdoor writer Curt Wells called to ask me some questions about goose hunting along the Missouri River. He was tasked to write a segment on ND and the Lewis & Clark [...]