The new chief of the Minnesota Department of Resources stopped in the Brainerd lakes area with Gov. Tim Walz's freshly minted 2020-21 budget in hand.
However, fears of chronic wasting disease-a degenerative neurological disease with a 100 percent lethality rate among deer, confirmed in a wild deer in Crow Wing County as recently as last week-loomed large throughout proceedings.
Recently appointed Commissioner Sarah Strommen stopped by the Northland Arboretum Thursday, Feb. 21, to meet with local shareholders-a meeting, she said afterward, centering on promoting local water access, as well as measures to combat aquatic invasive species.
She noted CWD and efforts to contain its spread in the region rounded out these discussions. CWD is characterized by deterioration of the brain and spinal nervous system, as well as rapid weight loss and emaciation of the body.
Stan Kalinoski and Justin Barrick, both of Baxter, arrived to Northland Arboretum to greet the commissioner's arrival with hand-held signs. They hoped to draw attention to CWD and battles against a potential epidemic in central Minnesota.
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"This CWD is a scary thing," said Barrick, who's been bow hunting for more than two decades. "It's really disappointing we've just found it up by Merrifield, by that infected game farm. We just want to support the DNR and all their efforts on herd reduction to try to control and manage the disease."
In his proposed budget, Walz pushed for an urgent response to cases of CWD popping up in southeastern Minnesota, as well as cases in central Minnesota such as Crow Wing County-efforts to the tune of $4.57 million from the general fund for fiscal years 2020-21 and $1.1 million annually thereafter. In addition, $1.8 million from the 2020-21 Game and Fish Fund has been suggested to bankroll further deer management research.
"It gives us the funding to act quickly and act aggressively," Strommen said of the proposed Walz budget to assembled media. "Right now, what's taking place in the southeast is something we're exploring and in Crow Wing County, too, to make sure we're responding quickly, under the assumption this is an isolated infection. If we can respond quickly, we can get on top of it."
According to DNR documents, these measures are intended to "aggressively protect" Minnesota deer populations through surveillance and response, law enforcement, as well as outreach to private property owners who control the majority of vulnerable areas. CWD is primarily transmitted through saliva and infected meat, said Michelle Carstensen, the wildlife health program supervisor for the Minnesota DNR.
"When you're early in the disease invasion or early in CWD, really it's your only chance to be effective, to not have it established in the wild," Carstensen said. "Wisconsin has counties in the south where there's 40 percent CWD. The horse left the barn a long time ago. There's no coming back from that."
Though, Carstensen noted, CWD is carried through prions, not viruses or bacteria, and has been shown to linger and remain contagious in settings as long as 16 years after the infected deer died or left the vicinity. It's also almost entirely immune to traditional forms of sterilization, such as typical heat-levels for incineration and freezing or other anti-pathogenic methods.
"Certainly there's been concern about cases in southeastern Minnesota, but now that (CWD has) been confirmed in Crow Wing County, I think it's just a bigger issue," Strommen said of the recent CWD discovery-the first case found outside a game preserve in Crow Wing County and located less than a mile from a deer farm with multiple recorded instances of CWD.
"We recognize this is a statewide problem," Strommen said. "This is a critical issue to the state given the importance that deer hunting plays in the state. This is not an issue that should be borne solely by deer hunters."
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With this in mind, Strommen emphasized that it's a matter of partnerships-especially between the DNR and private property owners-to monitor deer populations and ensure CWD is quickly identified and contained in Minnesota. She said she expected a ban on deer feeding to be extended in light of recent CWD confirmations.
Takeaways from Walz's natural resources budget
The Walz-Flanagan two-year budget stipulates $49.5 billion to be allocated across the state. Here's a rundown of some highlights from the budget to be used by the DNR for natural resources management.
• During the 2020-21 fiscal year, Walz recommended the state allocates $2 million from the Forest Management Investment Account to support annual logging goals set in March 2018-870,000 cords of wood from DNR-managed forests, with an additional 30,000 cords of ash and tamarack. Strommen cited this as an intended means to maintain clean air and water, promote wildlife, and provide a reliable source of wood for the state's forest products industry, but also as a means to mitigate wildfire risk factors in the lakes area.
• In terms of the DNR's public waters protection program, Walz is pushing for $1.6 million to be allocated from the general fund and a further $716,00 from the Water Management Account. According to Strommen, this would go to flooding and lake level concerns, permitting assistance, helping local water and land-use decisions, as well as technical assistance for property owners along shorelines, other landowners, municipalities and other state and federal agencies. It represents a conservation-water use balance.
• The Walz administration intends to take $278,000 in fiscal year 2020 and $532,000 thereafter from the Game and Fish Fund to expand angler surveys beyond the state's 10 largest lakes. In terms of Mille Lacs Lake and ongoing tensions there over co-management of its fisheries, Strommen said the state is moving toward a sustainable limit for fish harvests in the lake that works for environmental interests, tribal interests, recreational interests and business interests along the shoreline.
• For the state's 1,500 miles of trails frequented by roughly 1.8 million people per year, the Walz administration advocates putting $2 million from the General Fund in 2020-21 toward state trail maintenance.
• Walz has suggested to allocate $6 million for legal fees associated with the PolyMet mining initiative planned for northern Minnesota by the Boundary Waters. While the DNR has already vetted the proposed operation and permitted it, Strommen said there are a number of legal challenges to the initiative and the state will address them with these funds.
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• Strommen noted rising wolf populations in Minnesota-which have led to calls for the apex predator to be taken off the Endangered Species List-are the jurisdiction of the federal government. As long as the wolf enjoys these protections, it's largely out of the DNR's supervision or control.
