BRAINERD — Minnesota upland bird hunters, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wants you to keep a diary this autumn of each of your hunts, keeping track of when and where you hunt, how many birds you see along the way and how many birds you bag. And then they want you to hand over all that information to them online. Don’t worry, no one is going to reveal or steal your favorite pheasant field or grouse woods.
Instead, DNR wildlife biologists want to use the data collected from thousands of hunters to find out more about upland birds. For many species, a single survey once a season — or in some cases, no survey at all — is the only thing wildlife managers have in hand to track the size and trend of bird populations. “The new hunter diaries will allow upland hunters in Minnesota to provide more details into their experiences in the field, including sightings/flushes, hunt logistics as well as number of birds in the bag during the season,” Bailey Petersen, an avid upland hunter and DNR wildlife biologist in Two Harbors who helped organize the effort, told the News Tribune.
“We are hopeful this opportunity could help to better inform how upland game birds are doing beyond just our annual index surveys, as well as learn more about public perception of game bird pursuits. And it’s also just going to be fun for folks to participate in, I think.” The DNR is asking for hunters to submit the location of where they parked their vehicle to begin their hunt, ei.