NORTHEAST REGIONAL ADVISORY PANEL - December 2008 Summary

Northeast Advisory Panel
December 17, 2008
6:30pm

Blue Dog State Fish Hatchery

Waubay, SD

Attendees:

Staff:
Doug Alvine
Scott Lindgren
Loren Vande Stroet
Emmett Keyser
Tom Kirschenmann
John Lott
Curt Robertson
Lorene Wasland

Panel Members:
Jeff Snell
John Johnson
Neil Bien
Dick Pearson

Doug: Welcome on a cold winter night. Members George Newman, Rieke Eske, Ray Van Liere and Dr. Roger Werth were absent due to illness and other conflicts.
Introductions were made of Loren Vande Stroet, John Lott, Scott Lindgren, Curt Robertson, Emmett Keyser and Tom Kirschenman.

Emmett: Explained about the re-organization in Game, Fish & Parks since George Vandel retired. Create a more seamless structure splitting responsibilities among 3 people: Scott Simpson, Administrative, Tom Kirschenman, Wildlife Terrestrial Section Leader and John Lott, Aquatics Section Leader. Doug also explained about the hiring freeze and people doing two jobs at the present time.

Doug: Reviewed what we went over at the last meeting: Youth Hunting Opportunities, Habitat/Landowner Relations/Access and Canada Goose Population/Depredation. Reminded members about travel per diem and asked for questions.

Curt Robertson: Youth Opportunities in Hunting and Angling in South Dakota power point Handed out packets for all members to be able to review information. “Why do we want young hunters?” 1. Continue the heritage of hunting- Dick. 2. In touch with real world (nature). 3. Give them something productive to do – Jeff. 4. Preserve the future of hunting – Loren 4. Family bonding – Neil. 5. Management tool – John. 6. Revenue for SDGF&P – Jeff. “There is inherent good to being outdoors – kids learn things they can’t learn anywhere else” – Curt. 1800’s dentist – lofty philosopher. “The best education I had was when I was alone in the woods.” We’ve lost 25% percent of hunt safe kids in 25 years…..
Dick: Would we have the same figures for adult males and females like we do with kids.   Curious if woman numbers are increasing – wouldn’t that increase the number of kids? Curt said 20% are female. Nationally 92% of hunters are white males.
Curt stressed that we look at long-term trends…SD has 27% of youth hunting (comparison: CA has only 1% of their kids hunting). We have stayed pretty steady over the years.
Emmett: Are some kids taking the course strictly for safe gun handling and not following through with license purchase? Curt says a lot of it is lack of interest, but go to the class because their buddy is going.
Scott: We re-iterate SAFETY when we promote hunt safe classes – whether the student wants to hunt or not, we want to make sure that you know how to not make a gun go off accidentally etc.
John: How many youth have we lost in the rural areas? Curt says we are hemorrhaging kids from rural areas – kids don’t want to live in rural areas – they want to live in Sioux Falls!
Tom: Youth Mentor Hunting Program – update on Mentored Deer licenses sold – we have 1000 youth that haven’t taken a Hunt Safe class that have actually hunted.
Emmett: Will that affect the number that would or wouldn’t have attended a Hunt Safe Class anyway? Or purchase a license in the future?
Tom: Some kids in the mentored hunt program were a little older
Dick: My gut tells me there will be a bounce to this locally. Kids that went deer hunting – especially if they got a deer are heroes……other friends want to hunt too – so license sales will go up next year
Scott: One of the concepts was to have them experience hunting before we start to lose them to other activities.
Emmett: There didn’t used to be so many sports – now there are so many others to choose from – sucking kids away from the hunting opportunity.
Curt: How do we get into schools? With programs that are outdoor oriented and nature oriented. Give the school system what they want. They must teach ‘standards’ so our programs must meet the standards that teachers have to teach. First thing we must show a teacher is how our program will help them to meet the criteria and the standards that they need and they are willing to let us into their classroom. They are interested and with the correct tools they are willing.
John: Does the National Archery Program have actual target practice?
Curt: No, it is strictly education, however 65% of kids want to go bowhunting after the education.
John: So it meets the standards.
Curt went through the packet of materials and talked about them.
John: This was very interesting and informative. Do you give this presentation to the department?
Curt: No, not department wise
Emmett: Commission
Doug: Regional Meetings etc.
John: Very interesting.
Doug: Looking at the last meeting – we had quite a lot of discussion about this. George Newman had stated that students are being bombarded with a negative message of hunting. What are your thoughts about that:
Curt: Most teachers in SD are either hunters themselves or at least supportive of hunters. In SD, I don’t believe there is negativity coming from the schools. The anti-hunters are out there, but you know how much I care about them or think they are hurting hunting. ZERO. There is no evidence that they influence hunting in any way or the number of people that go hunting. There is one thing about making the case of watching videos of inhumane treatment of animals, but when someone states that “fish feel so much pain” most people just feel they have no effect. They have lost all credibility.
Emmett: Do you think their impact is over-estimated?
Curt: Yes.   Consider PETA. When everything is lumped together (putting lipsticks on bunnies to test toxicity) there is not much credibility.
John: One picture with a cell phone…..
Doug: People want to jump on the bandwagon
Curt: The goose hunter in Sioux Falls? He was shown to have shot a goose or found an injured goose torturing a goose, but later determined that it was not true. If someone is actually torturing an animal – they are NOT a hunter     Hunters have ethics and responsibility. End result is a kill – but that isn’t the measure of success.
Scott: Is this the third year of Archery in the Schools?
Curt: Yes.
Scott: Archery hovered around 10,000 hunters in SD and now that number has sky-rocketed. Ease of equipment could be a reason why along with the education.
John: Is that program targeted toward 6th graders?
Curt: Majority are 6th, 7th and 8th graders. 2-3% of kids that would never have gone hunting before the program WILL buy a license. In CA that may be nothing, but for SD that is Great!
Doug: How many Project WILD programs are there?
Curt: I don’t have those numbers
Dick: Mathew’s equipment?
Curt: Bows are Mathews and other equipment as well
Emmett: Interesting little bow – sized to fit everybody – that’s why it works so well.
Curt: Every school in Sioux Falls is trained now. Instructor from an alternative school couldn’t say enough good about the Archery in the Schools Program.   They were learning a skill and accomplishing something --- anyone can be successful. Start them slow so they experience success. Don’t ever embarrass them.
Neil: Numbers stop at 2000. I was in high school 50 years ago. Schools that used to be are no longer. 16 of the schools that were around when I went to school are no longer there.
Curt: We need to reach urban areas.
Neil: What about early youth seasons? Do these have a positive effect on drawing kids to the sport? I have two sons that were introduced in their cribs. They hunted and camped with me always. One still is very active, but the other has lost interest. You can’t make every person excited about hunting or fishing despite equipment – they have to have interest.
Curt: We aren’t trying to force or con anyone to hunt or fish. It’s all about providing opportunity – just like with your kids…..some folks take the opportunity and some don’t – they choose.
Neil: If they have the opportunities, you hope they become active enthusiasts.
Curt: I mostly wanted to give the programs that are available to schools.
Doug: Some ages for youth have been raised – which gives a larger block for more kids to take the opportunity.
Scott: We doubled age classes from 4 age classes to 8 this year. I agree that opportunity is the key because of busy lives. More opportunities hopefully will capture interests.
Dick: Do you have an advertising budget? Are you able to advertise these types of programs?
Curt: We use a lot of free media! We have a budget – there just isn’t any money in it!!
Dick: In a metropolitan area like Sioux Falls, it would seem that you would need to advertise, if only to get the parents attention.
John: Fargo radio station has live phone calls one day every week – I think the department could do a lot more in the line of advertising. Our CO’s are on at 6:30am on Saturday morning – I don’t think they are reaching enough people.
Neil: There are programs on in the afternoon on KWAT
Doug: Sometimes it’s hard to get radio time. Youth Sportsfest is a big attraction for us in Watertown and Aberdeen. CO’s are being more involved in Youth Hunts.
Curt: Handicapped Youth Hunt was the only hunt that was on the front page of Sioux Falls paper.
Tom: Normal PR is the web-site. We try to put more and more on our web-site. More user-friendly. Not the only tool – but definitely a big one.
Doug/Emmett: My Space, Facebook etc. are very popular
Curt: Some of the advertsing that we think is effective, in fact isn’t. Average reader of Missouri Conservation Digest is 58 years of age.
Doug: Question for panel: What other ideas do you have for the agency to involve more youth?
Neil: Looking in the mirror – landowners need to sacrifice for kids. We need to make an impression on landowners that we need to share our land so that we can encourage people to participate and not be crowded onto public areas. I think most of us that have seen the fruits and would want to share….
Doug: When my son was very young – he was turned down by a landowner to shoot a snow goose and he was so disappointed – he may never ask another landowner.
Neil: We need to impress that upon people how important it is – we have responsibility to share and help them to be successful.
Doug: Even if they don’t let the adults – let the kid.
Scott: We have some areas that are only youth areas for hunting.
Dick: Are they marked with signs?
Neil: Can parents or older siblings go with? It’s nice to be able to share an experience with your kid.
Scott: This quarter has pheasants, deer and waterfowl on it. In three years, I’ve only seen one group on it. It is signed, but I don’t think there are many parents that are willing to walk for pheasants and not shoot themselves.
John: Berghs have one in Day County.
Scott: Does that get hunted a lot?
John: I’m not sure.
Doug: Where do we want to go with this?
Jeff: The hunting part can’t be brought into school systems with guns etc.
Curt: We can teach Hunt Safe in our schools. Kids are hunting. We are looking for schools that don’t have this opportunity. We will have to implement new ‘standards’.
Doug: Rick Smith mentioned last time that he felt strongly about getting kids outdoors no matter what – photography, bird watching – whatever.
Neil: Both my sons love the outdoors – one is a hunter,   One son doesn’t buy many hunting licenses, but the other buys always. Landowners are a small percentage of the population – but they need to give something back.
Doug: How do we approach landowners about that? Landowners matter – maybe something in there?
Neil: Maybe guilt?
Dick: Mathematics wise – this is the only way it will work.
Neil: A lot of people say – just ask, you can hunt…. But you and others have found this not to be true.
Doug: We need to get it across to landowners – at least let the kid hunt.
Neil: Livestock proximity would maybe be a restriction. It could be made easier for youth.
Doug: Landowners could make it known that they would let youth hunt.
Jeff: Could landowners get on a list of some sort saying they want youth to hunt.
Scott: We have a spot on our web-site now listing antlerless deer hunting…..
Doug: We need for more than just deer.
Emmett: Develop a sign-up program.
Neil: Sometimes it’s not just kids – I had some Sioux Falls hunters that had been in Iraq stop in and ask to hunt – they maybe didn’t have an equal opportunity.
Jeff: What are youth fees?
Doug: $5 – it also helped when the age went up because those older kids still only have to pay the cheaper fee.   How about a school superintendent coming? Would we want their viewpoint? I think Watertown Superintendent Leslie Hansen would be open to coming to one of our meetings……
Jeff: They would probably offer a lot about the ‘standards’
Doug: Yes, someone mentioned last time about the things we can or can not talk about in the schools.
Dick: I would like to see George and Rick be involved with that.
John: You actually are already doing more than I thought you were.
Dick: Is there any chance that there would be a written version of statistics that could go out to everyone who hunts or fishes so they are aware that they can go to the web-site. These are startling statistics and I don’t think the average hunter understands a lot of this. What is out there – ties in with Iraq etc. There is a huge reservoir of people who are willing to help….I personally got involved with Operation Muskie in Canada. A resort is donated for a week and we take vets (some disabled) for a week. Now this year, we have been approached by a business that wants to donate. I bet there are resorts etc. that would be willing to do the same here because usually these kinds of things end up being lucrative in the long run. A lot of landowners – if they knew these statistics – would probably volunteer their land and or time.
Curt: We would definitely put the information together –
Emmett: We can get it out. We’ve been thinking of more communication with our email. We can insert information in big game license.
Dick: Landowner tags
Emmett: Landowners Matter publication.
Doug: We need to get the names and the youth together.
Scott: If you had three or four landowners listed – they would get overwhelmed with calls.
Neil: Public is a big place even in South Dakota. Landowners are reluctant to say “Send the youth to me”
Doug: There are probably lots out there that would like to do this but don’t know how.
Emmett: Urban areas like Sioux Falls do get overwhelmed.
Doug: Need to get them together – landowners and youth.
Scott: WIA’s play a role
Jeff: What if you did it in reverse? Youth sign up and then landowners contacted them.
Curt: You would need to have a parent or guardian involved because you can’t have an adult contact a youth.
Neil: Definitely – with the shady things that go on now-a-days.
Doug: Let’s take a break – this has been a good discussion.

Scott Lindgren began the 2nd part of the presentation on Wildlife Damage Management along with Loren Vande Stroet who is the Wildlife Damage Specialist. Scott also had a power point presentation. He encouraged questions as he went along.
The history was the basic “sorry there isn’t anything we can do for you and we don’t have the money or the employees to help” Mid 80’s things started to change, but 96-97 winter we had extensive damage (400 deer complaints in Region IV - $400,000 was spent to prevent damage) and started to also have turkey complaints and pheasants complaints. A surcharge was put on licenses for funding of the WDM program along with Special Buck licenses.
Deer Toolbox: Hunting Seasons, Stack-yard Project, Shortstopping, Hazing and Scare Devices, Protective Fencing, Food Plots, Pool Hunts and Kill Permits.
Hunting Seasons go from September 13 through January 31
Stackyards began with panels. We have loaner panels or build permanent stack yards. (We build approximately 10 per year for the last 8 years or so). Expensive - but permanent.
Short Stopping is hauling feed out before the deer get to livestock feed
Goose Toolbox: Hunting Seasons, Feeding Sites, Food-plots, Hazing and Scare Devices, Fences, Special Permit (also need permit by Feds) and Relocation
Hunting Seasons
Scare Devices: Propane Cannons, Flags, Raptor Kites, Cracker Shells
Feeding Sites: GPA, WPA, Private Land
Hazing: using boats
Buffer Strips and Food Plots: use small grain for buffer strip, landowner can harvest, we pay average rental rate, true food plot we pay $50/acre plus the average rental rate and the landowner can harvest after March 31.
Dick: Someone said they need to back it up because March is too early to know what I’m going to plant
Loren: Our deadline is May 15, but we are very flexible.
Relocation: usually not a very good solution.
Fences: 2 strand fences work good if they stay up – permanent fences again are expensive – but permanent depending on where the water levels are. We maybe only put up one a year.
Special Permit: We can kill 500 adults and destroy nests. We have not used much, but may have to look at it more.
Doug: This has always been thought to be a last resort – as we want to keep the birds for sportsmen.
Complaints are increasing along with the spending and employees needed. There is less tolerance, more farming next to sloughs and higher commodities and production costs.
John: We don’t have as many geese
Scott: They have moved to the NE counties.
Solutions may be to increase hunter harvest with increased bag limit or an August season and have better programs for landowners such as permanent buffers, floating buffers or better NRCS and FSA programs.
Dick: Are there still restraints from the Federal Government like electronic calls and plugs in guns?
Scott/Tom: There are other options to consider, but it is not simple
Dick: Electronic calls would make a huge difference, quick! It does on the snow geese.
Tom: North Dakota implemented an earlier season, but we don’t know how well that worked. We could submit a request to Fish and Wildlife Service, but we want to know if it is a viable management practice.
Jeff: Even if it doesn’t make a difference, what is the big deal if you do open it earlier – it isn’t any expense to Game, Fish & Parks.
Tom: Depending on the weather, it may or may not harvest birds, but in any case it wouldn’t be a statewide order – it would only be in the hardest hit counties.
Neil: All harvest was late this year – we just finished corn four days ago.
Scott: ND had harvest more timely
Tom: Increased bag limit during the early Sept. goose season could be a challenge. Central Flyway isn’t in agreement
Scott: With managing our game, we go to the Commission. Waterfowl are protected federally so there would be another hoop to jump through before we could even bring it to our Commission.
Tom: There are a lot of steps. It is a timely process.
Scott: It’s hard to predict how many geese there may be – but we need to do some things.
We are restructuring our program by adding another employee to Webster and adding two summer interns by having 3 or 4 in Webster and 2 in Watertown. We also need to be willing to kill the adults and destroy nests even though it is not popular with us or the sportmen/sportswomen.
Scott asked for input from Loren and Tom.
Tom re-iterated that we do have the permit to destroy 1500 adults and destroy eggs from 500 nests – but because it is not well-liked, IF we do have to use that tool, we need to find a happy medium between landowners and sportsmen/women. We would like your input as a panel. Loren says we have only destroyed about 10 or 15 nests in our region. Scott used the kill permits on a couple of Canada geese after cannons and other means were used to no avail. We have only killed 10 in the last 10 years….
Scott: We will get beat up if we go down that road, but we need your input as to what your thoughts are.
Neil: We live north of Hwy 10 and we have a lot of damage. I love Canada geese – I wait to hear their sounds in the spring. When I first got on the Commission, you couldn’t use decoys – we put out flax bales for nesting structures. We thought they were practically extinct at that time. I thought we should use decoys and harvest them in an ethical manner. Look what has happened – they just keep growing. If you really want to control them, why don’t we hunt them in the spring like we do with the snow geese? How about a depredation pool? Nobody wants to see nests destroyed – and we worked so hard to get the geese, but now we need to manage them….
Scott: We have talked about having a permitee to kill the geese that we are allowed each year, but we’ve struggled with having hunters harvest them in the spring.
Neil: I struggle with the limit. I would rather see 50 guys get 5 birds than 5 guys get 10 birds.
Dick: People call them “sky carp”
Tom: 99% of the people in our department agree – we as a state chose to do that
Neil: Canada Geese are resident geese – they are here for a long time.
John: Are the restrictions made on the amount of depredation complaints?
Scott: We manage wildlife populations not for their carrying capacity…..we manage them for landowner tolerance and the people in the NE are not tolerant any more.
John: So the answer is “yes”.
Neil: It is probably 5 times as many geese as there
Scott: At the Commission meeting several landowners said “There are too many geese”
Neil: The spring season is distasteful to me but that would make more impact.
Scott: We would need to be sure we killed the right geese or the Feds wouldn’t be happy. If we needed to kill the geese, would this group prefer that department staff should kill geese in April or who? Tough timing because of nesting or hatching.
John: What would happen to the geese if the department killed them?
Scott: We try to salvage them and give them to needy organizations.
Neil: You can salvage them better in March and April than you can in August.
Tom: We have several outlets
Dick: What would the cost be to have a fairness concept? Communication, etc.
Scott: Even if we take our personnel – it would take a lot of time and $$
Neil: It goes against what I’ve learned and believed all my life – guys would get the job done and would probably be willing to pay a fee to hunt in March and April
Scott: We used to charge $5 for a depredation hunt but it’s free now.
Neil: I think you can charge
Dick: You won’t have a shortage of applicants, that’s for sure?
Jeff: People from Minnesota would come to hunt!!
Scott: You think people would hunt them in March and April?
Jeff: No doubt
Neil: You could control the numbers and the areas and the hunters if you had a tag permit.
Scott: Deer are supervised
Tom: We would have to be detailed because we are only allowed a certain number per year
Neil: If every goose had a tag – that would be close supervision
John: It is site specific –
Scott: Back up – what is the problem
John: Decision is made because of complaints.
Scott: We’ve arrested landowners in Day county because they are shooting, Roberts County had geese shot and hung over fences by the road…..There is a problem.
John: Department image would be improved if we could control the damage.
Scott: We want to try to control
Tom: Landowners are grateful for the efforts taking place – but there is just too much depredation taking place
Doug: Too many geese.
Tom: More options available for more timely response. We don’t think the department has a bad image, but we need to provide a better service.
Doug: Does the panel feel that you would rather pursue a spring hunt rather than an August hunt.

Neil: Frustration. Some landowners would complain again if they thought the population was getting too low. Some comments made ‘It would be nice if they could be feathered out before you start to kill them’
Doug: In August, you may not even be killing the geese that are causing the trouble.
Jeff: Killing nests without realizing it.
Scott: What you are talking about – a couple of us are in favor of – but we’ve been second guessing.
Neil: We don’t want to give permits to landowners?
Scott: If we need to kill them – we want our staff to do it because we think it will be cleaner and more efficient, but we haven’t had department support for a depredation pool.
Doug: We need to control it.
Neil: It won’t be landowners because they will be busy during that time of the year, but they won’t have a problem getting hunters.
Tom: We can’t have a season, We need to use this permit.
Dick: If you are handing out tags, won’t you be running into Feds head –on.
Tom: I’m not sure if we can even use a “tag” system.
Neil: It’s like what they do with the Grizzly Bear
Jeff: Would there be registration sites.
Tom: Specific landowners and specific sites. Extremely detailed. Numbers for state-wide. Lots to figure out. How will we handle the hunters or the staff and the PR work in advance. There will be just as many people against a spring hunt as there are unhappy landowners with depredation.
Jeff: Maybe that would be more non-hunting population.
Scott: That is why we would use staff – it would be done and over.
Tom: Some sportsmen would be quite adamant about killing something they want to hunt in the fall.
Neil: I’m playing the devil’s advocate. It’s like fishing in August. If you kill a two year old goose and take away 18 years of reproduction – it doesn’t matter if you kill her in April or September – she is still out of reproduction.
Scott: Are there some programs that you guys think we should come up to help landowners more?
Doug: Do you have other ideas to reduce goose population? That’s what I’m looking to the panel for – something that we haven’t even thought of….
John: We need to think about that!
Doug: Sometimes we may get into a rut – think of things out of the box. We want you to think that way too – out of the box.
Scott: Any help that you can give us – we appreciate.
Doug: Any ideas can be sent to us – we don’t need to wait for this meeting.
Jeff: What area are you targeting to get the geese away from
Loren: Family groups and molting geese next to water.
Jeff: How much area are we talking
Loren: They can move 200 feet into a field.
Jeff: You can’t fence it all
Neil: That’s not the only damage they do. They grub the corn right out~ easily 10% of a field can be taken out. We don’t mind they take it from behind the combine – but we’d like them to wait for the combine.
Jeff: Is there any spray that can be used?
Scott: We’ve got Avatech for pheasants that has proven successful
Loren: They have some for very small areas such as a lawn.
Emmett: It can’t rain
Neil: I’m happy that I lived long enough to see pheasant depredation
Jeff: If we think the population is too much then we do need to harvest more
John: Unless you want to pay the landowner more money
Neil: We’ve got thousands that we could claim. It’s easy to see wildlife damage. It doesn’t happen by itself. We all have wetlands.
Doug: Our goal is to prevent damage – not just pay for it after the fact.
Dick: What is the budget for WDM? Is the Walk in money going down now?
Emmett: Our budget is 1.5 million for the 4 Regions.
Doug: It fluctuates
Emmett: We’ll buy thousands of dollars worth of feed and our staff spends hours and hours short stopping
Doug: There may be years that we don’t spend all the money.
Emmett: For the most part – we use it
Dick: If you don’t have money – you better reduce the geese – it’s simple.
Scott: It’s hard with migratory waterfowl – what if numbers change?
Dick: Day County had a good harvest
Scott: We don’t know how many were killed in ND etc.
Dick: But you know you need to start to plan….
Doug/Scott: ND season may have helped us…..
Neil: Lots of Region 3 hunters have been helping us!
Doug: We can have this same discussion about deer, but that will be a future meeting. We’ll talk more at future meetings. Speaking of which – when do you want to have the next meeting?
Jeff: The goose topic won’t come into effect this spring, right?
Tom/Emmett: We have our permit in place. We will have something in place this spring. We would be foolish to not have something in place.
Jeff: We need to meet fairly soon if we are talking about the goose thing.
Neil: We don’t have any power – we just have ideas.
Neil: I won’t be hunting in it – but I know guys that would hunt in it
John: When is legislative session?
Doug: January looks bad for meetings.
Emmett: Doug maybe send out legislative issues to the panel
John: Maybe February – after the session is over.
Doug: I’m at meetings the last two weeks of February – the 2nd week of March looks open
Neil: We’ll have some Canada Geese back by then!
Emmett: Doug will give updates during the session. We try to keep everyone updated
Doug: I will give you the updates for the Commission meetings as well.
Doug: Why don’t we look at Tuesday, March 10 at 6:30 again?
John: Getting into State Basketball Tournaments…..
Scott: Boys is the week of the 18th
Doug: Do we want to have it here – what do you think? If we get everyone here next time, we can talk about location.
Dick: I’m so appreciative of the efforts you’ve put into this.
Doug: We appreciate your new ideas for the agency. What are you thinking we should discuss at our next meeting? We could background the other issues and re-visit the issues we talked about tonight.
Neil: I’m sure we’ll have more opinions on those!

It was decided that the next meeting will be on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 6:30PM at the Blue Dog Hatchery. This location has worked well. Another location will be discussed at the next meeting when more panel members are present. It was decided that the agenda at the next meeting would be to give some background by Department staff on GPA management, land acquisition, landowner relations and fishing and hunting access. There will also be some time on the agenda to further discuss the issues of youth hunting and fishing opportunities and Canada Geese problems. Supper will be served again at the next meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 10:15pm