Environment

A Mainstreet Radio broadcast from Aitkin Minnesota, including a conversation with members of the Howard family, who have hunted on their family's land in Aitkin County for decades.

A Mainstreet Radio broadcast from Aitkin, Minnesota about deer hunting in Minnesota, hosted by Rachel Reabe. The program covers reactions of Minnesota deer hunters to the threat of Chronic Wasting Disease.

When members of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe head into the woods on a deer hunt, it's more than recreation. Band members say deer are a source of food for their people and they see hunting deer as a right and a responsibility. Hunters from the Mille Lacs Band are able to kill as many deer as they want on certain tracts of land in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Talk of chronic wasting disease makes many Mille Lacs Band members nervous.

Biologists with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources want to survey the state's sensitive natural areas before they disappear. The DNR's County Biological Survey was created in 1987. Its purpose is to help government officials preserve at risk areas in their communities. The DNR hopes to finish a survey of the entire state within 20 years.

A wild elk from South Dakota has tested positive for chronic wasting disease. The elk was found in a herd in the Wind Cave National Park in the southwest part of the state. Park workers noticed the elk showing symptoms of the fatal brain disease. South Dakota is taking a wait and see approach to CWD.

This may be a pivotal year for Minnesota's deer herd. With more than one million whitetails in the state, game managers are wondering if they can keep the population in check. Even with heavy hunting pressure, the number of deer keeps growing.

State wildlife officials have embarked on a different kind of hunt this deer season. They're not wearing blaze orange. Instead they're wearing lab coats and protective eyewear. It's all part of an intricate plan to determine whether or not chronic wasting disease has invaded Minnesota's deer population.

Minnesota and Wisconsin hunters will shoot thousands of deer this season. All of the deer carcasses will then be butchered. With the specter of chronic wasting disease in the deer herd, sanitary processing and procedures are more important than ever.

While deer hunters set their sights on big bucks in the fields and forests, merchants are seeing big bucks in their cash registers. Deer hunting pumps millions into the state's economy. And despite concerns about chronic wasting disease this season, that shows no signs of abating.

Many hunters dream of having that trophy deer head above their fireplace mantle. Many say this is a pivotal deer season because of fears over chronic wasting disease. Many taxidermists believe this year their business will boom. They say hunters may be less interested in the meat but are hunting for that trophy mount.