A letter from Ted Wawrzyniak with the Minnesota Whitetail Alliance.
APR Supporter:
I have an APR update. I attended the DNR Stakeholder Roundtable meeting last weekend. At the meeting, there was a presentation on the APR pilot in zone 3. While the surveys from the most recent round of surveys have not been anal…yzed yet, the DNR did say that APR has worked. Based on what I hear and what the results of other states are, I do see the surveys as being very positive. In addition to the surveys, the DNR will be holding approximately three public input meetings to gather additional hunter feedback. If the public input is positive, they will go to the legislature with a proposal to continue APR in zone 3. Unfortunately, this legislative process will be required, but it is what it is. Over the next couple weeks, I will be sending out information on what we will need from you to help. Please watch for this and take action when you can. We won’t be able to do this without you.
The DNR did stop short of saying they will expand this to other areas of the state, however, as I was able to talk to the different DNR leaders, it was clear that they were open to discussions about this. One thing was clear is that a pre-requisite to APR expansion is going to be successful continuation in zone 3. In any case, I feel good about our understanding of what needs to happen both to get APR continued in zone 3 and to expand them to other areas once it comes time to do that as well. This is something that was not that clear prior to this meeting, so this is good progress.
That’s it for now. Over the next 3 or 4 months, I will be posting quite a bit about the process itself on Facebook and I will also get some email updates out as well. We are still working on a few videos, but the majority of our posts will be calls to action. We appreciate all your support to this point. Thank you very much for that. The next few months will be incredibly critical to deer hunting in the state of Minnesota.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Ted