Here’s a copy of the article that appeared in the MN Outdoor News:
DNR investigates concerns about squirrel numbers
By Joe Albert
Associate Editor
Thursday, September 3, 2009 9:26 AM CDT
St. Paul – DNR officials likely will take a hard look at squirrel seasons in the state in coming months, the result of the belief in some quarters that squirrel populations are decreasing.
The agency surveyed squirrel hunters earlier this year as part of an effort to determine how squirrel hunting opportunities might be improved and if the perceptions about squirrel-hunting problems varied among hunter groups.
The survey was sent to 400 Hmong and non-Hmong hunters inside and outside the metro area. DNR officials met last Thursday with some members of the southeast Asian community to discuss the results.
Tim Bremicker, DNR regional wildlife manager in St. Paul, said the effort is less about individual groups and more about squirrel hunting as a whole.
“This is about squirrels and making squirrel hunting more available to everybody,” he said. “Because it is so important to the Hmong community, they are really pushing something that is important to all of us.”
The Capitol Sportsmen’s chapter of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, which helped fund the survey, has been especially active in the squirrel discussions. John Vang, who’s a part of that chapter, said there’s been no response yet to the DNR report.
He said access is a big issue.
That’s consistent with what Emily Dunbar, a research biologist at the DNR’s Farmland Wildlife Populations and Research Group, found during the survey.
According to her findings, 98 percent of the Hmong hunters from the metro area hunted on public land only. Much smaller numbers of non-Hmong hunters did so, with most hunting both public and private land.
“The Hmong hunters feel that the populations are decreasing, and they spend the majority of their time on public land,” Dunbar said. “They perceive (squirrel populations) as decreasing whereas the rest of the hunters who hunt either a mix of private and public land – or who hunt just private land – feel they are stable or increasing.
“All we have are perceptions,” she said, because the DNR doesn’t estimate the state’s squirrel population.
The survey also showed that 78 percent of the metro Hmong hunters reported obstacles to gain access to hunting land. Sixty-two percent of metro non-Hmong hunters reported obstacles; 46 percent of statewide non-Hmong hunters reported encountering obstacles.
The obstacles most frequently cited by metro Hmong hunters “were how to find additional public hunting land and not comfortable asking permission to access private land,” according to Dunbar’s report.
Given their proximity to populations centers, it’s not surprising that wildlife management areas in the metro area receive heavy hunting pressure, Bremicker said.
There’s a “general consensus” that squirrel populations are decreasing on WMAs, especially those close to the metro area, he said.
There are some options to deal with it, including looking at bag limits or season timing and length, but knowledge likely will play a role, too, since there are other types of public lands available for hunting.
“There is a lot of squirrel hunting on other public land,” Bremicker said. “There needs to be a real concerted effort to expand the knowledge regarding public land and the access to those public lands.”
Because of this, I have quit hunting locally because I feel that it can be unsafe.
It should not be about placing blame (like that article and some insinuate), but rather people working together, to educate, as you said 
It’s obvious there is an issue….but the issue has to do with the bag limits I think. Just like in WI, the hunters harvest deer legally because the DNR will allow them to shoot as many anterless deer as they want! Is that the hunters fault…not if they take them legally. (Although you should shoot only what you can consume with in a year..IMO). It’s the bag limits that need to be changed or the laws!
