Little Falls area wildlife

The Little Falls wildlife work area

Managing and maintaining wetland control structures is a major habitat activity on many of the Wildlife Management Areas maintained by the Little Falls area wildlife office.

Hunters, trappers and wildlife watchers in Benton, Morrison and Todd counties benefit from the management, habitat and oversight work of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' Little Falls area wildlife staff.

Area Wildlife Supervisor Beau Liddell and two full-time employee oversee a three-county work area that includes 1.6 million acres of public and private land. This landscape includes 59 state Wildlife Management Areas totaling more than 20,000 acres, three waterfowl refuges, one state duck refuge and one state game refuge. It provides excellent hunting and trapping opportunities for deer, wild turkey, waterfowl any many other species, including muskrats and other furbearers.

Our work

• Annually plan and administer more than 200 acres of timber stand improvements on WMAs and monitor and maintain 50 wetlands and shallow lakes throughout work area covering 9,264 acres.
• Annually plan controlled burns on more than 2,000 acres of grassland and woodland habitats and completing burns on 500 to1,000 acres on 10 to 15 WMAs.
• Annually restore or enhance an additional 800 to 1,200 acres of grassland at 20 to 30 sites on area-wide WMAs and monitor and control invasive species on more than 500 WMA acres.
• Annually develop, maintain or improve over 400 user facilities (parking lots, water controls, gates, permanent trails, etc.), maintain 30 miles of access road and establish 50-70 miles of temporary firebreaks and walking trails on area-wide WMAs.
• Annually field hundreds of nuisance wildlife calls and respond to more than four dozen major nuisance wildlife and depredation cases, including those caused by bear, deer, sandhill cranes and wild turkey.
• Plan and administer the Camp Ripley Archery Hunt, the largest event of its kind in the world, and provide technical assistance for 10 additional special deer and turkey hunts for disabled veterans, military members and youth.