By Sierra Amundson

Ryan Amundson and his daughter Sierra with her first gobbler bagged last April near Wheatland, Wyoming.

OK, so I’m not your average 11-year-old girl. I wear camo more than skirts. I’d rather ride my horse than play with Barbie, and I watch the Outdoor Channel instead of Disney.

I’ve gone hunting with my dad, Ryan, since I was in diapers. I passed the Wyoming hunter safety course two years ago and started carrying a shotgun myself and hunting birds last fall. In my short hunting career, I’ve harvested a couple mourning doves, a Canada goose and white tailed deer.

This story is about my first turkey hunt last spring in southeast Wyoming with my dad.

On a Friday night after school, we went to the property we would be hunting and ‘roosted’ some birds before dark – that is we heard them gobble from the roost so we knew where they would be in the morning when the season started.

Dad’s wake-up call came early the next morning, and we were in th more…

By Cassie Schlender

Tasha Zeinstra with her favorite hunting companion Morgan.

Getting involved in the outdoors can be very fulfilling and life changing. Many feel that being in touch with nature can be incredibly boring and a waste of their time, but sometimes you just have to give it a chance and try it.

College student Tasha Zeinstra has something inspirational to share about how her life has been changed by visiting the outdoors. All it took was one time at the age of 15 when her stepdad took her and her brother deer hunting. Ever since then, she’s been hooked on the sport of hunting.

Tasha has been involved in Minnesota’s Lyon County Pheasants Forever Chapter for three years and is enjoying it immensely. She also helps out with the chapter events, including its annual banquet. Tasha really enjoys helping out with the youth hunt because many kids usually don’t get the chance to be outdoors.

Currently, Tasha is studying law enforcement in Willmar, Minnesota. She will graduate in May 2009. Before going to school in Willmar, Tasha went to school in Sanford, North Carolina, to get certified in training police dogs. She then decided to combine two interests: using K-9 partners and working as a Conservation Officer with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
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by Marie Keefe

Miller Farm visitors learn about bird banding and migration. Banded birds tell us what habitats are important to the birds so they can be protected.

It’s 6:30 a.m. and time for me to wake up. I put on some work clothes and dirty boots. Mom and I are ready for another workday at the 80-acre Miller Conservation Farm. It was donated by one of the earliest conservationists in Seneca County, Ohio — Maynard Stonebraker.

My mom and I pull into the farm and as usual are greeted by the greatness and the freedom of the outdoors. What brings me and my mom to Miller Farm every month is not just my mom’s job, but the chance to give back to the environment and make the people aware of what they are missing by staying indoors.
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By Mark Herwig

All might look well with the Missouri River in this photo, but looks are deceiving. The river, here in flood stage, has been greatly modified for human use, greatly diminishing wildlife habitat in the process. (photo provided by the John Deere Company)

“Ol’ man river,
Dat ol’ man river
He mus’ know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’,
He jes’ keeps rollin’
He keeps on rollin’ along.”
-Paul Robeson

Robeson was singing about the Mississippi River, which like many major United States rivers, no longer rolls along much at all.

In fact, the Mississippi, the nation’s largest river, and the longest the Missouri, are pretty much stagnant pools for moving barges full of corn, coal, rock and other products of modern life. Both rivers are blocked with a series of dams and barge lifting systems called locks and are cut off and constricted by dikes and other flow structures that have destroyed most of the rivers’ once lush and extensive wildlife habitat.

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