Season Watch Newsletter: 8/19/2023

The seasons are changing but there's plenty of summer left! Enjoy the ABCs: Asters, Bats, and leaf-Cutter bees!

FEATURE: Righting historical wrongs

Officials are accepting comments on a proposed parcel exchange that aims to return 11,760 acres of land illegally transferred from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to the U.S. government.

After the bill's passage, Leech Lake Chairman Faron Jackson Sr. said, "Our Reservation was established through a series of treaties and executive orders from 1855 to 1874, which promised that it would serve as our permanent homeland. The United States violated these solemn promises repeatedly, reducing our trust lands to 5 percent of our initial Reservation. Additional lands were illegally transferred out of trust in the 1940s and 50s. The Leech Lake Restoration Act focuses on these illegal transfers by restoring 11,760 acres of our homelands to tribal trust status."

You can submit comments here and learn more with this interactive story map.

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STUDENT AND LISTENER CONTRIBUTIONS

What do Messier 17, the Wild Duck cluster, and the Milky Way have in common? They were all spotted by Long Lake Conservation Center astronomy camp attendees last week! Meanwhile, the fishing camp attendees were hauling finned friends out of the lake by the dozen.

We also heard from Randy near Cohasset, who is watching a loon chick grow up on Little Bass Lake.

Hear their voices!

JOHN LATIMER'S WEEKLY REPORT

It's aster and goldenrod season! I'll admit my brain is pretty full at this point of the season, and it's getting difficult to stuff more plant identification information in there. (Kind of the opposite of when I was in school and my brain was pleasantly empty by the time classes resumed.) Luckily, John makes learning a bit easier for my overburdened brain with his detailed eye and decades of experience.

Listen to John's report!

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SARAH'S RECOMMENDATION

There are many Weird Science Trinkets that I have no real use for but wish I had, and my top one this week is a bat detector. These are handy-dandy microphones that record bats' echolocation calls and enable researchers to determine which species are in the area. As always, YouTube came prepared with an educational video, complete with some example calls from real bats! (Please help me find a Strategic Friend who will let me go do field work, please and thank you.)

Enjoy!

P.S. I wish I could locate food by screaming into the void- seems like a handy trick.

Season Watch Photo Feature: Corliss Gunning

Mountain ash (Sorbus americana). Ojibwe: Makominagaawanzh

Look for these on the North Shore!

Bonus fact: Minnesota is home to the world's smallest weasel: the aptly-named least weasel. It's about as long as a pencil!

I've taken a real shine to that old white pine!

Northern Community Radio

KAXE/KBXE

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Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The Trust Fund is a permanent fund constitutionally established by the citizens of Minnesota to assist in the protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.