Marshall area wildlife

The Marshall wildlife work area

Marshall area wildlife staff manage 139 WMAs covering more than 26,000 acres in southwestern Minnesota.

Hunters, trappers and wildlife watchers in Lincoln, Lyon and Yellow Medicine counties benefit from the management, habitat and oversight work of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' Marshall area wildlife staff.

Area Wildlife Supervisor Wendy Krueger along with two full-time staff oversee a work area totaling 1.3 million acres of public and private land. The area includes 139 state Wildlife Management Areas totaling more than 26,000 acres, a waterfowl refuge and two designated wildlife lakes.

Our work

• Annually conducting prescribed burns on 1,500 acres of grassland; restoring 400 acres of prairie grasslands; monitoring and controlling noxious weeds on 300 acres of WMAs; and removing woody encroachment on 400 grassland acres.
• Monitoring and maintaining 41 water control structures that affect 4,167 acres of wetlands. Thirty-five of these are variable crest structures facilitate management of water levels on 3,778 acres of wetlands and shallow lakes.
• Providing habitat enhancement and protection, as well as wildlife population technical guidance to private landowners, local governments and non-profit groups. Also part of the Prairie Coteau Technical Team that approves and implements habitat improvement projects, primarily on private land with high priority on native prairie.
• Assessing potential WMA land acquisitions; submitting more than a dozen proposals for new acquisitions; and acquiring five parcels totaling 652 acres of land to be added to the WMA system.
• Conducting goose and dove banding activities as well as pheasant, deer, predator and waterfowl surveys, plus registering furbearers and collecting samples as needed for wildlife disease monitoring.
• Writing 87 cooperative farming agreements covering over 1,500 acres of food plots and haying and grazing management on WMAs. Increased effort has been placed on incorporating diverse crop rotations that include cover crops as well as limiting chemical use and tillage.