FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Contact:
Chandra Rosenthal, [email protected], (303) 898-0798
Gretchen Mehmel, [email protected], (218) 242-2356
Hudson Kingston, [email protected], (320) 269-2984
Federal Audit Flags Minnesota Logging Issues
Inspector General Raises Concerns about Minnesota Wildlife Lands
St. Paul, Minnesota — A new report conducted by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) highlights serious concerns with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) timber harvesting on Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) funded through federal wildlife grants, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The audit confirms what conservation advocates and whistleblowers have long alleged: logging activities conducted by the DNR may not have supported — and in some cases likely contradicted — the conservation purposes of the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration (WSFR) Program.
The OIG report findings include:
- “FWS was concerned that the Department’s timber harvest activities in the Minnesota WMAs may not have aligned with WSFR Program purposes.”
- “Timber harvest practices conducted under grants also seemed to be lacking wildlife conservation and management objectives or appropriate procedures and accepted principles of wildlife conservation and management.”
- “FAW staff [DNR’s Fish and Wildlife Division] indicated that they felt they did not have the ability to deny harvests on WMAs and felt pressure to meet cordage targets, regardless of the impact to wildlife habitat.”
Internal staff interviews corroborated these findings, with employees from the DNR’s Fish and Wildlife Division reporting that they felt unable to stop logging on protected lands, despite ecological concern.
This report validates what we’ve been sounding the alarm about for years,” said Gretchen Mehmel, a retired DNR biologist. “When wildlife staff are pressured to meet timber targets instead of ecological objectives, the mission gets lost — and so do habitats.”
“We hope these findings are a turning point,” said Chandra Rosenthal, Public Lands Advocate for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “The people of Minnesota expect that lands set aside for wildlife are managed with wildlife in mind — not commercial timber quotas.”
The Inspector General also flagged financial issues, noting that during fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the Department improperly charged approximately $109,000 in unfunded state pension liabilities to federal conservation grants — costs that may undermine the long-term integrity of the WSFR Program.
The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program — funded by hunters, anglers, and recreational shooters through excise taxes — was designed to conserve fish and wildlife, not to subsidize unsustainable logging or budget shortfalls.
The Inspector General found that, “FWS has valid concerns regarding potentially competing priorities within the Department and the ability to ensure timber harvest activities on lands with a Federal nexus maintain wildlife conservation and management objectives.”
The release of this audit follows growing grassroots concern over increased timber activity in Minnesota’s WMAs, with residents, biologists, and former agency staff raising red flags over habitat fragmentation and species impacts. Today’s report not only vindicates those voices — it signals the need for reform.
“Minnesotans deserve the wildlife protections they paid for with conservation taxes,” Hudson Kingston, CURE Legal Director, stated. “Now that we have the facts, we must demand accountability, transparency, and a course correction that puts habitat and integrity back at the center of land management decisions.”
Conservation groups hope to see closer oversight by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and urges the State to adopt a less centralized and more habitat-driven approach to timber activities.
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