Family-Outdoors

If the Department of Natural Resources were in the television business, it would have one sure-fire, prime-time drama on its hands: “Cooley, M.E.” Tom Cooley is the DNR’s pathologist. When wildlife – both game and nongame – are found dead from unapparent causes, it is Cooley’s job to figure out what happened. “We get specimens from the public, our own agency personnel, the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA Wildlife Services,” Cooley said. The DNR’s pathologist for 35 years, Cooley spends several days a week in the necropsy room at the DNR’s Wildlife Disease Lab (located at the Michigan State University Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health), working on everything from skunks to eagles, looking for what killed them. Sometimes the job is fairly easy; an animal, found by the side of the road with broken limbs and contusions, was likely hit by a vehicle, he said. Sometimes, the cause of death is much more difficult to determine. Take eagles, for instance. Last year, Co...

This winter season (November to April) is on track to be the deadliest on the ice in more than five years, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said. So far this winter, five people have died after going through the ice in Minnesota. A sixth person is missing and presumed drowned. In the 2006-2007 winter season, eight people died in ice-related incidents. “There could be several reasons why so many people have died this season,” said Kara Owens, DNR boat and water safety specialist. “It could be there are more people out on the ice because we have had a cooler winter and more snow.” All the fatalities this winter involved a snowmobile or vehicle either crashing into open water or breaking through the ice. As the winter starts to wind down and Minnesotans enter the last weekend in February, Owens has an urgent message for winter enthusiasts: “The bottom line is it’s crucial that people do not let their guard down and recognize ice is never 100 percent safe.”...