"That's the difference between forest and farm practices," Horton explained. "What you do on a farm this spring will affect what birds are going to be there next fall. What you do in a forest this spring isn't going to affect the game birds for 10 years. There's a huge delay, so what we see right now in our birds is the result of what was going on in the forest eight to 10 years ago."

While state and federal government bodies manage large swaths of forest in Minnesota, it is still the private companies that control the majority of our wild places up north. Horton keeps his eye on these concerns because he feels their decisions will affect hunters.

"I get more nervous watching timber industries and mill closings and things like that, because if we don't have the infrastructure to manage our forests, we're going to get in trouble," he said. "The new players on the block when it comes to the forests are the investors. We have timber investment groups and real estate trusts, and these guys are coming in and buying big blocks of timber from hurting industries. They manage the land to turn a profit for their trusts and retirement funds and they expect a return on their dollar. That return comes from what you can cut and sell to the mill, or you bought 300,000 acres and now you need to sell 5,000 acres to make your profit on the land. They're using this purely to make money, so you can't know for sure if they're going to do the right thing with the land when it comes to wildlife."

According to Horton, hunters also should consider land access as an issue that will affect many hunters in the near future.

"It's the number one issue when it comes to our forests," he said. "It's not how many trees we cut or how we cut them or where we cut them or what kind we cut. Our number one deal right now is access, and we have a very narrow window of opportunity to deal with this issue.

"We're trying to deal with it with federal forest legacy money, state and private forest legacy money, land exchanges and sales and we're trying to do some outright fee title acquisition of little parcels. We need to buy that stuff that's on the market before it becomes a huge problem. It's about hunter access. If we can't get to it, it doesn't matter what we have for habitat."

The program that Horton speaks of is limited to private forest landowners. To qualify, landowners are required to prepare a multiple resource management plan as part of the conservation easement acquisition. The federal government may fund up to 75 percent of project costs, with at least 25 percent coming from private, state or local sources. In addition to gains associated with the sale or donation of property rights, many landowners also benefit from reduced taxes associated with limits placed on land use.