It's now or never for waterfowl
5th Oct 2005, 22:53 GMT
MINNEAPOLIS (SH) - Perhaps Minnesota's weakened duck hunting tradition that will continue Saturday - born out of need generations ago, when sacramental numbers of birds that blackened the sky were reduced quickly to the pot - will provide the incentive Minnesotans need, finally, to wrestle control of their lands and waters, and therefore their futures. If so, some value might come, perversely, of the wasteland that Minnesotans have made of much of their state; a wasteland invisible to most, perhaps, but important to all, just as dikes are against a rising tide.