Smoky conditions delay surveys, but the show goes on for Minnesota conservation officer pilots

As smoke from Canadian wildfires has blanketed Minnesota multiple times this summer, it has affected some of the work of DNR Enforcement conservation officer pilots.
For example, some of the affected tasks were sketch mapping (checking forest health by way of color shades) or doing creel surveys on lakes – counting the number of boats present this summer.
“I’ve been doing a bunch of creel surveys and usually, you can fly fairly high and you can [cover] a large body of water and you can count boats that are fairly small from 1,000 feet in the air,” CO Pilot Ryan Hannah said.