A rule that has quietly governed one Minnesota wildlife management area since it opened to hunters two seasons ago is on track to become permanent, and the public has one month to weigh in.
Comments on the proposal are due by 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ rule notice. The rule would lock in a lead-free requirement at Keystone Woods Wildlife Management Area in northern Washington County that has been running as a temporary emergency rule since the property opened to public hunting in fall 2024.
The state is not proposing any change to what hunters have already been doing there. The permanent rule would carry the same lead-free standard forward, extending what the notice describes as a long-standing pattern established by previous landowners and aligning the area with federal expectations. That federal footing is more than three decades old: under 50 CFR 20.108, beginning September 1, 1991, the contiguous 48 states, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and U.S. territorial waters were designated nontoxic-shot zones for hunting waterfowl and coots.
The push for non-lead ammunition on land hunts, however, is a newer conversation, and the biological argument that keeps surfacing is condors. Lead poisoning caused by spent ammunition is the primary cause of death for California condors in the wild, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That is why the Keystone rule matters beyond one Washington County property line: it is another datapoint in the slow, uneven shift from lead to alternatives on state hunting lands, and the comment window is the point where hunters can shape what version of that shift gets written into rule.
The DNR notice directs written comments — its preferred format — to the wildlife rules coordinator in the Fish and Wildlife Division at DNR headquarters in St. Paul; a rulemaking webpage carries the draft rule and submission details. Public comments, including names and addresses, become public data on receipt.
