$2.67 million land deal to create wildlife area near Rochester

Jeff Kiger, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·2 min read

Dec. 9—ROCHESTER — A $2.67 million land purchase is the first step toward local people who hunt and fish having access to a 420-acre public wildlife management area, just minutes from Rochester.

The Nature Conservancy and Trust for Public Land purchased 420 acres of former farmland and woodlands along 75th Street Northwest, just west of the unincorporated community of Genoa.

The plan is for the two national nature nonprofits to donate the property to the State of Minnesota, so the Department of Natural Resources can establish it as a wildlife management area. The land was purchased with money from the state's Outdoor Heritage Fund, which means the area will be open to public hunting and fishing.

This purchase is the start of the process that will eventually end with acres of land remaining undeveloped with access for hikers and hunters. It will not have as much visitor infrastructure as a state park, but it will have parking areas and be well posted.

David Ruff, a conservation program manager with the Nature Conservancy in Minnesota and the Dakotas, explained why this area was chosen as a wildlife management area.

"When you get close to Rochester, it's harder to find opportunities to protect meaningfully sized property and chunks of habitat. To get a chance to protect over 400 acres within 15 minutes of the Mayo Civic Center is pretty rare," said Ruff. "This property was really, really intriguing to us. Its accessibility was a real draw."

There are five much smaller WMA's just south of Rochester. All five of those areas combined would equal the size of the Genoa property.

Leonard T. Moon Farms LLC sold the former family farmland on Dec. 5, 2022. The farm buildings were removed previously, so there are no structures on the 12 parcels that make up the 420-acre property.

The land includes 264 acres of tillable land. Some farming will continue on the property as it transitions into a wildlife management area under the DNR.

Ruff said the property was attractive for reasons beyond the accessibility.

"There were a couple things that were really intriguing about this. Programmatically, one of the things that we really try to do with our habitat protection in southeastern Minnesota is to not just protect terrestrial habitat for wildlife game species, but also protect areas that have importance within a watershed context. And there's about 3 miles of stream frontage on this property," he said.

The South Branch of the Middle Fork of the Zumbro flows through the property, which also features a spring.