(upbeat music) (gunshots ring out) - Get him?

I saw the fur fly.

On today's Prairie Sportsman, we join a group of friends as they get together for their traditional Black Friday Rabbit Hunt.

- Just edit it out if I miss.

- [Narrator] Then, we visit the Raptor Center where staff and volunteers work to rehabilitate injured birds of prey and share the importance of these birds with the public.

- Once you meet a raptor up close and personal, it's so natural to just get this amazing feeling of awe.

- Back.

All right, it's time for another episode of Prairie Sportsman.

I'm Bret Amundson, welcome to the show.

Let's get things going.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for Prairie Sportsman is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

By Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota on the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

And by the Friends of Prairie Sportsman.

To become a Friend of Prairie Sportsman, visit pioneer.org/prairieSportsman.

- Oh, right in front of you, go right.

- Get him?

- I don't think so.

- [Hunter] I don't think so.

- He's coming back right in front of me.

Well, this is pretty wild.

Welcome to Prairie Sportsman.

We're on a rabbit hunt right now with a group of guys that are celebrating the 20th anniversary of this small game tradition.

(upbeat music) - Good morning.

I know man, this is getting a little tighter every year.

- We're here gambling.

- Yeah, it's been a long day.

- So we started about, well it'd be 20 years ago, 20th annual.

Started with me, David and Mike Kosak.

- It was Christmas break in high school and nothing really to hunt, no birds to hunt besides doing a little pheasant hunting.

And three of us just decided, let's find something else to do, let's maybe go try and shoot some rabbits.

- After a few bad storms over Christmas, we moved it to Thanksgiving and it's been a lot better since then.

Probably put two or three there, the rest pushed down, gotta have people on the far back.

- I'll be on the outside.

- Yeah, people with 12 gauge or whatever on the far back.

- The wife says no squirrels.

- Okay.

- No squirrels on this place.

- Chickens are fair game?

Best thing we get shot all day.

- If you get the roosters, that's fine.

- All right, let's do it.

- Rabbit tracks all over in here.

- Right in front of you, go right.

- [Bret] Oh, he's coming back right in front of me.

- Oh my God.

- Coming out Calvin.

- He's back here.

Guess I should have been carrying a gun.

I could have stepped on the thing.

(laughs) We're in ‘em now.

Right in front of you, David, Tupman.

He ran right at you.

- [David] I know he... - Oh, right at you David, right at you, David.

- [Bret] Still going.

(gunshots ring out) - Right by you, David.

He's right here, right in front.

- Got him?

- Yeah, holding real tight.

- [Bret] Gonna try to show you some tracks and a rub.

(gunshots firing) - We're just warming up.

- No, I love it.

Make time for it every year, travel a lot for work, but I always try to make it home for this so we can go see my buddies and go shoot some rabbits.

- It's a good excuse to get everybody together once a year and walk around and push a bunch of groves and have a bunch of fun.

- I thought you had an extension in it at one point.

- I should have.

It'd be a... - No, a stock extension.

- Oh there is, there's like an inch.

So this would fit a 10-year-old, yeah.

- You should get like three more of those.

- Yeah.

- I'll take the ditch.

A couple people around the back, Andrew and Stan, you guys talk right there.

- [Bret] What are you shooting this time?

- Some Winchester has some commemorative holes that they loaded years ago, so I've been loading them with black powder.

- [Bret] Oh that's cool.

- But they're kind of a single shot proposition, they don't feed well, so that's all we need though.

- [Bret] So make your shot count.

- Yeah, just edit it out if I miss.

Take care of that post.

Like put in some B roll of a rabbit getting smoked and just cut to that.

Because I don't know how well they shoot to be honest.

- [Hunter] Just a rabbit right there.

Right in the ditch, right in front of you.

(Stanton opens fire) - [Bret] Did you get him?

- I'm gonna put another one in.

(gunshots ring out) - [Bret] Smoke.

- I think I might've got out the box.

- [Bret] He's right there, he is right there, see him?

- See if we can get a safe.

- Okay, yeah, he just ran in.

He's sitting right there.

Right through this little opening right here, he's just sitting there right behind that first tree.

I think you got him that time.

One right here, right here, right here.

See him?

(gunshot rings out) - Yeah.

I'm glad they went off without an issue.

Special set of requirements around black powder and how you load it.

But with the brass shells, it works perfectly.

You don't quite get the speed like you do with modern propellants, but it sure is fun.

- [Hunter] You got a bunch of them.

- Yeah, some people think it's luck.

(gunshots ring out) Bret had to point them both out to me.

- [Hunter] I saw the assist.

- (laughs) Yeah.

Well we got one that's in there, I might as well just pop in and grab it.

- [Bret] Oh, pheasant.

Too busy getting rabbits.

- Winchester did a special run of, I believe they were World War II commemorative ammunition loaded in brass holes and they sold them by I think the box of five or 10 and I bought as many as they had.

So I've got a a pile of them at home.

This is my grandfather's model, 12 Winchester.

- [Bret] That's awesome.

- I wasn't gonna take it, he kept really good care of it.

But when I grabbed those black powder shells, I was like, if I shoot those through my SX3, I'm gonna turn that into a single shot for the rest of the day.

This was the gun for the job today.

- [Bret] I mean, what a classic shotgun.

(gunshots ring out) - Bring a shotgun with you?

- Oh yeah.

- All right.

- [Bret] I'll carry the camera for a couple groves too if you want to jump in.

- [Hunter] We'll have to go trail.

- When you get together and you start talking about last year and the year before, that rabbit that did this or I shot this pheasant out of here and oh, he's terrible at shooting pheasants and so it's just a good time of buddies to, to do something just completely different.

- Yesterday at Thanksgiving, they're all like, telling the family like, "We doing what tomorrow?"

"Rabbit hunt."

"Why?"

It's the most fun?

It is something I look forward to this more than like deer opener, pheasant opener, anything like that.

We do it one time a year.

- [Bret] You're missing out on all the Black Friday deals.

- Black Friday deals, there ain't nothing that I need to buy that I would miss for this day.

Yeah, it's so much fun.

- [Bret] We found the escape route.

- You got Andrew right in front of y'all.

- [Bret] You got kind of an important job down here on the end.

- Yeah, I'm scoping out the ones that get out in front of them.

- [Bret] You feel any pressure right now?

- [Andrew] Don't wanna let my boys down.

- [Bret] How many years you've been doing this?

- 10 or 12 probably.

My brother and his buddies started it, it's a good time.

- You gotta be quick on 'em.

And they juke and jive super quick, and especially when you're shooting through trees and stuff, you're trying to shoot these gaps and openings and stuff, it's tough but that's why you bring a lot of shells.

- I'm used to 1200 feet per second, these are like 1250, it threw me off.

- [Hunter] Down here.

- I don't have the right choke in too.

- Yeah.

- And then of course he modified the flanges up on top as well.

(gunshots ring out) - There is one in here.

- I got one right there, right there Andrew.

Hey don't shoot him, just let him be, he'll come out.

He's right there.

- He's certainly in a predicament.

He's in a little bit of a pickle here.

- George Clooney, our old brother out there, damn, we're in a tight spot.

(hunters chuckle) Hey!

- Andrew.

- Oh no.

(gunshots ring out) - [Bret] Nice.

- Little calibration shot.

- [Bret] Make a little adjustment.

- [Hunter] Yeah, get him boy.

- There is a breeze.

Gotta play the windage.

- Something I look forward to doing every year.

We're getting back to the high school buddies.

We kinda go through old stomping grounds.

Been doing this for better part of a decade and a half now and it's just a fun activity to get out there and I look forward to it more than deer hunting sometimes.

(gunshot rings out) - [Hunter] Right there.

(hunter laughs) ♪ These days the night shift cutie ♪ ♪ At the truck stop knows my name ♪ - [Bret] We having fun yet?

- Nah, I'm over it.

- Easy fun, different kind of hunting you're not used to.

- [Bret] You say easy but it's not all easy.

- Yeah, I'd like to take that back, it's definitely not.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] Oh, Steve coming at you.

Double back!

(upbeat music) Yeah.

Head on a swivel, Calvin.

- [Hunter] Should be right under here.

Get him?

(gunshot rings out) Holy man, we mopped here.

Martin shot like seven at his post, Andrew shot like seven at his posts.

- Man.

♪ Stand up on that stage - Get it?

Yeah?

Back home at my parents every winter break or snow day we'd had is bringing out the .410 and walking through the woods.

Single shot, Winchester 37A.

- Savage Fox double barrel.

Growing up as a kid, dad got a 20 gauge of the same model.

Kind of fell in love with it.

And now that I'm older, I kind of start hoarding them myself.

A fun gun to shoot.

Side by sides, you don't see them too often.

- It's a combo 12 gauge and 20 gauge.

So after I've missed a few times with the 12 gauge, I sub down and go to the 20 gauge and I seem to hit a little bit better.

But I've had it since I was about 16 years old, so it's about its 20th year too.

- [Bret] So who makes this meal?

- My mother.

- [Bret] You're responsible for this?

- Yeah.

- She is not me.

- Leftovers.

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

Enjoying everything?

- There's some times you miss some easy pheasant shots.

- [Hunter] He gets the heebie-jeebies around the pheasants.

- I know.

- I missed seven individual pheasants, they didnt come out in pairs, just seven times, boom boom, boom!

One time we walked it.

- [Bret] 20 years ago, do you think you'd be doing this for 20 years?

- No, not a chance.

But now it's like, ah, can we do it for another 20?

(laughs) So we'll see, it's getting harder to push groves, we're not 16 anymore but it's still a lot of fun.

- Oh!

- [Hunter] Damn it!

- [Bret] Out front.

- [Hunter] Go left, go left.

(gunshot rings out) - [Bret] Get him.

(gunshot rings out) - [Hunter] Get him?

- [Bret] Get him?

- Get him?

- Yeah.

- [Calvin] We don't get a rabbit out of this, and I get snow in my back.

- [Bret] Yeah.

- [Calvin] I'm gonna be real upset.

- [Bret] There's gotta be one in here, Calv.

(upbeat music) - [Hunter] Just bust through some miserable spots to get some rabbits is always, it's always pretty fun.

We get a little more winded as we get older, but that's a good time.

- Goes hand in hand with Thanksgiving, we always think of the rabbit hunt too.

So we look forward to it.

- Martin getting disappeared in a snowbank one year trying to walk through a couple groves and watching Ethan Sander try to man up and run through some of the brambles, it gets kind of thick in there and he bulldogs it, better than anyone else here, so.

(upbeat music) - Oh, it's quick, kinda a quick hunt.

You gotta be watching everything and yeah, some hard shots that are when you make them, they're fun.

It's fun getting together with everybody and doing this every year.

Good excuse to go hunting and been rabbit hunting since I've been a little kid, so it's kinda fun to do that again, I guess.

It's one of the only times I get to see all my buddies and have a good time hunting.

- [Bret] Get him?

I saw the fur fly, I didn't see him come out.

- Get him?

- I didn't see him.

- [Bret] There he is.

(gunshot rings out) - No.

(upbeat music) (gunshots ring out) (upbeat music) Oh yeah, there he is.

(upbeat music) Oh, man.

(Bret laughs) He's getting away.

(laughs) Oh, stand.

(hunters speak unintelligibly) - Pheasant!

- They're all good eating.

- [Bret] Did we ever figure out if you hit that one?

- I did, yeah.

I got my pheasant of the day.

- Oh no, not here.

- Oh hey bud.

- A clearing that goes all the way through these trees.

And kind of as they start making that corner, those things will just lazily be hopping over.

- Oh really?

- My favorite spot.

- [Bret] All right.

(gunshots ring out) We're rabbit hunting.

Oh, right here, right here.

(hunter laughs) Whoa, right behind you, one just came ripping out.

- Back door.

- Yeah.

Oh that was a blast.

I'm not gonna lie.

Rabbit hunting is something that has been done forever.

Most people don't do it much anymore.

But a late season opportunity like this to clear out a grove.

I mean there's plenty of rabbits out there in the landscape, they make a good meal and it's a heck of a lot of fun.

Well right here.

(gunshots ring out) - Heck of a year.

- Gotta be the fastest we've ever been done.

- And we're pushing it to get your grove done.

- Well I think our shooting success was way more on point this year too.

- Yeah.

- I wouldn't go that far.

- Speak for yourself.

So we need to hunt rabbits more often 'cause normally when the camera's along, it doesn't work that way.

So, we need to do this more.

Well thanks for letting us come along fellas.

- Absolutely.

- Good times.

- Heck of a year.

- Great to have you, good year to be here.

- [Bret] All right.

- The first time I came out here like rabbit hunting, what do you do?

It's like we clean 'em all and there is not a rabbit that gets wasted.

I mean, they all get cleaned.

- Just the camaraderie, spending time with guys you don't see as often.

Now everybody's grown up and kind of has their own stuff going on.

So that camaraderie and I like getting to shoot some rabbits.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Eagles, hawks, falcons, owls and vultures.

These avian carnivores are known collectively as raptors.

- A raptor is basically a bird of prey and there's a couple different characteristics that make a bird a raptor and one would be excellent vision.

So these raptors are amazing in that their ability to see from long distances.

They also have very sharp talons or claws and a very sharp beak.

(upbeat music) (bird squawking) - [Narrator] Founded in 1974, the Raptor Center located on the St.

Paul campus at the University of Minnesota is a world class surgery and rehabilitation center that also performs outreach and education about these majestic birds.

- We are a scientific based organization that really is devoted to ensuring the health of raptors and the world we all share.

We have a three-pronged mission: teaching, research, and service.

And probably what we're best known for is the service component.

So we have a fully stocked raptor hospital with experts in caring for these amazing birds.

And we also do a fair amount of teaching too.

We collaborate and teach people across the world on how to take care of raptors.

- [Narrator] Minnesota is home to a diverse array of these apex predators, thanks to its four major biomes and Hawk's Ridge, a geographical feature along the north shore of Lake Superior that naturally funnels migrating raptors south from Canada.

Due to this, the Raptor Center sees an increase in patients in the early fall.

- We get about a thousand raptors, more or less into our hospital every year.

Most often what happens is we get a call from a person in the public who finds a raptor.

We have rescue and transport volunteers that will go out and help to retrieve those birds.

- [Narrator] Raptors commonly suffer injuries from collisions with vehicles, power lines or windows, as well as from entanglements in things like nets, fishing line and fencing.

It's up to the professionals at the Raptor Center to diagnose and treat the problem.

- They all get radiographs, blood work.

Certain scavengers like bald eagles and vultures will get a test for lead.

Then after we kind of figure out what the problem is, then some of them will need surgery if they have a fracture.

Others may need supportive care.

If they have lead in their stomachs, we may need to flush it out.

So there's a variety of different things that'll happen next.

- [Narrator] Of course, the birds don't necessarily know they're being helped.

- [Narrator] To them, it must feel a bit like an alien abduction.

Safety for both doctor and patient is key.

- We try to reduce their stress as much as we can, right?

So a lot of procedures, you'll notice we're covering their heads, we're talking quietly, we'll anesthetize those if it's safe to do so.

We also have to be safe because they're gonna try to defend themselves, right?

With those sharp talons and those beaks.

So our handlers all will wear protective eyewear.

They'll wear different types of handling gloves.

For eagles, they're biters, so we will also wear a welder's jacket.

So we make sure that we keep the volunteers and the staff safe as well as the reducing the stress on the patients too.

- [Narrator] This groggy great horned owl even got a post-op snack courtesy of clinic volunteers.

- Our hospital is almost 100% supported by philanthropy.

We are really a community driven organization.

We have over 300 volunteers that help us in a variety of ways, and probably I'd say about a hundred of those actually help in the rehabilitation component.

- [Narrator] A big part of that rehabilitation is pre-release conditioning.

Meet patient 25-519, which means the 519th Raptor admitted in the year 2025.

This bald eagle is taking flight for the first time since recovering from its injuries.

- Another whole crew of volunteers are trained to take these birds out on a long tether and give them opportunities to fly.

Rebuild those weakened flight muscles, reestablish flight mechanics.

Sometimes if a bird has a broken wing, it may start out a little crooked and just need time in order to build those muscles and regain his flight mechanics.

- [Minder] Yeah, I think he's tiring out.

- [Narrator] Not all of the raptors the center rescues and rehabilitates can be released.

Some of these birds go on to become ambassadors to the public.

- So we have a collection of about 25 ambassador birds.

So these are birds that cannot be released to the wild for a variety of reasons.

And they're all specifically trained to be comfortable around people and they're really the tools that inspire people.

Once you meet a raptor up close and personal, it's so natural to just get this amazing feeling of awe.

And that draws people in and really makes them wanna be better stewards of the environment.

- [Narrator] Funding from the state of Minnesota has allowed the Raptor Center to expand its educational outreach.

- So the grants that we've gotten from LCCMR have enabled us to take our programming into under serviced schools.

So kids that don't have the ability to get environmental education and not just in the Twin Cities Metro, throughout the entire state of Minnesota.

So we really feel fortunate that we're able to take our raptors and share these messages with students who would not normally get that opportunity.

- [Narrator] And for kids who want a deeper dive into the world of Raptors, the center conducts various camps throughout the summer with hands-on activities and the opportunity to get up close and personal with the Raptor Center's educational ambassadors.

The theme of this week's camp is working with wildlife.

It's meant to give youngsters a glimpse into the wide variety of careers available to animal lovers.

- When I went to school, it was the only option we really had was to be a veterinarian.

Right now, there are so many more options, ways that you can work with animals either directly or indirectly and really help the environment.

And so just exposing them to that a little bit, will hope, will really inspire them to dig a little deeper when they're choosing their career paths.

- I really like birds.

I wanna be an ornithologist when I grow up.

- I've always wanted to be a veterinarian when I grow up.

I grew up on a farm, so I love animals and stuff like that.

I've seen many vets go to my farm and work on our horses and animals.

I've helped them many times, so I just think it's very cool.

- [Narrator] Unfortunately, not every bird that enters the Raptor Center goes on to recover, but even those that don't, contribute to science and the care birds who will come after sometimes as a specimen for a necropsy, an activity that seems to connect with camp goers.

- So this is our heart.

Oh, I'm sorry, does this smell bad?

- I thought it was really cool we got to like see inside of a bird today.

- How fun, never had this.

- Did you find it?

- Dissecting the birds, that was really fun.

- [Interviewer] Yeah, did you like touching the squishy stuff?

- [Will] I stuck my finger down his throat, it's fun.

- Just giving them these opportunities to, in real life, engage with raptors, just from our experience has shown us it's very impactful on what they go on to do in their future lives.

- [Narrator] From inspiring future conservationists to being at the forefront of biosecurity protocols for avian influenza, the Raptor Center continues to build on its mission.

- We are not only a rehabilitation and education facility, but we want to expand our knowledge and continue to learn and share that knowledge around the world.

So right now, we have partnerships in Thailand and Australia, places that don't have the ability to learn like we do with our heavy caseload, right?

So our impact is more far reaching than just Minnesota.

- [Narrator] For over 50 years, the Raptor Center has educated the public, rehabilitated raptors and trained future avian experts.

Their research has expanded our knowledge of these amazing birds and the environment we all share.

It's made possible due to the dedication and commitment of the entire organization.

- Every single staff person here is very passionate about what they do, specifically, about the birds, about our mission, it's just an amazing place to work.

- [Narrator] And in case you're wondering, the bald eagle we saw flight training in Como Park was successfully released back into the wild a few days after filming.

(upbeat music) - Oh, beautiful, nice.

- That's a good one.

- [Minder] Nice, very good.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for Prairie Sportsman is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

By Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota, on the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

And by the Friends of Prairie Sportsman.

To become a friend of Prairie Sportsman, visit pioneer.org/prairiesportsman.

(upbeat music)