Environmental and natural resources trust fund appropriation

This bill appropriates $103.3 million from Minnesota's Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund for specific conservation and research projects in fiscal year 2026. It directly funds 9 targeted initiatives, including university research on deer populations, walleye adaptation to warming waters, wolf-deer dynamics, and wood turtle conservation, as well as digitizing museum collections and marsh bird surveys. The projects are administered by state agencies (like the Department of Natural Resources), universities (Bemidji State and University of Minnesota), the Science Museum of Minnesota, and conservation groups like the Minnesota Zoological Society. All funding is one-time and designated for specific research goals with defined deliverables, such as baseline data collection or decision-support tools for wildlife management.