N.D. Legislature serves up a few surprises for the outdoors

The North Dakota Legislature has reached the “crossover” point of the session, in which bills from the House must have crossed over to the Senate and vice versa.

In terms of outdoors legislation, the halfway point brings a few surprises. Some significant outdoors-related bills never made it to crossover. Other bills that seemed destined for defeat are alive and well.

Go figure.

Perhaps the most prominent piece of outdoors legislation to fall was the bill from Sen. Curtis Olafson, R-Edinburg, which would have banned the practice of feeding big game and hunting big game over bait.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee had given the bill a “do not pass” recommendation. And Tuesday, the full Senate followed that lead, voting 27-19 to defeat Olafson’s measure.

The baiting issue has gained prominence in North Dakota in recent years, in part because of fears about the spread of diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, which has been found in northwestern Minnesota within 60 miles of the Red River.

Another concern is the prevalence of “baiting wars,” in which landowners in some cases dump entire truckloads of beets, grains or other feed to attract deer to their property.

The result has been some ugly encounters between deer hunters.

The House in 2007 tackled a baiting bill that also fell to defeat. The North Dakota Game and Fish Department has the authority to ban baiting but was reluctant to do so without clear direction from the Legislature.

As a result, baiting only is prohibited on state- and federal-managed lands.

No doubt, there were a lot of shaking heads in Game and Fish Department offices after Tuesday’s vote. Wildlife managers have closely followed Minnesota’s bovine TB battle and would like to avoid the extreme measures the Department of Natural Resources has taken to kill deer in its efforts to eradicate the disease.

In the end, though, baiting proponents did the better job of making their cases this time around.

As the Associated Press reported after the bill’s defeat, Olafson told lawmakers to “hope and pray” disease doesn’t break out in North Dakota’s deer herds.

I know people who live or own hunting camps in the core of northwestern Minnesota’s TB area, and I’ve seen the anguish and hard feelings the disease has caused.

Regardless of where you come down on baiting, let’s hope history doesn’t show lawmakers let an opportunity slip away last week.

Nonresident hunter bill

Meanwhile, a bill that would let nonresident hunters buy a season-long small game license is still alive at crossover.

Senate Bill 2264 offers a full-season nonresident small game license for $170, with $40 of that going to the Private Lands Open to Sportsmen (PLOTS) program.

Nonresident licenses currently cost $85 but are good for only 14 days. Out-of-state hunters can choose to hunt two seven-day periods or one 14-day block. They must buy additional licenses to spend more time in the field.

The bill passed the Senate 29-19, and it now awaits action by the House Natural Resources Committee.

This bill hasn’t gotten much attention this session, which might be a sign of changing times. As a source told me earlier this week, resident hunter groups the past couple of sessions would have “blown a gasket” over the prospects of a full-season nonresident license.

It will be interesting to see where this bill goes when it hits the House.

Dokken reports on outdoors. Reach him at (701) 780-1148; (800) 477-6572, ext. 148; or send e-mail to bdokken@gfherald.com.