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Deadline for written comments to the SDGFP Commission June meeting

June 1 @ 11:50 pm - 11:59 pm

The written comment deadline for SDGFP Commission meetings is 72 hours before the day of the meeting, which normally are on Thursdays,

Sunday, June 1st just before midnight CT is the June Written comment deadline.

You go to SDGFP web site, under Commission drop down menu https://gfp.sd.gov/commission/ to the submit public comment portal https://gfp.sd.gov/forms/positions/and submit comments there.

 

Please go to the notice posted for June 5-6th Commission meeting for more details on subjects to comment on. I do not have time yet,  to re-enter the information here also

We are asking folks to at least support

  1. a moratorium on beaver hunting/trapping in the Black Hills and
  2. to comment on the  Northern River Otter Action Plan and ask it to plan to reintroduce river otters to western SD and to improve riparian and aquatic habitat along the major tributaries leading from the Missouri River to western SD.  We have river otter in eastern SD, but if river otter exist in western SD, they are anecdotal reports on occassional isolated individuals,  not known to be breeding.
  3. We also need for the corridors along the rivers to be more hospitable to otter by improving the riparian habitat along their edges or creating beaver habitat in side tributaries.   The proposed plan does not provide for these objectives. Please ask for them to be added.
  4. Please ask for the eastern SD population to be managed to be robust enough to send migrating individuals to western SD or support capture of some otters to translocate to western SD
  5. Acknowledge that “wildlife watching” of beavers & otters is an important use of both species, and certainly not less important than commercial activity of trapping/hunting for furs to sell

There is also the comment deadline of May 23rd to comment to the staff’s version of the Norther River Otter Action Plan DRAFT. As the Commission approves the staff’s version at it’s June meeting, you can also still comment to the Commission on the Draft Plan.

There is also a  July 2nd deadline to comment on the Staff’s version of a Beaver Action Plan DRAFT, which is the deadline for submitting forstaff review, with July 10th and July 6th as written deadlines for the Commission review of Staff’s decisions. https://phas-wsd.org/event/comments-due-on-sdgfp-beaver-action-plan-july-2nd-2025/

Go to those deadline dates on the event calendar or to our web page on –  Beaver Alert for all the relevant guides, talking points and links.  Basically GFP is willing to have a moratorium on beaver hunting/trapping in the Black Hills for a while and work to rebuild the population and its’ distribution (which is good), but is not addressing the issues with beaver in the rest of SD and the associated northern river otter issues (trapping beaver results in incidental take of otters, as otter are strongly associated with the habitat that beavers provide).

Details

Date:
June 1
Time:
11:50 pm - 11:59 pm