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MONTANA FISH WILDLIFE AND PARKS 2023 – Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks decided to increase hunting by 40% in many areas:  

Montana FW&P May 11th- (PAST)  & June 8th, 2023. View alerts at these links. The Commission approved a high increase in the harvest limit:

Wyoming July 2022 Alert

 https://phas-wsd.org/event/cougar-and-wolf-alert-wyoming-comment-deadline-wgf-6-3-22/

Nebraska lion Alert June 2022

https://phas-wsd.org/event/nebraska-game-and-parks-commission-hearing-on-mountain-lions-and-otter-hunting-seasons/

ND Mt Lion Alert 2022

https://phas-wsd.org/event/nd-game-and-fish-dept-comment-deadline-approximate-north-dakota-mountain-lions-and-otters-sent-to

2021 Cougar Management alerts

=======  2021  ALERTS/UPDATES – 2021 WAS THE LAST YEAR SOUTH DAKOTA CHANGED IT’S COUGAR HUNTING RULE 

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 SD MOUNTAIN LION ALERT SD Fall 2021 –  OLD  (you can see our objections to 2021 season)

Wednesday September 1st (afternoon) 2021 – Thursday September 2nd  (morning) was a past SD Game, Fish & Parks Commission Meeting in Rapid City at Outdoor Campus West with virtual & teleconference options

As the proposed rule was adopted,  you need to go to SD Administrative Rules list for mountain lions to see the rule as amended in 2021:  https://sdlegislature.gov/Rules/Administrative/29319

2021 Alert On Mountain Lion Seasons Rule Changes (these rules were adopted)

Here is a link to the letter that Prairie Hills Audubon Society submitted to SD GFP:
https://www.scribd.com/document/522625630/Mountain-Lion-Comment-LetterF?secret_password=EUwQZb1IK9yVyf3B5FY5

If you go to these two links you can see what other individuals and NGOs – such as HSUS, MLF, Cougar Fund, SD-FACT wrote. The long formal letters are at the end of the PDF files, the shorter letters at the beginning. :

https://gfp.sd.gov/UserDocs/nav/PublicComments1.pdf         https://gfp.sd.gov/UserDocs/nav/PublicCommission2.pdf

In 2021, we suggested folks oppose both proposed rules changes for mountain lion hunting.  But they passed.

  SD Mt. lion hunting is divided into the Black Hills Fire Protection District and every where else (Prairie unit). In the Prairie Unit there is 365 day hunting with no harvest limit and hound hunting was allowed on private land (with land owner/lessor permission) and moving from private land to BLM and State School Lands. Hound hunting was allowed in Custer State Park in two week time segments alternating with two weeks of “boot hunting” (boot = no hounds used). The first two week session was given to hound hunting and thus for many years the boot hunters are out-competed and have not gotten any lions.The hunting season on the Black Hills Unit is too aggressive and will result in decreasing populations, perhaps dropping below the population below the population goals that SDGFP wants. We suggest  at least lowering the female lion harvest limit in the Black Hills unit.

 We suggested people object to hound hunting of lions, which occurs on Custer State Park (a sub-set of Black Hills unit) and in the Prairie unit. You could have objected due to 1. animal cruelty to both  dogs and lions, 2. not fair chase, 3. provides huge advantage of success for hound hunters vs boot hunters  4. creates trespass risk, 5. disturbs non-target wildlife, livestock and other human users.  However they made a specific change to increase hound hunting..by increasing the area of public land in the Prairie Unit where hound hunters can travel from private land to hunt on public land, to  include all of public lands unless public land manager specifically objects. Previously public land hound hunting in the Prairie unit was limited to expanding onto BLM and State School lands. . You could have objected specifically to that proposed increase in hound hunting area on the Prairie Unit.

We suggested allowing the boot hunters the first two week session in Custer State Park, for sake of boot hunters, lions & dogs.

Written comments (2021) were to be submitted at https://gfp.sd.gov/forms/positions/ or at https://rules.sd.gov/Comments.aspx?Id=669

The rule change to allow hound hunting on the prairie unit on public land unless the land management agency specifically objects passed the Commission. We thus need to contact public land managers and ask them to object to hound hunting of lions on their property.

UPDATE ON LIONS – This bill was killed in committee (dead).  2022 SD Legislature had HB 1296 – would have treated cougars  (which by statute are a big game species in SD ) as if they were a “predator/varmint” in the prairie unit and allow hunting without a license 365 days of a year.  This would have taken away from the GFP Commission the option to reduce the days in the hunting season for the prairie. Cougar advocates wanting  to reduce prairie unit hunting from year round would have to go lobby the legislature. Folks would not pay the license fee, which is $28 dollars . 

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 HOW TO COMMENT TO SD GFP Commission 

You can testify orally at the Commission meetings, during the hearing or open forum. We provide information on Commission meetings on our events/deadline calendar: https://phas-wsd.org/events-alerts/  They are normally the first Thursday and Friday of the month, unless holiday weekends interfere. They don’t meet in August and February.  Rules aren’t final till they are reviewed by the Interim Rules Review Committee, a legislative Committee. The IRRC generally doesn’t meet in Dec-March, sometimes not in Nov-March.  Folks can protest a rule adopted by GFP at an IRRC hybrid hearing. 

 GFP’s  meetings are hybrid, thus remote testifying allowed.  You get 3 minutes at Open Forum (any topic allowed) and 3 minutes for each rule change finalization (can only comment on proposed rule change).