SD Game, Fish and Parks July Hybrid Commission Meeting

SD Game, Fish & Parks Commission’s July Meeting is in Sioux Falls, Thursday-Friday,  July 11-12th,  2024, at  Good Earth State Park,

Results – Mt Lions:

The  GFP staff presented the Draft Mt. Lion Action Plan and a powerpoint about their mt. lion public opinion survey. The draft Action Plan did not change the population objective of 200-300. It did not recommend hound hunting in the Black Hills Fire Protection District (BHFPD) outside of Custer State Park.

We believe that the draft Action Plan is available for public comment and will be writing talking points on that in the future.  We wish a reduction in hound hunting of lions and a reduction in the year round unlimited harvest in the Prairie Unit (Statewide outside of BHFPD), with a recognition of need for sustainable populations on Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s reservations.  Due to various Allotment Acts Tribal lands can contain checker board land ownership patterns, with SDGFP having jurisdiction over parts of the checker board.

Results-  Turkey

The Commission rejected a petition to lower the non-resident turkey hunting licenses, but instead redid the spring turkey season proposal to reduce the non-resident turkey hunting licenses, but with a more modest reduction in number of licenses.

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Agenda https://gfp.sd.gov/UserDocs/nav/Commission_Agenda_-_July_2024_Public_Copy.pdf

We had anticipated that the SDGFP staff would bring forward a new draft Mountain Lion Action Plan for an approximate 60 day comment period, with comments due in early Sept  (see our Sept Commission meeting event notices for Sept. 1st & Sept 5th-6th). There is a draft Mt Lion Action Plan in the Commission book and on the agenda as an information item.

We also anticipated that the GFP staff would be submitting a proposal for new cougar hunting season rules that would apply to the Black Hills Fire Protection District (outside Custer state Park) & would allow some small amount of hound hunting of cougars in the BHFPD – with comments due in early Sept.  They did not do so and did not propose that change in the  draft Action Plan. We don’t know what that means, if they have dropped the idea, will take direction from the Commission or are planning to bring it up in September. If you look at the public comments, advocates for hound  hunting were organized to submit pro-hound hunting comments.

We urge people to object hound hunting of wildlife (not just cougars – bobcats are also hunting with hounds) & you can testify/comment against it at any of many Commission meetings, but especially July 11th & September 5th.

You can object 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 – there are many more “boot” hunters than hound hunters  4. creates trespass risk, 5. disturbs non-target wildlife, livestock and other human users, 6. contributes to commercialization of wildlife, as folks can hire hound hunter guides to significantly increase hunting success.

SD GFP normally meets on the first Thursday-Friday of the month, unless those days are close to a holiday and then the meeting week may shift. They normally don’t meet in February and August.

Written comments can be submitted at https://gfp.sd.gov/forms/positions/. To be included in the public record of the next meeting, comments must include your complete name and city of residence and meet the submission deadline of seventy–two hours before the meeting (not including the day of the meeting) (Usually Sunday night before midnight CT or MT depending on time zone of physical meeting)  If you miss that deadline it goes to record of the next meeting.
You can testify at GFP meetings which are held in person and by Zoom, generally at 2 pm on the Thursday of the meeting, in time zone of the meeting. If there is rule finalization(s) you get 3 minutes per each rule you want to testify on. During the Open Forum, you get 3 minutes to testify on anything.