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SD Game Fish & Park’s June hybrid Commission meeting Aberdeen and Zoom

June 5 @ 12:00 pm - June 6 @ 11:00 am

SD Game, Fish and Parks June Commission hybrid meeting, in Aberdeen and Zoom,  Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

The Dakota Event Center is located at 720 Lamont St. S in Aberdeen.

This meeting will be held via Zoom/conference call and livestream. The meeting will begin Thursday, June 5 beginning at 1 pm CDT the public hearing and open forum will begin at 2 p.m. CDT. . The livestream can be found at https://www.sd.net.

When close to the date visit- the agenda, public comments and “Commission book” will eventually be up here: https://gfp.sd.gov/commission/information/

Commission book Link (you find the agenda,  proposals, action plans and public comments in this document):

https://gfp.sd.gov/UserDocs/nav/Commission_Book_June_2025_.pdf

Agenda link:

https://gfp.sd.gov/UserDocs/nav/Commission_Agenda_June_2025_.pdf

You can testify in person or remotely by Zoom at 2 pm MT. It is requested  (but not required) that you register in advance for remote testimony w/ Gail Buus , gail.buus@state.sd.us . Testifiers should provide their full names, whom they are representing, city of residence, and which proposed topic they will be addressing.

Click on the link below to join the Zoom Webinar. Depending on the application you use, you may be required to enter the meeting ID and password.

The agenda for this meeting can be found here.

Zoom Webinar Link:

To join via conference call:

  • dial 1.669.900.9128
  • Webinar ID: 912 6417 6710
  • Passcode: 970458

Written Comments are due  the Sunday before the Thursday, before midnight MT:

https://gfp.sd.gov/forms/positions/

To comment in writing, do so ideally by  June 1st, 2025 midnight CT at their public comments web page. Late comments end up in the July Commission book, so they see them after they make some immediate decisions.
https://gfp.sd.gov/forms/positions/

They will be voting on the beaver  & otter trapping/hunting seasons rewrite.

Beaver hunting season change proposed to beaver is a BHs moratorium  but no change to seasons for 5 species which are hunted under Nest Predator Bounty Program.
1. Support the moratorium on beaver hunting/trapping in the Black Hills Fire Protection District.
2. Ask for 5 month beaver trapping/hunting season in the prairie outside of the Black Hills, to allow for recovery of beaver state wide and avoid trapping beaver moms when raising children (starts in May)  and incidental take of otter  and especially otter moms when raising pups (starts in April).
Link to look at season proposal
The rule change proposed otter hunting/trapping season – propose increase harvest cap from 20 to 30 otters.
We suggest you oppose such because
1.  population monitoring results show contradictory information  and
2. we need extra otters for west River reintroduction.
Link to look at season proposal.
Mink/weasel/muskrat hunting/trapping season rule change
The proposed change is a correction to the description of the Black Hills Fire Protection District, which was inaccurate, thus this is a  “clean up” & also a  positive sort of change.  They are not changing season lengths (except to decrease season length in the in south part of BHFPD) or harvest limits, thus no large  substantive changes are proposed.

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ACTION PLANS

OTTER
They will be voting on a Draft Northern River Otter Action Plan. https://gfp.sd.gov/UserDocs/nav/River_Otter_Action_Plan_2025_2029_Comm.pdf

We are asking folks to testify 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.  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. 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.

2025 River Otter Action Plan, comment deadline was May 23rd (go to that date on calendar), however they will review and approve it at the June 5th-6th Commission meeting, so you can still comment on it (for Commission vs. Staff reading)

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BEAVER

They may be reviewing or discussing  a draft Beaver Action Plan, however the official comment deadline is after the June  (July 2nd) Commission meeting so voting on it will be at a later Commission meeting (July 10th-11th) .   https://phas-wsd.org/wp-content/uploads/beaverActionPLan-May_2025_Commission_Book_-2.pdf

List of commissioners

Details

Start:
June 5 @ 12:00 pm
End:
June 6 @ 11:00 am