Badlands archery hunting regulations to remain as they are for now

Apr. 20—LARIMORE, N.D. — No immediate changes are on the horizon for bowhunting regulations in the Badlands of western North Dakota, despite concerns from some hunters about overcrowding, the Game and Fish Department says.

Bill Haase, assistant wildlife chief for Game and Fish in Bismarck, gave an update on the issue Tuesday night, April 16, during the department's spring District 4 Advisory Board meeting in Larimore. Game and Fish is mandated to hold the meetings twice a year in each of the state's eight Advisory Board districts.

District 4 covers Grand Forks, Nelson, Pembina and Walsh counties.

In response to growing concerns about Badlands hunting pressure and overcrowding in the last five years, Haase said the Game and Fish Department assembled a working group to explore the issue. The stakeholder group included Game and Fish staff, a representative from Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, a representative from the North Dakota Bowhunters Association, a hunter who hunts the Badlands with a rifle and a landowner who also is an Advisory Board member, Haase said.

"We really (needed) to get to the root of it," he said. "Is this an issue that demands change — do we need to change our regulations? Or is it a situation where maybe we're just hearing from a few people, a few squeaky wheels?"

The working group looked at the issue from both a social and biological standpoint, Haase said, the latter because the Badlands archery pressure has ticked upward, and mule deer numbers have declined in recent years.

But the key issue, he said, was whether there was an appetite for changing the regulations. Bowhunters can hunt statewide, while deer gun hunters are confined to a specific unit.

"What the group decided on is, we need to figure that out first," Haase said. "What do our constituents — all of our hunters — want?"

To find out, Game and Fish contracted with HDNR Consulting LLC, a Colorado firm, to conduct a human dimensions survey of people who hunt in Badlands hunting units 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D and 4E. The survey was sent to a random sample of resident mule deer gun hunters, resident archery hunters, resident hunters who bow hunt and gun hunt, nonresident archery hunters and Badlands landowners who also participate in gratis deer hunting.

More than 9,100 hunters received the survey, and the response rate was 44%, according to a report from HDNR Consulting.

"We didn't want to do (the survey) ourselves because we didn't want to (insert) bias into it," Haase said. "We wanted to make sure it was something that we had professionals do — we don't do a lot of human dimensions surveys."

The survey asked "a pile of questions," Haase said, including one "very telling" question: Do you believe there's too much bow hunting pressure in the Badlands?

Two-thirds of the respondents said "no, there isn't," Haase said.

"So, in a way, we're thinking, 'Case closed, right? There's no need for change,' " he said. "It certainly is one of those where it tells us we don't need big change, that's for sure."

Another question asked respondents whether they supported changes to the archery season to reduce bowhunting pressure in the Badlands; nearly 55% said no, they didn't support that.

"We didn't know what to expect, but I was a little surprised," Haase said. "I thought these numbers would maybe be at least a little closer to 50/50 or maybe more people thinking there should be changes.

"This really solidifies the fact that we're glad we asked our constituents as a whole because you can get fooled sometimes, when you hear from just a few people, and it feels like a lot."

To sum up the survey, Haase said, respondents described "fairly high" hunting pressure in the Badlands, "not too bad" crowding and they don't necessarily want to see regulation changes.

At the same time, though, deer populations in the Badlands have declined the past three years, Haase says, the result of drought, severe winters and spring storms.

"The last three years, we've had record poor fawn production" in the Badlands, he said. "Last year was the worst fawn production we've ever had in the Badlands."

Still, the mule deer population in Badlands hunting units, at about seven per square mile, "isn't too bad," Haase said, largely because the department has been "very conservative" with its gun tag allocations.

"We'd like to be somewhere between eight and 10 mule deer" per square mile in the Badlands, he said.

Down the road, Haase said, the department may look at changing the way it issues nonresident "any deer" bow licenses, which hunters generally use to target mule deer. Currently, that number is set based on 15% of the previous year's mule deer gun tag allocation. That resulted in the department issuing 862 nonresident "any deer" bow tags in 2023 because 5,750 mule deer gun licenses were issued in 2022.

Ideally, Haase said, the department would like to set the nonresident "any deer" archery allocation at 15% of the current year's mule deer licenses — not the previous year. In 2023, that would have meant issuing 337 nonresident "any deer" archery tags instead of 862 because only 2,250 mule deer gun licenses were available — less than half the 2022 allocation — because of lower Badlands deer populations.

That change would take legislative action, Haase said.

Another option, which the Game and Fish Department could do by proclamation, would be to confine nonresident "any deer" archery hunters to unit-specific licenses in the Badlands instead of allowing them to hunt all Badlands units, which is currently the case.

Regardless, nothing will happen until at least 2025, Haase said.

"Maybe we'll do a couple of these little changes because that's what the consultants recommended," Haase said. "They said, 'You're in a unique situation. You're at that point right now where you're kind of teetering on an issue, but maybe you could get ahead of it with a couple of little changes and maybe head that off and not have any problems.' "

* On the web:

The full 28-page report, "Human Dimensions of Deer Hunters in North Dakota's Badlands Region (2024)," is available on the Game and Fish Department website at

gf.nd.gov/node/7518

.

Tuesday night's Game and Fish meeting was a tribute to Gary Rankin, the longtime district game warden from Larimore who spent 36 years with Game and Fish before retiring in 2013.

Rankin, 72, died Wednesday, Jan. 31.

The department hadn't held an Advisory Board meeting in Larimore in several years, said Jeb Williams, director of the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. The local KEM Roughriders group hosted the meeting.

"We thought, 'What a nice opportunity to come up here, have an Advisory Board meeting, talk about all the different things associated with the department but also take some time to really reflect and honor a good dude,' " Williams said.

Paul Freeman, Northeast District game warden supervisor for Game and Fish in Devils Lake, was Rankin's supervisor for a number of years before the Larimore warden retired.

"He was a man of few words, but he was a guy that you kind of had to listen to those words because they meant something," Freeman said. "For me, Gary's kind of like my fish-measuring stick. At the end of your career, you lay down by that fish measuring stick and you see how you added up.

"And I know where Gary's at. ... I hope I'm somewhere in-between."

Game and Fish wraps up its spring Advisory Board circuit this coming week with meetings in LaMoure, Forman, Williston and Mott.