If
you hunt in North Dakota, you are likely familiar with the state Game and Fish
Department’s Private Land Open to Sportsmen program.
The
inverted yellow, triangular signs that dot the state’s countryside are highly
sought markers this time of year when many hunting seasons are in full swing
and hunters are looking for additional places to chase roosters or waterfowl or
deer.
The
PLOTS program is a perfect example of a user pays, user benefits system. The
dollars necessary for the Game and Fish Department to fund more than 2,000
access agreements with private landowners, totaling more than 790,000 acres in
2019, come from hunters, through North Dakota license fees and federal excise
taxes on equipment such as firearms and ammunition.
In
recent years, hunters have continued to step up to the plate, so to speak, and
have outright donated a significant additional amount of funding for the PLOTS
program. This funding option got started in 2015 when the state legislature
authorized a bill that would allow North Dakota deer gun hunters to donate their
refunds – if they were unsuccessful in obtaining a license in the lottery
drawing – to the PLOTS program.
In
2017, legislators approved another bill that allowed resident deer gun,
muzzleloader, pronghorn and turkey hunters, who did not want to receive a
hunting license issued by lottery, to purchase a bonus point, with proceeds
from this option also allocated to
PLOTS
.
So
far, hunters – unsuccessful lottery applicants and those buying bonus points –
have voluntarily contributed almost $400,000 to the PLOTS program, according to
Game and Fish Department records. In addition, in 2019 alone, license buyers of
all types have donated another $75,000 directly to PLOTS.
“In
the past decade, where we’ve lost more than 808 linear miles of trees – the
equivalent of traveling from Fargo to Williston and back – and thousands of
acres of grass across the state, these dollars can help replace some of the
deer habitat that’s been taken off the landscape,” said Kevin Kading,
Department private land section leader, in a North Dakota Outdoors magazine
article in September 2018.
While
it takes time for the funds to grow and be allocated to the PLOTS program,
Kading said some of the money has already been used to plant grass habitat,
trees and wildlife food plots around the state.
The
habitat improvement projects completed thus far, and those in the future, are
on PLOTS lands. Kading said Game and Fish personnel are careful about picking
sites to plant grass and trees.
“We
are trying to place the new plantings in areas that are near other wildlife
habitat,” he said. “We want to tie into existing habitat bases that are already
out there.”
When
Game and Fish started these donation options, no one really knew how much
hunters would participate, but results so far indicate many hunters are more
than willing to go above and beyond when it comes to creating habitat and
access.
