Maple River, Dickey County, ND.
Landowners, hunters, lawmakers, wildlife managers and others gathered in mid-December in Bismarck to discuss the importance of wildlife habitat on the landscape and providing access to hunters across the state.
Approximately 200 people attended the North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s Habitat and Hunting Access Summit where the evening opened with remarks from Gov. Kelly Armstrong on the importance of hunting to the state’s economy, workforce, but most importantly to North Dakota’s way of life.
“Every single time someone puts their gun away and says they’re done hunting because they can’t find anywhere to shoot a rooster, or just to have an opportunity to shoot a couple ducks, that means the likelihood of their kid hunting is almost zero,” Armstrong said. “And that’s really something that we should work on as landowners, as a government, as sportsmen … we should do everything we can to make sure that happens as few times as possible.”
And there are ways in which we can do this, Armstrong added, and there are ways in which we can have these conversations.
“But none of it’s going to happen overnight. But we have to remember that if we don’t pass this on to the next generation, it will die out,” he said. “It’s too big a part of the fabric of North Dakota to let that happen.”
Department staff gave presentations on the status of habitat and wildlife populations in the state, followed by moderated panel discussions addressing questions that were submitted by attendees.
The summit was hopefully only the beginning of what will be further conversations, initiatives and collaboration to address this very important topic to our state.
The summit was recorded and can be viewed here.
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