South Dakota Wildlife Federation

Week 6 Legislative Report

The legislative bills relative to Game Fish and Parks that we have been following  have all been sent to the 41st day. Likelihood of new bills or hoghouse bills being introduced in the last 3 weeks of the legislative session are very slim. 

We will be watching the appropriations process relative to the Game Fish and Parks budget to see if it is adopted as introduced or if there will be changes to increase or decrease FTEs, add or subtract general fund dollars, or if there are new programs funded. Not hearing any rumors of anything substantive happening at this point. 

South Dakota Wildlife Federation will be sharing a booth with the 29/90 Club at the Sioux Falls Sportsman Show March 9th to the 12st. Please stop by the booth and say hello and register to win a prize! If you'd like to spend a couple hours in the booth volunteering your time to talk to men and women about becoming members of SDWF contact us today to set up a time to man the booth! 

Keep your shovels handy this week sounds like they might be needed!

Week 5 Legislative Report

We passed the halfway point this week so it’s all downhill from here! Very light year for outdoor, wildlife, recreational issues with this year’s legislature with 450 bills introduced. I attribute that to having 29 new members in the House, they’re figuring it out and I expect next year we’ll be back to that 550-600 bill average that we typically see. 

House Bill 1100 the proposal to offer landowner on own land only prairie elk licenses died last week in its first committee and then an effort to revive it this week also failed. I believe we’ve seen the last of any future elk hunting this year.

The Game Fish and Parks had their budget hearing in front of the Joint Appropriations committee. You can see the presentation here. More of the budget details can be found here. Further detail with a drill down into the numbers can be found here.

Very enjoyable year representing the South Dakota Wildlife Federation this year. Very capable assistance from David Nauman and volunteer lobbyists John Simpson and  George Vandel. It’s also very good that you sportsmen and sportswomen stay in touch with your local legislators providing input and observations from various legislative districts.

Get out and enjoy the South Dakota Outdoors!