Volunteers Continue to Fuel Hunter Education

The North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s hunter education program graduated its 200,000th student in 2015.

The milestone, reached in the program’s 37th year, didn’t go entirely unnoticed within the agency. Yet, with the demand to provide courses across the state and retain and recruit enough instructors to teach the Department’s largest volunteer-led program, there was no pause to celebrate.

State law requires anyone born after December 31, 1961 who wants to hunt in North Dakota to pass a certified hunter education course. Since the first classes in 1979, more than 205,000 students have graduated.

Putting a total to the number of volunteer instructors who have helped with the program over the years is more difficult.

Two thousand, maybe? It’s only a guess.

What’s not a guess, said John Mazur, Department hunter education coordinator, is that Game and Fish currently has roughly 700 volunteer instructors teaching classes across the state. And, in North Dakota’s most populated urban areas, there are never enough courses to meet the demand.

"We could run a course every week in our bigger population areas and fill them every time," Mazur said.

In 2015, Mazur said 210 traditional classroom courses were held around the state, and an additional 30 home-study courses were taken online.

"The bulk of our hunter education courses run from January through the end of May," he said. "We get most of them done before the deer application deadline in June."

The hunter education program’s foundation is its volunteer instructors.

"Without the volunteers – sometimes it takes two, three or more to teach a course – there wouldn’t be a program," Mazur said. "On average, the volunteer instructors are dedicating 35 hours per year of their time, and some are doing way more than that by teaching several courses per year."

Greg Link, Department conservation and communications chief, said for some students, their first exposure to the state’s natural resources and rich hunting heritage is in a hunter education class.

"We want to captivate those students," Link said. "By having kids and other older students that are engaged in hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities, then they have a connection, an understanding of what we do. They are the building blocks, the citizenry of what we do."

In time, Link said this citizenry understands that they have something to gain and something to lose when it comes to the state’s natural resources. To effectively carry out the Department’s mission of protecting, conserving and enhancing the state’s wildlife resources for public use and enjoyment, he said the agency needs public support. A public that cares and understands what it takes to keep healthy wildlife populations on the landscape.

"Hunters have been passionate supporters of conservation efforts. They’ve been instrumental in forging and lobbying for legislation that provided both protection and funding necessary to restore wildlife populations," Link said. "License dollars and a federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition purchased by hunters have funded key research, annual surveys and habitat establishment, which are all essential ingredients in wildlife restoration. Hunters, through prescribed harvesting of surplus wildlife, have played an important role in keeping these restored populations in check."

Link said the hunter education program was developed to teach new hunters the fundamentals of firearm safety, develop shooting skills and provide a basic understanding of firearms and ammunition components and functions. It also provides students with a foundation of hunter ethics, wildlife management and habitat conservation.

"While it’s essential that new hunters go afield in a safe and responsible manner, it’s equally important that they strive to be ethical hunters, understand fair chase and respect the land, landowners and the public’s wildlife," Link said. "Hunter education instructors have the opportunity to instill in them the passion of the hunt and the privilege of joining the ranks of a rich heritage.

"At the same time, we need students to understand that becoming a hunter is not just about picking up a gun and pursuing their favorite wild game," he added. "Along with the right of passage to hunt comes a heavy responsibility to be an advocate for wildlife and its management, a steward of the land and the resources that sustain wildlife populations."

Mazur said the Department’s volunteer portion of the hunter education program needs to grow to keep pace with the increasing demand of those wanting to take classes. He would like to see the number of instructors climb from today’s roughly 700, to 1,000.

Is it a tall order?

"When you consider how small a percentage that is in terms of the state’s overall population, I don’t think it is," Mazur said. "I understand that there is turnover every year. Even so, we’d like to get to that number and maintain it."

Game and Fish has started a concentrated effort, with a campaign slogan of "Pass on the Passion and Continue the Heritage" to recruit hunter education and other agency program volunteers.

Mazur said a youth hunter education mentor program is also in the works to help welcome new recruits into the fold.

With this program, in short, hunter education graduates age 14 and older can help instruct in hunter education classes under proper guidance. And once they turn 18 and meet all the requirements, they become master instructors.

"I hope this is an attractive program for kids in North Dakota," Mazur said. "We need to get them interested when they are young and hopefully they’ll decide to stick with the program."

While the process to become a hunter education instructor hasn’t changed much (visit the Department’s website at gf.nd.gov to get the process rolling), adjustments are ongoing in the Department’s continuing education effort with current instructors.

Starting in 2015, Game and Fish has hosted instructor academies to discuss new teaching methods and strategies to bring continuity to the courses throughout the state. This year, academies were held in Devils Lake and Medora.

"Because our instructors are doing such an important job, we want to empower them and give them the best tools to be the best teachers they can be," Link said. "That’s what the academy is really about."

Letter from an Instructor

Volunteer hunter education instructor Eric Viall, Ray, sent the following unsolicited letter to the Game and Fish Department in summer 2015.

Dear Outdoorsmen and Women,

The youth of the state have a milestone to complete if they want to stride in the footsteps of their ancestors.

Hunter education has been a rite of passage in the state since it was required, starting in 1979. I took the class back in 1998, and still remember the excitement.

I worked through the hunter’s ten commandments that first night and bombed the quiz the second night. We watched survival videos on how to get water from desert plants, remaining calm in survival situations, and when to hold back on an unsafe shot. I practiced my carries at home with Dad and practiced crossing an imaginary fence.

The crowning moment was not the night I passed the test, but the day I came home from school to find an envelope waiting with my name on it. I opened the envelope, saw the orange hunter education graduate card, and held the ticket to the outdoors in my hand. The card represented my promotion from bird dog to hunter.

I was an avid hunter throughout high school and my first couple years of college. However, the demands of graduate school pulled me away from the outdoors. I missed my time in the field and wanted to rediscover my passion.

Three years ago I decided to become a North Dakota hunter education instructor. Seeing the faces of the young people who enter those doors on the first day of class brings back the excitement of the outdoors. The students beam with eagerness to learn the correct methods for outdoor safety. During class, I witnessed the passion these young men and women have for exploring the outdoors and spending time with friends and family, which reignited the passion I once held for outdoor sports.

I always considered myself a safe hunter, but now I feel an even greater responsibility to set a good example for the next generation. Moreover, I have become a student again. I find myself reading more conservation and hunting articles to stay one step ahead of those random questions that are so often fired off in class.

I encourage anyone to become an instructor, to reignite that passion for the outdoors. I learn with my students and, more importantly, from my students. The questions students ask challenge one to think quickly and admit that you do not know it all.

Being an instructor provides an opportunity to work with the next generation of hunters. One can feed off the energy that can only reside in the mind of a 12-year-old on the cusp of leaving behind the ranks of "bird dog" and entering the ranks of "hunter."

Sharing your knowledge will stir a new fire for your passion, and you will open the doors to the next generation of hunters. You will not regret the decision for a moment.

Sincerely, Eric Viall