My 2 Cents

Happy New Year.

I hope all of you had a blessed holiday season and that everyone (both people and wildlife alike) is faring OK in what looks to be a return of winter across the state. Some areas are worse than others, but most places seem to have received plenty of snow and cold in the early stages of our leanest months.

We’ve heard from many concerning the well-being of wildlife with weeks of winter remaining.

Pheasants and deer are rightfully the two critters most talked about as they are highly visible and typically the most impacted during a tough North Dakota winter. With a significant amount of snow on the landscape in places, teamed with stretches of temperatures far below zero, we must address the importance of wildlife habitat, and how trees, fruit-bearing shrubs, cattail sloughs and grassland cover can provide and protect our vulnerable species by providing the necessary thermal cover to get them through these winter months.

We are in the beginning phases of a legislative session where that very discussion of how the Department can do more to incentivize landowners to provide habitat on their property is rumored to come up. It is always a meaningful discussion, especially in North Dakota, where 93% of our state falls under private ownership.

As usual, many outdoor issues will receive some opportunity for debate and regardless of where you stand on the issue of the day, I encourage you to at least keep up with what is being debated and provide any input to local lawmakers. At the end of the day and things didn’t go the way you envisioned, yet you neglected to provide any input into the process, that frustration ultimately falls on the spectators.

We are fortunate to live in a world where everyone has a voice, and our input does indeed make a difference.

While the decisions made during the legislative session often play a major role in the lives of North Dakotans, I was reminded recently with the passing of a friend that we also need to keep everything in perspective as to what really matters.

A family that I grew up with in my hometown that were as closely tied to the outdoors as any group I have known, lost a brother, son, father, grandfather, and a good friend. Considering that most of my memories of Ryan have to do with the outdoors, it’s certain the outdoors also lost a passionate participant. His biggest passion was hunting big game, but he also wasn’t against wetting a line or shooting a few pheasants and grouse, flying ribeye as he liked to call them. He liked to tease and loved being teased, so seeing this big, stout guy gagging time and again when butchering his deer was always easy ammunition for some friendly ribbing.

Like many of us, he wasn’t without his midlife struggles, which ultimately had a big impact on himself and those around him. My memories of Ryan will consist of the times when life was a little simpler for all of us and that the hunting and fishing memories created are as enjoyable now as when they took place. Heaven gained a great storyteller, even if the story may have been a bit fabricated at times. One of Ryan’s best qualities was his ability to make others laugh, and that he certainly did.

RIP, Ryan.