My 2 Cents

a difference a year makes. While winter is far from over, our fish and wildlife resources have been given a much-needed reprieve from the record setting winter of 2022-23. While most of the state at this time last winter was completely covered with significant snowpack, most of the state today is brown with maybe some patches of snow here and there.

All of us who make North Dakota our home know how much “we” like to talk about the weather. While the reasons vary of why that is, our changing weather patterns sure make it an easy conversation piece. Let’s hope come April and May we will be talking about the timely rains that have hit the landscape and that our growing season is off to a good start.

During the winter months, Department staff is consistently consumed with collaborative efforts with a wide variety of the public. Whereas every other year a good chunk of time is spent working with the North Dakota legislature on policy and budget issues, which impact our agency and the sportsmen and women who are the Department’s funding source.

While we consistently strive to take the opportunity to thank our partners for what they do to help support the Department’s mission, we are also working with groups and providing them the opportunities to discuss how to better balance the interests and desires of more conservation actions while being mindful of how some are impacted by those actions.

An example is while many may appreciate the growing number of elk in parts of the state, North Dakota’s landmass is largely held in private ownership and navigating the balance between increased opportunities and landowner tolerance is not something the Department takes lightly. Point being, this is one of many examples where having an open dialogue to discuss the pros and cons of various issues at least provides an opportunity for additional understanding and education to everyone involved in those conversations.

While we are early in the new year, I think it’s safe to say we are off to a good start and even if winter does decide to kick in, I’m hopeful we are late enough into the game that the good condition animals are currently in will be enough to see them through and not impact the reproductive success of many species.

I believe 2024 is setting up to be a great year for many outdoor adventures. The fishing should once again be “fire” (teenage slang) and considering the upland game bird success in 2023 was as high as we have seen in several years, there’s hope that will continue into the coming fall.

And if the weather holds and Mother Nature gives us somewhat of a pass this winter, that will have a positive impact on our big game species, especially deer, that need a break after disease setbacks and the winter of 2023.