BBC Interesting Article

South Dakota requires non residents to draw a waterfowl license unlike their neighbor to the north who gets flooded with non residents and in return gets a large influx of revenue.

Wonder if South Dakota might change to match North Dakota in the future to help with funding?
 
It's interesting to me that South Dakota has such a big drop in hunter numbers. I know small towns don't seem to growing in that area, so I wonder if the shifting demographics have a lot to do with the decline. I also find it interesting that because of the non-resident draw for waterfowl, there aren't as many outfitters and rich guys leasing land, so a the drop can't be blamed on the influx of non-residents.
 
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Nathan said:
South Dakota requires non residents to draw a waterfowl license unlike their neighbor to the north who gets flooded with non residents and in return gets a large influx of revenue.

Wonder if South Dakota might change to match North Dakota in the future to help with funding?
Click to expand...
Total guess on my part, but I doubt it. You shoulda seen all the hoopla that was created when they increased the NR waterfowl tags slightly a couple years ago. After seeing that I doubt they would do anything like.


Also, most of SD's Non resident revenue is based around pheasant hunting. After that all of hunting is really for resident hunters with just a minor splash for NR. There of course are a few exceptions to this, but in general its tough to be a NR trying to hunt in South Dakota.


With regards to leasing land and what not, I can say from being over here it is still a big issue. But in general its a lot more of pheasant guides leasing the land for everything, but tying to get goose hunting ground in SD is down right impossible. I won't go into many details, but after trying for a couple years I gave up trying to get private land for geese. A lot of this is coming from South Dakota residents no doubt.
 
Not surprising waterfowl hunting is tanking. It's an expensive sport...go through lots of ammo, decoys are expensive, bird dogs are a major money and time commitment, etc. Lots of rich boomers lease a bunch of the best areas. To top it off waterfowl just aren't that great as tablefare, unless you like dining on mud flavored liver...

Fun to do and used to be pretty tough on the waterfowl, but just lost interest in it for the reasons I listed.
 
BuzzH said:
Not surprising waterfowl hunting is tanking. It's an expensive sport...go through lots of ammo, decoys are expensive, bird dogs are a major money and time commitment, etc. Lots of rich boomers lease a bunch of the best areas. To top it off waterfowl just aren't that great as tablefare, unless you like dining on mud flavored liver...

Fun to do and used to be pretty tough on the waterfowl, but just lost interest in it for the reasons I listed.
Click to expand...

Yah I’m phasing out waterfowling for the mainly the same reasons. I still love beating up local ducks and early migrating species on small sloughs with two dozen decoys and a canoe, but I’m done putting 100 miles on my truck knocking on doors all day looking for a field to hunt as the season progresses. Just can’t justify it anymore.
 
I have never hunted South Dakota before, but I have a few thoughts on why South Dakota’s numbers may be dwindling.
1. A lot of businesses take/took customers or employees on pheasant hunts to big lodges and as budgets tighten those expenses are first to go.
2. Migrations are changing. Look at the guys in eastern Colorado, eastern Wyoming and eastern Montana laying the smack on ducks and geese. With less pressure and easier access it’s a no brainer for traveling waterfowlers.
 
Back to the article, I don't see the false dichotomy they put between "subsistence" and "trophy" hunters. Each one eats the animal, each values different parts of the animal. Those outside the tradition may split hunters into groups, but for other hunters to distance themselves from other hunters who are legally and ethically pursuing the same animals is not genuine. We all hunt for a myriad of reasons and to different degrees; but we are all still hunters.
 
That dichotomy we should be worrying about isn't trophy vs. subsistence per se. It's not a very clean split anyways. Most everyday hunters are a little bit of both, swinging one way or the other depending on the circumstances.

The real dichotomy we should be concerned about is the common everyday hunter vs. the hunters who want to buy their way into being a good hunter, which they measure by killing a few big animals without putting in too much work. People like that are used to being able to buy whatever they want and rarely have to put in the sweat equity for anything. There's a big difference between 1) someone who trophy hunts under limited circumstances when it's best for the resource or who trophy hunts for the challenge and experience without crowding others out and 2) someone who trophy hunts for their ego fulfillment, product sales, and to crowd others out so they can control it all for themselves and thus make it easier on themselves to shoot a big animal. Group 2 wants to do the majority of their hunting with their wallet and go around bragging about what a great white hunter they are without actually putting in the work or learning.

That last group of people are a very real problem in terms of recruiting new people into the sport. Look at where the massive declines in hunter participation are happening. It's not places like Wyoming where we have ample opportunity to hunt on public lands. It's your more private land states that are driving the decline, simply because it's easier for a few people who want to buy their way into being a good hunter to lock damn near everything up in places like that.

The remedy to the problem is that common hunters need to stop worshipping these wannabes and especially stop buying their crap and supporting their platforms when they have them.They're like a lot of politicians. You share some of their values and so they want you to think they're just like you and working for you. They talk a good talk. But they're not helping you and they don't care about you, they're in it for themselves, often at your expense. That's the reason I only watch shows like Fresh Tracks, OYOA, Meat Eater etc. I've had enough of these wannabes that are ruining hunting for everyone else. I've watched them gobble up nearly all the good hunting on private, push everyone else onto public, and I've seen way too many hunters whose names are all over the record books who would be worthless if it wasn't being handed to them. Again, those are the people and the dichotomy that are furthering the demise of hunting, along with other factors such as disease, population growth, habitat loss etc.
 
A couple of personal observations from my time living in SD (early to mid-2000's) to today when I go back to visit.

The loss of native grassland and CRP is staggering. I watched it happening back then, its not a new trend. Changes to Farm Bill incentives, commodity prices, and farming practices all play a part. You can't lose that much nesting habitat and not eventually have an impact on local bird populations (waterfowl or upland). Similarly, the miles of drain tile put in the ground to dry out non-delineated wetlands keeps adding up. Again, you change habitat on that scale and it eventually adds up.

Leasing of private land has limited access to those lands by the average hunter. When I lived in eastern SD it was tough to knock on a door and get permission for pheasant hunting, albeit still doable especially later in the season, but generally waterfowl permission was easier to obtain. At the same time my friends who grew up in western MN kept talking about all their old spots getting leased. Seems that wave just kept moving west. My friends in eastern SD today say they rarely bother knocking on doors, got tired of the same ol' story of the land being leased. I'm not blaming landowners, just saying that will shift where the general public does and doesn't hunt.

Are any of these observations to blame for SD's drop in waterfowl hunter numbers? Maybe, can't say for sure. Such issues are rarely the result of a single factor. I can say when I drive through SD today the landscape is noticeably different than it was 20 yrs ago.
 
Nothing will hurt hunter recruitment and retainment in the future more than the continued monetization of the sport. Let face it the hunters that spend the most and gain the most opportunity, be it from tags, land ownership, leasing, ect ect do so because they developed ad desire to hunt. Would they, myself included, have that same desire if we had faced the same barriers of entry that new hunters face today? Hunters desire for exclusivity in our pursuits will be our downfall, and we have no-one to blame but ourselves. At some point the bottom will drop out due to the average age and there just won't be enough new hunters to back fill. Who knows maybe at that stage hunting will go through a Renaissance when there isnt enough people to meet all the opportunity, but I doubt it.
 
When the public is surveyed of their opinion on "trophy hunting", I think the images conjured up is something akin to rich people posed over dead lions that were shot in a pen, then spammed all over social media. I seriously doubt 80% of Americans oppose hunters who eat their kill, support conservation, and prefer to hold out for a mature animal when possible. It's a buzz phrase that means very different things depending if you're in the hunter crowd or not. Www.bornfreeusa.org/campaigns/wildlife-trade/trophy-hunting
 
Funny, I'm going to apply for waterfowl this year in SoDak!
 
ElkFever2 said:
When the public is surveyed of their opinion on "trophy hunting", I think the images conjured up is something akin to rich people posed over dead lions that were shot in a pen, then spammed all over social media. I seriously doubt 80% of Americans oppose hunters who eat their kill, support conservation, and prefer to hold out for a mature animal when possible. It's a buzz phrase that means very different things depending if you're in the hunter crowd or not. Www.bornfreeusa.org/campaigns/wildlife-trade/trophy-hunting
Click to expand...


Kinda.

But im pretty sure the public sees a photo of some dude, surrounded by guides vs dude with his family and they know a difference. Combine that with the huge dollars paid to those guides.

I can hear my grandpa/uncles.

"You paid how much to kill a deer? You could have bought a herd of cows"
 
I would second the notion that SD is not particularly friendly to non-residents with anything except pheasant hunters with money. That's fine, I'm all for looking out for their own, and not in a NM 'landowner' sort of way. But, the urban/rural divide is striking SD just like everywhere else. I think that is a big driver to the phenomenon that this article and many others discuss. I don't know the exact numbers, but a lot of the state's population lives within 50 miles of Sioux Falls or Rapid City. I think you see similar trends in all states.

So, if a state like SD relies mostly on residents, and there are gradually fewer resident hunters, then something has to change. Either cut the budget, like they've done, raise resident tag costs, or add more nonres tags.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for recruiting more hunters nationwide. But that will be a very slow ship to turn that each of us has a part in.

FWIW, I was a SD resident for the first half of my life and I try to go back and hunt deer when I can draw a tag. I too have seen the monetization thing hit big game opportunities hard when it just used to affect pheasant hunting opportunities. It's a free and capitalist country, but that often throws up barriers to potential new hunters too. That's another phenomenon that covers most states as well.
 
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