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Baiting bill, fee hike among top North Dakota outdoors legislation still in play

Mar. 8—The number of outdoors-related bills introduced during the 2025 session of the North Dakota Legislature is down from previous sessions, but a few pieces of legislation stand out, bill-watchers say. According to John Bradley, executive director of the North Dakota Wildlife Federation, the NDWF has been tracking about 20 bills that impact hunters, anglers and trappers. "Normally, we see about double that in a session," Bradley said. "It's been pretty quiet so far, but the good, positive bills that we've seen have moved through and have had really decent support from our legislators. "So, (we're) kind of optimistic going into the second half." Among the bills the NDWF is tracking is HB 1470 , which would increase the fees of some hunting and fishing licenses. The bill passed the House by a 64-25 vote and now awaits action by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The price of hunting and fishing licenses in North Dakota hasn't increased since 2013, when the Legislature approved a fee hike that took effect in 2014. The Game and Fish Department is mandated to keep at least $15 million in its reserve fund. Without an increase, that fund is projected to fall below $15 million in the next biennium. "We'll be supporting that in the Senate," Bradley said. "There hasn't been a license fee increase in over a decade. Everything else in this world has become more expensive, whether that's eggs, your mortgage ... you name it, it's gone up. And so, it's due time to keep the Game and Fish whole to keep them above their mandated $15 million reserve fund." The bill could see "a little bit more discussion" in the Senate, Bradley said, especially as it pertains to nonresident license fees. "We may see an uptick (in proposed nonresident fees) as that crosses over to the Senate, but 1470 as a whole is a good bill that we will be supporting," Bradley said. The proverbial elephant in the room among outdoors bills, though, is SB 2137, the so-called "baiting bill," which would prevent the Game and Fish Department from restricting the practice of supplemental feeding for hunting — commonly known as baiting — on private land in units with documented cases of chronic wasting disease. Game and Fish currently prohibits baiting for big game hunting on private land in hunting units with CWD-positive cases or within 25 miles of a confirmed CWD case. Baiting also is prohibited on state and federal lands. A neurological brain disease, CWD is always fatal to deer, elk and moose, although it can take several months or more before obvious symptoms appear. Proponents of the legislation to restrict the Game and Fish Department's current baiting ban authority flocked to the Capitol on Friday, Jan. 17, for the bill's initial hearing before the Senate Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Committee, forcing legislative staff to move the hearing to a larger room. Hunters who favor baiting and oppose efforts to ban it on private land say it's a property rights issue. They say it increases hunting success for young hunters and people with physical limitations. They also question CWD's impact on deer populations and argue it doesn't make sense to restrict baiting for hunting when supplemental feeding is allowed the rest of the year. Opponents, meanwhile, cite the potential disease risks of drawing deer into close quarters. The North Dakota Game and Fish Department in February reported 17 deer tested positive for CWD during the 2024 sampling season — 15 taken by hunters and two "clinical" deer confirmed through diagnostic examination. That brings the statewide total to 122 since 2009, when the disease first was detected in unit 3F2 in south-central North Dakota. The Senate approved SB 2137 by a 31-15 vote in late January, with a "sunset clause" amendment that the legislation be effective through July 31, 2029. The bill had its first hearing before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Friday, March 7, but no action was taken. Similar legislation passed the House by a 76-18 vote during the 2023 legislative session, only to be defeated in the Senate by a 26-21 vote in the closing days of the session. Two other bills introduced this session in the House — HB 1236 and HB 1325 , both of which would have limited the Game and Fish Department's ability to manage for CWD — were soundly defeated. One in particular, HB 1236, would have prohibited the department from using license dollars for CWD management. That bill was defeated by a vote of 63-27. Bradley of the NDWF says he thinks SB 2137 will get a "far more thorough" look in the House. "Our take on it is the (Game and Fish) Department is the best (option) to manage CWD in our state, and banning baiting in certain areas is one of the best tools to slow the spread of CWD," Bradley said. "And with any wildlife disease or even livestock disease, to lock something up in statute doesn't really give the agencies the proper leverage to be able to address something on the fly." As of Wednesday, March 5, the bill had received 247 pieces of written testimony on the North Dakota Legislative Branch website. Another bill that stands out, Bradley says, is HB 1094, which would allocate up to 10 big game licenses to nonprofit groups for fundraising. Existing legislation limits the allocation to 501C3 nonprofits, but HB 1094 would expand that to 501C19 nonprofits, which are veterans' organizations, Bradley said. The bill also would increase the percentage of fundraising proceeds that would have to go to conservation from 10%, the current level, up to 20%. "So, if a nonprofit were to get a moose tag and, say, raise $50,000, you'd be looking at $10,000 going back into the resource instead of just the original $5,000," Bradley said. Among other bills of note, HB 1237, which would have allowed nonresident hunters to buy full-season licenses for upland game and small game instead of limiting them to a 14-day license or two 7-day licenses, was defeated by an 86-4 vote in the House. Meanwhile, HB 1260, which would allocate nonresident any-deer bow licenses based on 15% of the current year's mule deer gun license allocation, passed the House by a vote of 87-3. Currently, the nonresident bow allocation is based on 15% of the previous year's mule deer gun license allocation. The change, if passed, would give the Game and Fish Department more flexibility in managing nonresident any-deer bow license numbers in years when mule deer populations are down. "If a bad winter were to come through and really wipe out the deer it would give more accurate counts heading into the next year, as opposed to the current system of using last year's numbers," Bradley said. For a complete listing of outdoors-related bills and their status in the Legislature, check out the Outdoors Legislation page of the Game and Fish website at Where North Dakota lawmakers vote on specific outdoors-related legislation, individual bills in the Minnesota Legislature, if they survive scrutiny, often are incorporated into an all-encompassing omnibus bill that includes several pieces of legislation as the session progresses. Among the bills currently in play are House File 276 and HF 413 , which would affect the cost of fishing licenses for residents age 65 and older. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, HF 276 would reduce the cost of a license by $10 for seniors, with lost revenue appropriated from the state's General Fund to the DNR's Game and Fish Fund. HF 413 would allow people 65 and older to fish without a license. Both bills have been laid over to possibly be included in an omnibus bill. A few other bills of note: * HF 944: Would allow landowners to use purple paint to mark no trespassing areas instead of placing physical signs. * HF 1120: Would establish and appropriate money to the Keep It Clean program, an effort encouraging anglers and fish house owners to pick up after themselves while on the ice. The bill would direct the DNR commissioner to develop a grant program to provide funds to local units of nongovernment organizations. * HF 1387: Would prohibit the sale, manufacture and use of lead tackle. Specifically, anglers couldn't use lead jigs weighing 1 ounce or less, or sinkers measuring 2 1/2 inches or less in length.