North Dakota
Badlands archery hunting regulations to remain as they are for now
LARIMORE, N.D. – No immediate changes are on the horizon for bowhunting regulations in the Badlands of western North Dakota, despite concerns from some hunters about overcrowding, the Game and Fish Department says.
Bill Haase, assistant wildlife chief for Game and Fish in Bismarck, gave an update on the issue Tuesday night, April 16, during the department’s spring District 4 Advisory Board meeting in Larimore. Game and Fish is mandated to hold the meetings twice a year in each of the state’s eight Advisory Board districts.
District 4 covers Grand Forks, Nelson, Pembina and Walsh counties.
In response to growing concerns about Badlands hunting pressure and overcrowding in the last five years, Haase said the Game and Fish Department assembled a working group to explore the issue. The stakeholder group included Game and Fish staff, a representative from Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, a representative from the North Dakota Bowhunters Association, a hunter who hunts the Badlands with a rifle and a landowner who also is an Advisory Board member, Haase said.
“We really (needed) to get to the root of it,” he said. “Is this an issue that demands change – do we need to change our regulations? Or is it a situation where maybe we’re just hearing from a few people, a few squeaky wheels?”
Contributed / North Dakota Game and Fish Department
The working group looked at the issue from both a social and biological standpoint, Haase said, the latter because the Badlands archery pressure has ticked upward, and mule deer numbers have declined in recent years.
But the key issue, he said, was whether there was an appetite for changing the regulations. Bowhunters can hunt statewide, while deer gun hunters are confined to a specific unit.
“What the group decided on is, we need to figure that out first,” Haase said. “What do our constituents – all of our hunters – want?”
To find out, Game and Fish contracted with HDNR Consulting LLC, a Colorado firm, to conduct a human dimensions survey of people who hunt in Badlands hunting units 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D and 4E. The survey was sent to a random sample of resident mule deer gun hunters, resident archery hunters, resident hunters who bow hunt and gun hunt, nonresident archery hunters and Badlands landowners who also participate in gratis deer hunting.
More than 9,100 hunters received the survey, and the response rate was 44%, according to a report from HDNR Consulting.
“We didn’t want to do (the survey) ourselves because we didn’t want to (insert) bias into it,” Haase said. “We wanted to make sure it was something that we had professionals do – we don’t do a lot of human dimensions surveys.”
The survey asked “a pile of questions,” Haase said, including one “very telling” question: Do you believe there’s too much bow hunting pressure in the Badlands?
Two-thirds of the respondents said “no, there isn’t,” Haase said.
“So, in a way, we’re thinking, ‘Case closed, right? There’s no need for change,’ ” he said. “It certainly is one of those where it tells us we don’t need big change, that’s for sure.”
Another question asked respondents whether they supported changes to the archery season to reduce bowhunting pressure in the Badlands; nearly 55% said no, they didn’t support that.
“We didn’t know what to expect, but I was a little surprised,” Haase said. “I thought these numbers would maybe be at least a little closer to 50/50 or maybe more people thinking there should be changes.
“This really solidifies the fact that we’re glad we asked our constituents as a whole because you can get fooled sometimes, when you hear from just a few people, and it feels like a lot.”
To sum up the survey, Haase said, respondents described “fairly high” hunting pressure in the Badlands, “not too bad” crowding and they don’t necessarily want to see regulation changes.
At the same time, though, deer populations in the Badlands have declined the past three years, Haase says, the result of drought, severe winters and spring storms.
“The last three years, we’ve had record poor fawn production” in the Badlands, he said. “Last year was the worst fawn production we’ve ever had in the Badlands.”
Still, the mule deer population in Badlands hunting units, at about seven per square mile, “isn’t too bad,” Haase said, largely because the department has been “very conservative” with its gun tag allocations.
“We’d like to be somewhere between eight and 10 mule deer” per square mile in the Badlands, he said.
Down the road, Haase said, the department may look at changing the way it issues nonresident “any deer” bow licenses, which hunters generally use to target mule deer. Currently, that number is set based on 15% of the previous year’s mule deer gun tag allocation. That resulted in the department issuing 862 nonresident “any deer” bow tags in 2023 because 5,750 mule deer gun licenses were issued in 2022.
Ideally, Haase said, the department would like to set the nonresident “any deer” archery allocation at 15% of the current year’s mule deer licenses – not the previous year. In 2023, that would have meant issuing 337 nonresident “any deer” archery tags instead of 862 because only 2,250 mule deer gun licenses were available – less than half the 2022 allocation – because of lower Badlands deer populations.
That change would take legislative action, Haase said.
Another option, which the Game and Fish Department could do by proclamation, would be to confine nonresident “any deer” archery hunters to unit-specific licenses in the Badlands instead of allowing them to hunt all Badlands units, which is currently the case.
Regardless, nothing will happen until at least 2025, Haase said.
“Maybe we’ll do a couple of these little changes because that’s what the consultants recommended,” Haase said. “They said, ‘You’re in a unique situation. You’re at that point right now where you’re kind of teetering on an issue, but maybe you could get ahead of it with a couple of little changes and maybe head that off and not have any problems.’ ”
The full 28-page report, “Human Dimensions of Deer Hunters in North Dakota’s Badlands Region (2024),” is available on the Game and Fish Department website at
gf.nd.gov/node/7518
.
Tuesday night’s Game and Fish meeting was a tribute to Gary Rankin, the longtime district game warden from Larimore who spent 36 years with Game and Fish before retiring in 2013.
Rankin, 72, died Wednesday, Jan. 31.
Contributed / North Dakota Game and Fish Department
The department hadn’t held an Advisory Board meeting in Larimore in several years, said Jeb Williams, director of the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. The local KEM Roughriders group hosted the meeting.
“We thought, ‘What a nice opportunity to come up here, have an Advisory Board meeting, talk about all the different things associated with the department but also take some time to really reflect and honor a good dude,’ ” Williams said.
Paul Freeman, Northeast District game warden supervisor for Game and Fish in Devils Lake, was Rankin’s supervisor for a number of years before the Larimore warden retired.
Eric Hylden / Grand Forks Herald
“He was a man of few words, but he was a guy that you kind of had to listen to those words because they meant something,” Freeman said. “For me, Gary’s kind of like my fish-measuring stick. At the end of your career, you lay down by that fish measuring stick and you see how you added up.
“And I know where Gary’s at. … I hope I’m somewhere in-between.”
Game and Fish wraps up its spring Advisory Board circuit this coming week with meetings in LaMoure, Forman, Williston and Mott.
Today in History revisits the Tuesday, December 29. 1959 edition of the Grand Forks Herald and highlights a story on the UND Hockey team being names North Dakota team of the year.
The University of North Dakota hockey team was named “Team of the Year” after winning the NCAA Championship in a 4-3 overtime victory over Michigan State. Forward Reg Morelli was voted the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. Runner-up honors went to the Bismarck High basketball team for winning its third straight Class A title.
Sioux Ice Champs N. D. Team Of Year
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (as published by the Grand Forks Herald on Dec. 29, 1959)
North Dakota hockey stock reached a peak early in 1959 when the University sextet captured the NCAA championship with a 4-3 overtime victory over Michigan State.
The feat earned the Sioux icemen the accolade of “team of the year” in the annual Associated Press poll of sports editors and sports directors.
Runner-up honors in the balloting went to the Bismarck high school basketball team, which won its third straight Class A high school title.
The St. Mary’s high school football team, which came from no- where to win the Class A grid crown, won third place.
The University hockey team had taken western championship for the first time the year before, and finished second to Denver in the 1957-58 NCAA tournament.
As the 1958-59 campaign rolled around there were many problems to be solved if the Sioux were to maintain their position atop the college hockey world.
One by one the questions were resolved, and on March 14, at Troy, N. Y., North Dakota went into overtime to cop the coveted NCAA title.
Tremendous spirit marked the Sioux climb to the top. The North Dakota team won four games during the season in overtime, including two in the NCAA meet.
Members of the championship team included George Gratton and Bob Peabody, goalies; Ralph Lyndon, Julian Butherta, Pete Gaze- ly and Bob Began on defense; and Jerry Walford, Stan Paschke, Guy LaFrance, Art Miller, Ed Thomlinson, Joe Poole, Les Merrifield, Ron King, Bart Larson, Bernie Haley, Garth Perry and Reg Morelli, forwards.
Morelli Voted Most Valuable
Morelli was voted most valuable player in the NCAA tourney. Morelli and Thomlinson were on the first team and Lyndon and Poole on the tournament’s second team.
The Bismarck basketball feat of three straight state championships tied a record set by Fargo in 1922- 23-24. The Demons had an overall 21-3 record, averaged 61.6 points per game and held opponents to 49.3 per tilt on the season.
Starters were Ron Carlson and Bob Smith at forward, Rod Tjaden at center and Art Winter and Rich Olthoff at guards.
Carlson and Winter were all-west choices.
Here are “team of the year” choices, points in parenthesis:
- UND hockey (37)
- Bismarck high basketball (24)
- St. Mary’s high football (16)
- Bottineau high basketball (11)
- Valley City Teachers basket- ball (10)
- Williston high wrestling (5)
- Grand Forks Legion baseball (2)
- Shanley high football (1)
- NDAC football (1).
Our newsroom occasionally reports stories under a byline of “staff.” Often, the “staff” byline is used when rewriting basic news briefs that originate from official sources, such as a city press release about a road closure, and which require little or no reporting. At times, this byline is used when a news story includes numerous authors or when the story is formed by aggregating previously reported news from various sources. If outside sources are used, it is noted within the story.
A storm bearing down on the Great Lakes and New England is expected to bring rain, snow, and high winds over the next few days.
A narrow band from Fargo, North Dakota south to approximately Mason City, Iowa is under a blizzard warning ahead of the storm. That includes parts of of both states as well as parts of Minnesota. Winds in the affected areas are forecast to reach 45 miles per hour and, paired with an expected 3 to 8 inches of snow, are expected to create whiteout conditions through the start of the week.
Michigan’s upper peninsula is under a blizzard warning as well. There, snowfall is expected to be between 9 inches and 2 feet, and winds are expected to reach as high as 60 miles per hour, ABC News reports.
The National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories for parts of the northeast, from the Scranton, Pennsylvania up through Burlington, Vermont and Portland, Maine. Freezing rain is expected in that area on Sunday and Monday.
Buffalo and Jamestown, New York, are also both under flood watches from Sunday afternoon until Monday afternoon.
Back in the Great Lakes region, both Cleveland and Detroit are bracing for high winds. Forecasters expect the cities will see gusts of up to 60 miles per hour on Sunday night through early Tuesday morning.
In the upper midwest, both Minneapolis and Green Bay are forecast to see between 5 to 9 inches of snow. A level 1 of 5 severe storm threat exists in a stretch from northern Indiana south into Missouri. That band includes Indianapolis, St Louis, Louisville, and Nashville. The affected region will be subject to high speed, damaging wind gusts, according to Fox Weather.
The storm began dropping snow on Sioux Falls and Fargo early on Sunday morning, and will continue to sweep east across the northern sections of the U.S. The midwest will begin to see storm conditions on Sunday afternoon, and the northeast will be affected shortly thereafter.
Road travelers in the affected regions should be wary. Parts of the I-95 corridor between Philadelphia and Boston may be made treacherous by freezing rain around 5 pm on Sunday night.
Forecasters believe that the storm system will clear by Monday night, though lake-effect snow is likely to follow in its wake for Great Lakes communities. That snow will likely continue into Tuesday and potentially Wednesday.
In northern New England, wintry precipitation may produce up to a quarter of an inch of ice in the area. While the interior northeast is expected to receive some lake-effect snow as well, forecasters believe snowfall in the region will be lighter.
The storm comes on the heels of another winter weather system that swept across the northeast earlier this week, dropping snow on New York and New Jersey and forcing thousands of flights to be either cancelled or delayed.
LINCOLN, N.D. (KFYR) – Lincoln got its very own cat cafe last week.
Ashley Kneavel learned about cat cafes while visiting another state.
“I fell in love with the concept and wanted to bring something like that to North Dakota,” said Kneavel.
And so with the help of Furry Friends Rockin’ Rescue director Julie Schirado, she got to work.
“About a year ago, I think it was, we started building this together,” said Kneavel.
Furry Friends’ role in the operation? Providing the cats. All of them are pre-vetted, meaning they are spayed and neutered and fully vaccinated.
Meaning they’re also ready for adoption.
“Instead of them sitting at a shop, they get to sit in an atmosphere that’s closely resembled to a home,” said Kneavel.
The cafe has already had three of its four-legged residents adopted.
“It’s a great thing to see when somebody comes in and connects with them on a deep level and takes them home,” said Kneavel. “It’s just… I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s just very rewarding.”
One of her goals in the future is to install a drive-thru window.
To learn how to adopt a furry pal from the cafe, or how to book a visit, click here.
Copyright 2025 KFYR. All rights reserved.
Who is Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s leader after Maduro’s capture? | CNN
Sister warned Bryan Kohberger about ‘psycho killer’ on the loose before his arrest: ‘Be careful’
WATCH: Ohio police smash sunroof, drag injured driver from burning car after rollover crash
University of Oklahoma teaching assistant fired after flunking Christian student files appeal with school
Georgia teen charged with murdering Uber driver in suburban carjacking, leaving him to die
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Who is Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s leader after Maduro’s capture? | CNN
Trump says US will ‘run Venezuela’ after seizing President Maduro in military assault | BBC News
He can make anything out of toothpicks (1983)
FBI says it thwarted potential New Year’s terror attack ‘directly inspired’ by ISIS
Bernie Sanders: Mayor Mamdani’s ideas are ‘not radical’
-
Entertainment1 week agoHow the Grinch went from a Yuletide bit player to a Christmas A-lister
-
Connecticut1 week agoSnow Accumulation Estimates Increase For CT: Here Are The County-By-County Projections
-
World6 days agoHamas builds new terror regime in Gaza, recruiting teens amid problematic election
-
Indianapolis, IN1 week agoIndianapolis Colts playoffs: Updated elimination scenario, AFC standings, playoff picture for Week 17
-
Southeast1 week agoTwo attorneys vanish during Florida fishing trip as ‘heartbroken’ wife pleads for help finding them
-
World1 week agoSnoop Dogg, Lainey Wilson, Huntr/x and Andrea Bocelli Deliver Christmas-Themed Halftime Show for Netflix’s NFL Lions-Vikings Telecast
-
World1 week agoBest of 2025: Top five defining moments in the European Parliament
-
Business1 week agoGoogle is at last letting users swap out embarrassing Gmail addresses without losing their data