Kansas lawmakers are at odds over a proposed law that will pinch duck and goose hunters coming from out of state. The proposal would restrict nonresident waterfowlers to searching simply three days every week on most public lands in Kansas. It could additionally increase the value of migratory waterfowl habitat stamps for each residents and nonresidents.
Supporters of the proposal say that limiting nonresidents to searching on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays will profit resident hunters and assist ease the strain on hen populations. They level to an imbalance of nonresidents in some public searching areas, together with what they are saying are modifications to migratory patterns which have resulted from all this strain.
The three-day-a-week restriction on nonresident hunters would apply to all public lands managed by the state and federal authorities, together with wildlife refuges. There are just a few exceptions, in keeping with the present textual content of the bill. It wouldn’t apply on designated walk-in properties or on navigable rivers inside the state. It additionally wouldn’t apply through the prolonged gentle goose conservation season. The invoice doesn’t point out any restrictions on personal property.
This concept to restrict nonresident duck hunters has been mentioned in Kansas earlier than, and state lawmakers have been planning to work on an analogous proposal for subsequent yr’s legislative session. However one lawmaker was unwilling to attend, in keeping with KAKE News. Sen. Virgil Peck added the proposal to an present searching invoice, SB 213, final week. The invoice cleared the state Senate simply on Thursday, with only one member voting towards it, and it’s now primed for debate within the Home.
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“The explanation this laws handed this physique was to guard our in-state waterfowl hunters, to provide them extra alternatives to hunt a few of the higher locations,” Sen. Peck informed the native outlet Monday. “We have been additionally having an issue with a few of our migratory birds altering their flight patterns due to extreme searching in sure areas.”
Peck’s second level has been extensively mentioned in lots of waterfowling circles, however there isn’t sufficient proof at this level to show that searching strain alone is altering flight paths. There are too many different components influencing migrations, experts say, together with climate circumstances from yr to yr and large-scale modifications to breeding and nesting habitats.
A note accompanying the invoice does help Peck’s claims about out-of-staters overcrowding resident hunters, nonetheless. It reveals that nonresidents accounted for roughly 40 p.c of all waterfowl hunters in Kansas through the 2020-21 season. (In comparison with a median of roughly 28 p.c in all of the years prior.) Though this was initially written off as a part of the “Covid Bump” that led to larger searching and fishing license gross sales in lots of states, figures from Kansas Division of Wildlife and Parks present even larger percentages of nonresident hunters through the years that adopted. That proportion has held regular at round 41.4 p.c over the past two seasons.
The 2020-21 season was additionally the primary time that out-of-state hunters outnumbered residents at Cheyenne Bottoms, in keeping with additional data from the KDWP. The enormous wetland in Central Kansas is a important stopping level within the Central Flyway and some of the well-liked duck-hunting locations within the Sunflower State.
KDWP migratory sport hen program supervisor Tom Bidrowski spoke to the consequences of all this throughout a public meeting in April 2023. Bidrowski famous how elevated strain results in lowered entry and decrease high quality looking for Kansans.
“Sustaining resident Kansas waterfowl hunters is a excessive precedence,” Bidrowski stated throughout his presentation, in keeping with Wildfowl, “and Kansas can not keep its waterfowl searching heritage with out robust resident waterfowlers.”
At the moment, the company was contemplating a regulation change that will have put comparable restrictions on nonresident waterfowlers. Along with limiting their searching days to Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, KDWP was different potential choices, together with boating restrictions and/or decreased bag limits for nonresidents. These modifications by no means occurred, nonetheless, which is why state legislators are taking on the problem.
And a few of these lawmakers are against the inclusion of non-resident searching restrictions in SB 213. At the least one state consultant complained individually in regards to the elevated prices that residents must pay for migratory waterfowl stamps. (Beneath the proposed legislation, resident stamps could be capped at $20, and nonresident stamps could be capped at $100. These stamps presently value hunters $10 no matter residency.) Their larger concern is that pinching out-of-staters will find yourself costing them conservation {dollars} and tourism cash in the long term.
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The proposal may have an outsized impact on waterfowl outfitters in Kansas, which frequently depend on out-of-state hunters to remain worthwhile. Limiting their purchasers to only a few days every week would hamstring duck and goose guides, who would in any other case choose their days in keeping with climate circumstances and hen numbers. It could additionally make issues tough for average-Joe hunters who journey to Kansas from Missouri or elsewhere to hunt the weekend however must be again at work on Monday morning.
“[That’s] fairly a little bit of income leaving our county, leaving our space, in the event that they’re not allowed to remain there Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and like some individuals, wish to hunt for the week,” Rep. Dale Helwig informed KAKE. “So for that cause, only for the financial profit in my space, I’m against this invoice.”
Rep. Webster Roth sided with Helwig, in keeping with KAKE, and stated he’ll work to make modifications to the invoice because it faces scrutiny within the Home. It was referred to the Committee on Agriculture and Pure Assets Friday. Any modifications ensuing from the invoice’s passage would go into impact in 2026.
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