500,000 acre habitat program

[Duckslayer100]

Well, it's a start. Didn't see anything about the 500,000 acres also being open to hunting. Maybe that's in the works??

https://www.valleynewslive.com/2026...ounce-pilot-program-increase-habitat-land-nd/

Gov. Armstrong to announce pilot program to increase habitat land in N.D.​

BISMARCK, N.D. (Flag Family Media) - On the Flag, North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong said he will introduce a pilot project approved through the state’s Outdoor Heritage Fund on Thursday, January 29 to create more habitat.

“The first way you solve that before you ever get into access, before you get into everything else is have more deer. Have more pheasants. You can’t do that if you can’t have habitat,” Armstrong said on “What’s On Your Mind?”

The Outdoor Heritage Fund receives up to $40 million per biennium from oil and tax revenue to provide grants to state agencies, tribal governments, local governments and non-profits to enhance conservation.

Armstrong said he spoke to farmers and agriculture groups to see how more habitat on private property can be made after Conservation Reserve Program land went away and winter impacted the land.

He added there’s not a lot of public land in the state and if this pilot project works, he wants to figure out how to bring it statewide to have 500,000 acres of habitat land.

 

[Fritz the Cat]

Outdoor Heritage Fund

https://www.ndic.nd.gov/research-gr...or-heritage-fund-grant-rounds-final-reports-0

The Gov started with this program below.

https://www.ndic.nd.gov/sites/www/f...vernors-Legacy-Soil-Health-and-Habitat-P-.pdf

That proposal was for 10,000 acres. Looks like he wants to go bigger.

 

[Obi-Wan]

public money needs to require public access

 

[NDSportsman]

public money needs to require public access

Yep. Otherwise it'll just be public money for a private hunting area. Then fee for access on top of it.

 

[walleyeman_1875]

might as well put it out there in case someone can throw there political weight around and plant an idea in someone’s mind.

If it’s ND tax revenue, we might as well stipulate this habitat land is for Residents only!!

 

[NDbowman]

A little off topic but funny that Kelly Armstrong would talk about public access as he and a friend of his own some land in Mchenry county for hunting that has a 40 acre parcel of BLM land that is land locked with no access to the BLM land.

 

[Obi-Wan]

A little off topic but funny that Kelly Armstrong would talk about public access as he and a friend of his own some land in Mchenry county for hunting that has a 40 acre parcel of BLM land that is land locked with no access to the BLM land.

are you sure it is land locked ? no section line leading to it ?

 

[KDM]

I'm starting a daycare for deer and pheasants in ND. Where do I get the application for these heritage fund habitat grants? It's for the children after all.

 

[7mmMag]

are you sure it is land locked ? no section line leading to it ?

Section line right off the road. Looks like pretty easy access to me.

 

[walleyeman_1875]

I’d take 7th Ave on my side by side and call it close enough for legal entry

 

[NDbowman]

Section line right off the road. Looks like pretty easy access to me.

wrong, that is a 1/2 mile line. its in the middle of a section. Look at a plat map. The road is very close but there is a little bit of a private land between the road and blm.

 

[Slappy]

https://northdakotamonitor.com/2026...ss-productive-cropland-into-wildlife-habitat/

""Stafslien said he can’t help but think of the times he’s worked on particular corners of his fields in western North Dakota that he knows aren’t turning a profit.

“And as I farm those acres, I see that I’m spending dollars on some of that land that is not returning anything to me,” Stafslien said.""

So ND taxpayers will be paying federally subsidized farmers to stop farming land that shouldn't have been farmed in the first place. Great job, Governor!

 

[Kurtr]

The moneys going to be blown any way at least this helps with something useful. Habitat on private land is better than no habitat at all. Crp wasn’t public access and we seen how that can be successful

 

[Icepirate]

The moneys going to be blown any way at least this helps with something useful. Habitat on private land is better than no habitat at all. Crp wasn’t public access and we seen how that can be successful

Exactly. Everyone seems to forget CRP didn't require access. I remember back in the mid 2000s when CRP was plentiful. Some didn't allow any access, some allowed limited access, and some weren't posted period. The point is there were actually animals and birds around as opposed to a barren canola field. This program is a good start, even if it's small start.

 

[Icepirate]

https://northdakotamonitor.com/2026...ss-productive-cropland-into-wildlife-habitat/

""Stafslien said he can’t help but think of the times he’s worked on particular corners of his fields in western North Dakota that he knows aren’t turning a profit.

“And as I farm those acres, I see that I’m spending dollars on some of that land that is not returning anything to me,” Stafslien said.""

So ND taxpayers will be paying federally subsidized farmers to stop farming land that shouldn't have been farmed in the first place. Great job, Governor!

So you're not on board with more habitat? Do you hunt?

 

[Slappy]

So you're not on board with more habitat? Do you hunt?

One can be a hunter and support more habitat while still pointing out the absurdity of paying a landowner to undo something they chose to do which they admit was not profitable anyway.

Spending tax dollars on small unproductive corners is not a bold initiative. Finding a way to utilize the full sections of school trust land for better habitat would be a real game changer.

Looks like the outdoor heritage grants are only 5 year contracts which seems just long enough to become established before potentially going away. Do these contracts allow for haying during droughts like occurred with CRP?

 

[Traxion]

If you have the money is it a bad spend? No, habitat benefits everyone around. We have land with good habitat in SD. Our neighbor put in 40 acres of grass and we can’t hunt it. But there has been good spillover from it.

I agree farming unsuitable lands should not be subsidized. But with variable rate technology, most guys reduce inputs in those areas and take what they can get. That makes it tougher to push those acres out of production.