Here is my letter to Richter and it prompted a very quick call back. And I have his cell number and he urged to call whenever I had concerns after more changes will no doubt be made. At least he is talking to me.
I cannot believe this horse crap bill made it out of committee. What an insult to the sportsmen and small business owners in ND. Here are the pitfalls of this bill whether you want to believe them or not.
1. The game and fish is going to loose a very large chunk of money due to far less licenses sold. You better be prepared to fund them with the general fund.
2. The relationship between sportsmen and landowners will become horrendous and un-repairable.
3. Road hunting will skyrocket.
4. ND has far less public land than any of the surrounding states. The increased hunting pressure on what little public land there is will be enormous.
5. Opportunities for hunters is going to plummet. Therefore fewer and fewer will choose to hunt each and every year. Maybe that's your goal but I can't imagine that. I'm probably wrong.
6. This bill will not solve any of the concerns of landowners currently. All this bill does is prevent landowners from having to stick signs in the ground. And quite frankly that's what this bill is really all about.
7. Main street in small towns will suffer greatly from the reduced money spent from hunting.
8. The goose population will explode causing numerous biological and environmental issues in their breeding and wintering grounds.
9. Sales of hunting equipment will plummet in the state of ND
10. Vandalism will no doubt increase for landowners at least in the short term.
11. Poaching will definitely increase
12. The number of predators will greatly increase causing far more issues for ranchers
13. The deer herd will increase greatly causing far more depredation and you will have a game and fish with little to no money to compensate ranchers for the depredation.
14. Citizens will no longer be able to ride horseback throughout the country without first tracking down a landowner, which one will have no idea whom they are.
This is the worst bill that has ever been brought forth in our legislature. Nothing has given the citizens of ND the middle finger more than this bill. I cannot fathom legislators catering to special interest to the detriment of the rest of the citizens of ND at quite this level. One thing is certain, the campaign against any legislator voting for this bill, by a very large segment of North Dakotan's, should not be underestimated. It will be unrelenting. In fact I would almost guarantee an initiated measure eliminating this and forever putting an end to it's possiblity, in the next election. This one isn't going to slide by and be forgotten I can assure you.
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Here you go. Page 7, Line 18 to 20 is key. "No person may hunt or pursue game or enter for those purposes upon privately owned land belonging to another without first obtaining permission of the person legally entitled to grant the same."
They took out "legally posted" and inserted "privately owned". Every thing is considered posted, is now the default with 2315.
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Talk about gutless legislators, the Ag Committee members who voted for this bill would not respond that they did so, only the 3 who voted against it replied. Nor would they say who amended 2315 to make the default No Trespass on all private land. So much for open government. Spineless when a legislator can't have the courage to admit how he voted.
I think you're looking at an older bill or something. The current one, that I linked, doesn't even appear to have a page 7
