# ND Wildlife Federation Flickertails



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

I'm late,  
__________________________________________________________
3 Clubs Become NDWF Affiliates!

Three highly motivated wildlife clubs recently voted to become affiliates of the North Dakota Wildlife Federation. The Lincoln Sportsmen's Club was the first to sign on with the NDWF, two days later the Richland County Wildlife Club decided to do the same. Just before we went to press, the North Dakota Fur Takers of America informed us that it also voted to become an affiliate.

In this issue you'll find a brief summary of each club's history, what activities they've been up to, and what they have planned for the future. Please join me in welcoming the Lincoln Sportsmen, the Richland County Wildlife Club and the North Dakota Fur Takers into the fold.

Lincoln Sportsmen's Club

The Lincoln Sportsmen's Club is a small organization with about 50 members, but they have big plans for the future. They meet every third Tuesday of the month in the Tumbleweed Bar and Grill banquet room in Lincoln. The annual events include:

• An annual hog roast, which will be held this year on September 23rd from 5-9 p.m. in the Tumbleweed Bar's banquet room. This is the Lincoln Sportsmen's main fund raising event.

• On Dec 2, the Sportsmen will hold its 2nd annual Big Buck Contest. There, they place an emphasis on the youth buck contest. Any kid up to 18 years old can enter the youth category for free, with the winner receiving a free mount. The adult category also features a free mount for the winner plus there is a "best of show" category voted won by the spectators.

• In February or March, the Lincoln Sportsmen hold its annual Kids' Ice Fishing Derby. Prizes include trophies for each age group plus other door prizes. Every kid has a great time eating hotdogs and chips and drinking hot chocolate or pop.

The Lincoln Sportsmen enjoy getting involved with, or sponsoring anything that is youth oriented. Examples are youth sports of any type, hunter safety and anything that promotes and preserves the future of hunting and fishing in North Dakota. One of the main reasons the Sportsmen say they signed on with the NDWF is the full-time lobbyist we hire, they say they want to get more active in statewide wildlife issues.

Richland County Wildlife Club

For nearly 30 years, the Richland County Wildlife Club has actively pursued a number of habitat improvement projects. On many of its projects it has partnered with the North Dakota Game & Fish Department to accomplish its goals. For many years, the club has worked to improve the water quality in Lake Elsie near the town of Hankinson. There, members built a break water pier to reduce the amount of silt that enters the lake. The club also nets and removes rough fish from Lake Elsie to compliment its pan fish stocking efforts from its own rearing pond. In recent years the Richland County Wildlife Club has built fishing piers, boat ramps and installed a dock on Lake Elsie.

Each year the club also sponsors a local Hunter's Education class, the Junior Duck Stamp project, local science fair projects, and has a team on the Hankinson Relay for Life. Richland County's membership numbers may be rather small, but its efforts and accomplishments have not gone unnoticed by wildlife officials across the state.

North Dakota Fur Takers of America

The North Dakota Fur Takers of America, Chapter 3 was organized in 1967 by trappers and hunters to promote furbearer management and market enhancement. Since then, it has actively provided education to the general public on the methods and techniques used by trappers, as well as the impact of these activities. The fur takers also participate in education booths at sport and trade shows, in-school activities using actual trapping equipment, working with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department on education and providing input on furbearer management, and legislative work when it is in session.

The N.D. Fur Takers will bring 60 new members to the North Dakota Wildlife Federation.

President's Report

To all NDWF members,

Shawn and I recently attended a President/Executive Director meeting held in Helena, Montana. Three National Wildlife Federation regional representatives plus folks from the states of Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado and Montana were present. Wyoming was invited but did not attend. The discussion was on "best practices" of each organization and to share ideas with one another.

The Montana Wildlife Federation has gone from 15 clubs in 1995 to 23 today with about 9,000 members. It uses telemarketing to recruit new members, its in-house staff of six full-time and four part-time employees do the work. Representatives said they wish they had more active board members though. One-half of Montana's membership is made up of affiliate clubs with the rest being individual members. Of the individual members, about one-half are non-resident. Montana follows up the telemarketing with letters.

South Dakota has about 4,000 members with a similar mix of clubs and individuals as Montana. To recruit members, the club buys lists of people who purchase hunting or fishing licenses, or who subscribe to outdoor magazines, it then sends mailings to contact prospective members.

Colorado has about 1,000 members with almost all being individual memberships. Representatives told us that they are pretty envious of how the North Dakota Wildlife Federation is doing.

Almost all states said that having a full-time executive director was a very important part of the organization. It was recommended that strategic plans be implemented and upgraded as needed, to keep a club on track. I feel we have a very well organized structure with our organization and do not need to dwell on any changes there.

The Washington Wildlife Federation has a form that each board member fills out at the end of every meeting to address the memberships concerns. We are looking at doing something similar here in North Dakota.

Each organization has a different way of fundraising with the banquet/auction format being the most popular.

Idaho has local businesses buy full tables at its banquet and then invites club members or its employees to sit at them for free.

Montana has a very well-organized e-mail network which we should learn from in time for the upcoming legislative session. When the club has an 
important issue it needs grassroots help on, the e-mail goes out and calls pour in to the legislators' offices. We are in the process of developing a similar system. We could call it the Political Action Network or PAN, with pan-a-grams being sent out as needed.

After the meeting on Sunday, National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger, Affiliates Director Dan Chu, and Jaime Matyas, NWF Chief Operating Officer, joined us for a BBQ lunch. We also discussed plans to go fishing Monday morning.

Monday saw us scrambling to look for North Dakota's NWF regional rep Land Tawney's lost car keys. Once we found them, we headed for the town of Craig and a fishing access point on the Missouri. This stretch of river has a reported 6,000 fish per mile and is said to be one of the best fly-fishing spots in the country. There were 12 of us fishing in rafts, and it was the first time fly-fishing for both Shawn and myself. I was horrible on my casting until we stopped and waded on a river bend. There I upgraded my casting to just bad. The rainbow and brown trout went on a feeding frenzy at about 10 a.m. chasing the small midge that were hatching. We found out that trout are very finicky about what they eat. As we stood on the banks of the river casting into a hot spot with no success, an outfitter floated by with two of his clients and they both caught a fish in the same spot where we were. Obviously we were not using the correct bug.

Out of 12 fishermen, there were only two fish caught and Shawn caught one of them. I really wanted a spinner and crawler for all the fish I saw on the bottom, but in Montana they don't fish that way. We pulled out of the river near the mouth of the Dearborn River, a place where Lewis and Clark camped on their way up the Missouri. It was an enjoyable day on the water and we even managed to conduct a little business. Thanks to NWF President Schweiger for the visit and thank you to our host, the Montana Wildlife Federation.

Don Baasch

NDWF in Action

July and August have been busy months for the North Dakota Wildlife Federation. From July11 through the 13 NDWF Executive Director Shawn McKenna was in Washington D.C. to lobby North Dakota's congressional delegation on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation. The NWF is looking to get out in front of a wave of interest that has been directed towards using grasses grown on CRP acres to provide fuel for the growing ethanol industry. North Dakota's three members of congress all sit on important agriculture committees and the NWF wanted to inform Senators Conrad, Dorgan, and Representative Pomeroy that the Conservation Reserve Program is not the right place to find materials to make ethanol.

Both the NDWF and the NWF do support the ethanol industry because of its great potential to help reduce pollution and our country's dependence on foreign oil. The technology that could convert grasses grown on CRP to ethanol is still a few years away from being fully developed, but in the meantime, we want to make sure the Conservation Reserve Program is protected for hunters for years to come. The effects that repeatedly harvesting CRP grasses could have on wildlife are not fully known and need to be studied further before this can be considered.

While in Washington Shawn also talked to North Dakota's delegation about the Wetland Reserve Program. The WRP is the largest wetlands conservation program in the country, but each year money gets cut out of this valuable program's budget. Landowners enrolled in this program are paid to take frequently flooded acres out of production, which ultimately save taxpayers money because the government won't have to repeatedly make disaster payments. Last year 40 percent of the WRP's funds were slashed, that meant three out of four landowners who wanted to enroll their land in the program were turned away. That experience can make it difficult to bring those landowners back to the table when and if those funds are ever restored.

Later in the month, McKenna and NDWF board president Don Baasch traveled to Helena, Montana to meet with representatives from several other state's wildlife federations. At the meeting the status of each state's federation was discussed, as were the activities they've been working on. You can read more about this trip in President Baasch's report later in this issue of Flickertales.

The end of July saw NDWF at the North Dakota State Fair in Minot. The NDWF booth was a success, with many folks stopping by to talk about wildlife in the state. We heard lots of good things about pheasants in the southwest and plenty of concerns about what the dry weather will do to the duck population. The NDWF also promoted the many conservation efforts of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Programs like Waterfowl Production Areas, the National Wildlife Refuge system, and the Private Lands Program provide countless acres of outdoor opportunities to sportsmen and women in North Dakota. *To find out more about these programs you can contact the NDWF office and we'll send you a 12 page full-color brochure we created which explains how the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services programs provide opportunities for sportsmen and women in the state. *
In early August, the NDWF hosted its annual youth conservation camp. This year 66 kids traveled to the Triangle-Y Camp near Garrison from across the state to learn about everything from firearm safety, to survival fishing, to bird identification. The NDWF has hosted this camp for more than 25 years and our efforts wouldn't be possible without all of the volunteers who give so much of their time each year. We'd like to thank everyone who helped make this year's camp such a success.

NDWF Annual Convention 2007

The 2007 North Dakota Wildlife Federation annual convention is still five months away but we need to start planning this upcoming event. This year's convention will once again be held at the Doublewood Inn in Bismarck from January 19-21. Since this is your convention, we'd like to know what sort of presentations you'd like to hear. What kind of displays do you want to see? This is your convention, and this is your opportunity to help make our convention a success.

We're also starting to gather auction items for the convention. We'd like to see all of our affiliate clubs come up with a nice item they could donate to the auction, but try to make it unique. We've all been to countless banquets and we've all seen the same things time and time again. Be creative and find something that will drive the bidders wild.

If you have a suggestion for what you'd like to see at the 2007 NDWF annual convention send us an e-mail at [email protected] or give us a call at 701-222-2557.

SW Anglers Host Walleye Tournament

The Southwest Anglers hosted its 20th annual Walleye Tournament in conjunction with the Dickinson Eagles at McKinzie Bay July 15 and 16. This year 56 teams caught a total of 359 fish. Anglers were given the choice of keeping their catch or donating it to the Kildeer Lions Club for an upcoming fish fry, most chose to do the latter.

Southwest Anglers' Harley Schepp said the winning team of Karl Merk and Allen Gardner came from Williston and pulled in a total weight of 31.6 pounds to net the $1,500 first prize. Of the 11 teams that finished in the money seven were from Williston.

A total purse of $5,600 was paid out to contestants with $560 going to the McKinzie Bay Marina Association. A total of 850.1 pounds of fish were caught during the event. The largest walleye weighed in at exactly 7 pounds. The largest northern caught weighed in at 12.2 pounds, a one-pound sauger was also caught. Schepp says as many as 70 teams have fished this event in the past, and far fewer than this year's 56 have participated, so this year turned out to be an average-sized event.

Meeting the Challenge:

*Creating habitat through the Grassland Easement Program*

Once one of the greatest expanses of grassland on Earth; the Great Plains covered nearly one-quarter of the lower 48 states, plus portions of southern Canada in an unbroken sea of native prairie from the Rocky Mountains to the Eastern forests. In little more than a century, this thriving ecosystem has largely been plowed under. This has resulted in altered plant communities, the invasion of exotic grass species and noxious weeds, wetlands and watersheds have become contamination with pesticides and fertilizers, plus soil continues to be eroded by wind and water due to the loss of cover which has in turn impacted the plant, animal, and insect biodiversity in the native prairie habitats.

In response to the continued loss of native prairie and degradation of wetlands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) implemented the Grassland Easement Program in 1989 as a complementary component to the Service's Small Wetlands Acquisition Program (SWAP). Prior to the introduction of the grassland easement, the SWAP was focused primarily on the protection of wetlands.

The purpose of the grassland easement is to:

1) Improve and protect the water quality of wetlands by reducing soil erosion and the use of agricultural chemicals and fertilizers on uplands;

2) Improve upland nesting habitat for all ground nesting birds, particularly waterfowl and enhance nesting success on private land;

3) Perpetuate upland cover established by U.S. Department of Agriculture Waterbank and Conservation Reserve Program lands on highly erodible soils;

4) Provide an alternative to the purchase of uplands in fee title, therefore main-taining land in private ownership.

A grassland easement is a perpetual agreement whereby the landowner and all future owners must agree to maintain the vegetative cover on the land, and delay haying and mowing until after July 15 of each year. In return, the landowner receives a one-time lump-sum payment. The landowner can graze the property at anytime, hay or mow the vegetation anytime after July 15 and maintain control over access for hunting. The landowner continues to be responsible for property taxes and assessments, as well as noxious weed and pest control.

In North Dakota, there is a continuous backlog of landowners interested in receiving wetland and grassland easement offers. Since the grassland easement program began in North Dakota, 673 grassland easements have been purchased, protecting approximately 302,000 acres of grass and landowners have been paid approximately $17,620,000 for the easement rights.


----------



## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

Thanks for the NDWF report, Dick.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't perpetual easements illegal in North Dakota? Or is it only legal with a Federal Government Agency, but not organizations like Pheasants Forever, DU or RMEF? 
And, someone told me if you give away a perpetual easement, the IRS won't recognize it unless it is forever, and not just 99 years, the maximum that ND will allow. 
I sure might be wrong and confused with all this stuff, but I have several friends who wanted to do the world some good (and sure, get a tax break while doing it, too) and donate to organizations like PF, DU, or RMEF, Nature Concervancy, perpetual easements (give them away in exchange for an IRS "donation") and they claim they could not, under ND state law. Yet I have another friend that I think did a perpetual conservation easement on his land, although I think he had to go through a federal agency??? Can you, or someone out there clarify it for me? Thanks
Too confusing for an old guy like me!?!


----------



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

HH, I'll check around.


----------

