Kansas Gov. Vetoes Bill to Limit Nonresident Waterfowlers to Hunting Just 3 Days a Week

Up to date April 10, 2025: Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed a proposed legislation late Wednesday that may have restricted nonresident duck and goose hunters by solely permitting them to hunt three days per week on most public lands. The laws, HB2028, included different minor adjustments to license price buildings. However the limitations that may have been positioned on out-of-state waterfowlers had been far and away probably the most controversial piece, and that is what finally led the governor to reject the laws.

Supporters of the invoice stated the proposed limitations had been essential to scale back overcrowding and ease looking strain on migratory chook populations. They pointed to a rising imbalance of nonresident duck hunters flooding public lands. Opponents, nevertheless, fearful that limiting out-of-staters may find yourself costing the state tourism cash and conservation {dollars} in the long term, and Kelly addressed these issues in a statement Wednesday.

“Whereas this invoice touches on quite a lot of looking and fishing points, I’m notably involved with how this invoice limits non-Kansas residents from looking waterfowl on public lands,” Gov. Kelly stated. “Extra particularly, this prohibition may have a detrimental affect on the prosperity of our communities and companies by denying the numerous optimistic outcomes from the financial exercise generated by [non-resident hunters.]”

Kelly concluded in her assertion that she wouldn’t assist a legislation that would result in much less cash coming into these rural communities.

March 24, 2025 5:31PM EDT: Kansas lawmakers are at odds over a proposed law that may pinch duck and goose hunters coming from out of state. The proposal would restrict nonresident waterfowlers to looking simply three days per week on most public lands in Kansas. It will additionally elevate the worth of migratory waterfowl habitat stamps for each residents and nonresidents.

Supporters of the proposal say that limiting nonresidents to looking on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays will profit resident hunters and assist ease the strain on chook populations. They level to an imbalance of nonresidents in some public looking areas, together with what they are saying are adjustments 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 a couple of exceptions, in keeping with the present textual content of the bill. It wouldn’t apply on designated walk-in properties or on navigable rivers throughout the state. It additionally wouldn’t apply throughout the prolonged mild 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 had been planning to work on the same proposal for subsequent 12 months’s legislative session. However one lawmaker was unwilling to attend, in keeping with KAKE News. Sen. Virgil Peck added the proposal to an current looking 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 rationale this laws handed this physique was to guard our in-state waterfowl hunters, to offer them extra alternatives to hunt a few of the higher locations,” Sen. Peck informed the native outlet Monday. “We had been additionally having an issue with a few of our migratory birds altering their flight patterns due to extreme looking in sure areas.”

Peck’s second level has been broadly mentioned in lots of waterfowling circles, however there isn’t sufficient proof at this level to show that looking strain alone is altering flight paths. There are too many different components influencing migrations, experts say, together with climate situations from 12 months to 12 months and large-scale adjustments to breeding and nesting habitats. 

A note accompanying the invoice does assist Peck’s claims about out-of-staters overcrowding resident hunters, nevertheless. It exhibits that nonresidents accounted for roughly 40 p.c of all waterfowl hunters in Kansas throughout 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 greater looking and fishing license gross sales in lots of states, figures from Kansas Division of Wildlife and Parks present even greater percentages of nonresident hunters throughout the years that adopted. That share 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 one of the vital standard duck-hunting locations within the Sunflower State.

KDWP migratory recreation chook 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 diminished 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’t keep its waterfowl looking heritage with out robust resident waterfowlers.”

At the moment, the company was contemplating a regulation change that may have put comparable restrictions on nonresident waterfowlers. Along with limiting their looking days to Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, KDWP was different potential choices, together with boating restrictions and/or decreased bag limits for nonresidents. These adjustments by no means occurred, nevertheless, which is why state legislators are taking on the difficulty.

And a few of these lawmakers are against the inclusion of non-resident looking restrictions in SB 213. A minimum of one state consultant complained individually concerning 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 at present value hunters $10 no matter residency.)

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Their greater concern is that pinching out-of-staters will find yourself costing the state conservation {dollars} and tourism cash in the long term. The restrictions would make issues troublesome 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 adjustments to the invoice because it faces scrutiny within the Home. It was referred to the Committee on Agriculture and Pure Assets Friday. Any adjustments ensuing from the invoice’s passage would go into impact in 2026.   

A clarification was made on March 25, 2025. A earlier model of this text claimed that the restrictions would negatively have an effect on outfitters within the state. Kansas rules, nevertheless, don’t permit guides to hunt waterfowl on public land, so they might not essentially be affected by restrictions there. The article has been up to date and the declare eliminated to replicate the state’s guidelines round outfitters.