Legislature ends session without passing bills that opposed proposals
The proposed hunting and trapping rule changes approved by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission in March 2009 but delayed for legislative review will go into effect on Aug. 1.
Along with these delayed rules, hunting, trapping and fishing rules proposed for the 2010-11 seasons, approved by the Commission in March 2010, go into effect on Aug. 1.
Fifteen hunting and trapping proposals were referred to the General Assembly by the North Carolina Rules Review Commission in April 2009 in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act. As a result, the rule changes could not take effect until they were reviewed by the legislature, which convened in short session on May 12 of this year. Legislators had 31 days to propose bills disapproving the rules.
Four bills were introduced disapproving the Commission’s rules. Because none of the bills were enacted into law, the following changes will take effect Aug. 1, 2010:
• Require persons harvesting deer through the Deer Management Assistance Program to use tags provided by the Commission and report their harvests, whether those deer are antlerless or antlered. Allow harvest of deer on DMAP areas under the big game harvest report card and the bonus antlerless deer harvest report card, where applicable.
• Change the description of where bonus antlerless deer harvest report cards may be used from “private lands” to “lands other than those enrolled in the Commission’s Game Land Program” in order to permit the use of these cards on military installations, national wildlife refuges, and other public lands that are NOT game lands.
• Remove the daily bag limit for deer.
• Allow hunters to use archery equipment to harvest deer during the muzzleloading firearms season on game lands.
• Shorten the bow season by one week and open the muzzleloader season one week earlier to create a two-week muzzleloader season.
• Deer seasons in the northwestern portion of the state will be changed to exten the regular gun season through Jan. 1. Deer seasons in the eastern, central and western portions of the state will remain unchanged.
• Open all private lands in the eastern, central, and northwestern deer regions to the maximum either-sex deer season.
• Assign all of Moore County to the eastern deer season.
• Allow falconry on Sundays, except for migratory game birds.
• Allow bow hunting on Sundays on private lands only, except for migratory game birds.
• Allow the use of crossbows anytime bow and arrows are legal weapons.
• Disallow the selling of live foxes and coyotes taken under a depredation permit to controlled hunting preserves.
• Allow a landowner with a valid depredation permit to give away the edible portions of deer to anyone. Require the recipient to retain a copy of the depredation permit.
• Eliminate the requirement that a landholder must get a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit for the taking of migratory birds before getting a Commission permit to do so.
An online edition of the 2010-2011 North Carolina Inland Fishing, Hunting and Trapping Regulations Digest will be available at http://www.ncwildlife.org/ on Aug. 1. Hardcopies of the digest will be available mid-August.
For more information on the rulemaking process, download “From Proposal to Regulation.”
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