PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission plans to ban trapping of beavers throughout the Black Hills area where their populations have declined, while also allowing more river otters to be trapped in eastern South Dakota where their numbers have grown.
The commission also intends to allow fishing year-round in an area of Lake Francis Case that previously was closed from December through April.
The commission adopted the changes on Thursday during a meeting in Aberdeen. It’s now up to the Legislature’s Rules Review Committee whether the new regulations can take effect. The six lawmakers are scheduled to meet on Tuesday, June 10 in Pierre.
Under the new beaver regulation, trapping would no longer be allowed at all in the Black Hills Forest Fire Protection District. A GFP document regarding the change states, “An estimated 4,142 beaver were harvested during the 2023-24 season by furbearer license holders. Of furbearer licenses holders, one individual reported trapping a beaver in the Black Hills.”
John Kanta is the terrestrial section chief for the state Wildlife Division. He said the division’s biologists have seen “a significant decline in cache detections” in their surveys, especially the most recent in 2023. According to Kanta, there are fewer beavers because there is less riparian habitat in the Black Hills or the habitat has been degraded. Kanta said the division is building habitat and relocating beavers into the Black Hills and the trapping season could be opened again once the population rebounds.
The number of river otters that can be taken legally would remain at one per trapper, but the total allowed would increase to 30, up from the current 20. The season would remain November 1 through December 31 or until 30 river otters have been harvested, whichever occurs first.
River otter trapping is allowed in Aurora, Beadle, Bon Homme, Brookings, Brown, Charles Mix, Clark, Clay, Codington, Davison, Day, Deuel, Douglas, Grant, Hamlin, Hanson, Hutchinson, Jerauld, Kingsbury, Lake, Lincoln, Marshall, McCook, Miner, Minnehaha, Moody, Roberts, Sanborn, Spink, Turner, Union, and Yankton counties.
Nancy Hilding from the Prairie Hills Audubon Society thanked the commission for wanting to move forward with the beaver closure. She also urged the commission to consider relocating some river otters to the Little White River drainage.
Kanta said there had been an attempt to translocate river otters to the Little White but it didn’t work. He said western South Dakota offers marginal habitat for river otters.
As for the eastern part of the South Dakota, Kanta said that river otters are gradually spreading on their own. They once had been considered a threatened species in South Dakota. “It really is a success story,” he said.
The Lake Francis Case change allows year-round fishing in the dredge-hole area of the Missouri River reservoir between the railroad bridge and the Interstate 90 bridge and causeway in Brule and Lyman Counties.
State fisheries chief John Lott spoke in favor of having the dredge hole open 12 months of the year. Currently the area between the I-90 bridge and the railroad bridge is closed to fishing from December 1 through April 30, except that shore fishing from the Brule County side remains open
year-round.
Lott said there was a lot of support initially for closing that area of deep water. But, as a document accompanying the change noted, “The dredge-hole fishing closure is a very specific, local regulation and many non-residents and non-locals may not be aware it exists, causing them to unintentionally violate the law.”
It’s been the only closure related to fishing in deep water anywhere in South Dakota, according to Lott. He said state fishery biologists don’t believe the change would have any noticeable effect on the walleye population in a reservoir of 100,000 acres that’s 107 miles long.
The closure was intended to protect young walleyes that are hooked in water deeper than 30 feet and then released because they’re too small to keep. “There’s no way we can have closures on every area that has this issue,” Lott said.
