Print Column: Shame on You, Hunters
MINOT, N.D. — I would like to direct your attention to a Facebook page called North Dakota Lock Out.
It was created after the debate in the Legislature earlier this year over SB2315.
That bill would have reversed the backward presumption of public access to private land in our state.
Currently, those wishing access for activities like hunting have it unless the landowner acts.
This creates a burden. The landowner must put up signs compliant with state law at prescribed intervals to stop public access.
Even then, some ignore the signs, or vandalize them or remove them, and access the land anyway.
Many landowners in the state are fed up. They hoped for relief from the Legislature in the form of a bill that would have presumed the closed unless posted as open.
They didn’t get it.
The “lock out” movement was born.
