The Indiana Natural
Resources Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday to withdraw a rule
proposal that would have authorized a bobcat hunting and trapping season,
and another proposal that would have required nuisance wild animal control
permit holders to euthanize raccoons, opossums, and coyotes.
Proposed changes to
other rules that involved the possession or sale of bobcats were also
withdrawn from the DNR’s biennial wildlife rules package. A modification was
given to some language (in 312 IAC 9-10-11) governing reporting requirements
for nuisance wild animal control permit holders.
After making these
amendments, the NRC granted final adoption to the rules package, which
includes a number of amendments to 312 IAC 9, which governs rules relating
to wildlife.
The actions took
place at the NRC’s regularly scheduled meeting at Fort Harrison State Park
on Tuesday.
The NRC granted
preliminary adoption to the original biennial rules package in September
2017, starting the rule-change process. The most significant of the wildlife
rule amendments that were granted final adoption as part of the rules
package include the following:
* Allowing the
hides and carcasses of legally harvested furbearers taken during the season
to be kept year-round by hunters and trappers without a special
authorization or permit.
* Adding several
bats and the rufa red knot (a federally threatened bird) to the state’s
endangered-species list.
* Removing the
osprey and several mussels from the state’s endangered species list.
* Adding Elkhart,
Kosciusko, and Noble counties to the fall wild turkey firearms hunting
season.
The rule package
that was presented to the NRC on Tuesday is on the NRC’s website is at
nrc.IN.gov/files/Ex_H.pdf but does not reflect the changes made at the NRC’s
meeting.
Once the rule
package has been signed in its final approved form, it will be sent as a
part of an assembled rule package to the Office of the Attorney General,
which has 45 days to review it. On approval, the Office of the Attorney
General will forward the proposed rule amendment to the Governor, who has
then has 15 days, which may be extended by an additional 15 days, to approve
or disapprove the rule package as it was forwarded to him. If the Governor
neither approves or disapproves the rule package, it is deemed approved by
statute.
The rule package,
if approved, is then filed with the publisher (the Legislative Services
Agency). In most cases a rule becomes effective 30 days after it is accepted
for filing.
Meanwhile, the NRC
also approved Glacier’s End in Johnson County as a new nature preserve. The
action increases to 285 the number of state-designated sites protected by
the Nature Preserves Act. Glacier’s End Nature Preserve covers 298 acres and
extends the amount of contiguous forestland where the Wisconsinan Glaciation
ran into the Brown County Hills to more than 550 acres.