BISMARCK - There is no denying the emotional popularity of Measure 5, the Clean Water, Wildlife, and Parks Amendment.
Robust conversation has accompanied the measure from the onset of signature gathering in 2013 until today. The conversation and media offerings are healthy and stimulating, but also offer much meritless claptrap.
For my part, I have elected to bypass much of this banter. My decision on which way to vote will be based on my life experiences, not singular sound bites or a hurried read at the voting booth.
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I am a fourth-generation North Dakotan. I graduated from several state colleges and, along with countless fellow North Dakotans, I can reflect on many outdoor experiences such as hiking, camping, Scouting, rock collecting, gardening, fishing, birding and hunting.
But it was my 16-year employment with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department as hunter education coordinator that brought my conservation ethic into much clearer focus.
Being the department’s hunter education coordinator called for recruiting, coordinating, recognizing, training and retaining nearly a thousand North Dakota volunteers, who teach the hunter education course to students ages 11 to 90. The courses are taught in all 53 counties to 6,000 students each year since 1977.
It is essential to underscore the volunteer nature of the instruction. These North Dakotans bring to the table a zest for not only instructing firearm safety, landowner relations and hunting ethics, but also teaching conservation of North Dakota’s landscapes, waterways, aquatic species and terrestrial wildlife.
Since the 1970s, such 15- to 20-hour courses are required in all states and provinces before people can buy a hunting license.
And as of a decade ago, the seven components of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and its Public Trust Doctrine - which establishes government as conservation trustee - has been an integral part of the course.
Several nationally recognized expert authors of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation presented the “seven sisters” of the model at North Dakota Hunter Education training workshops. It was wonderful to watch the nearly 300 volunteer-instructor attendees pay close attention to the topic throughout the presentations.
It was this encounter with enthusiastic and passionate volunteers from across the vocational, educational and geographic spectrum that reinforced for me the need for extensive and enduring conservation.
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These volunteer instructor citizens are among those who will vote on Measure 5. And as I reflect on my involvement in outdoor activities and the privilege of coordinating such conservation-minded volunteers, I believe the measure is likely to win broad support from not only those volunteers but also many other sportsmen and women of all ages.
It deserves this support and more. I hope North Dakotans will join me and my fellow outdoors-minded residents as we vote for the Clean Water, Wildlife and Parks Amendment.
Carter retired in 2008 as hunter education coordinator for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. He is a member of the International Hunter Education Association’s Hall of Fame.
