Mississippi will not have a mandatory deer harvest reporting system, or tagging, for the 2020-21 hunting season. Such a move would require legislative action, and the one bill that would have created a system — House Bill 1539 — failed to gain committee approval.
Most every significant wildlife or fishery bill met the same demise.
Of the 11 bills originating in the House Committee on Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, and of the 17 in the Senate committee of the same name, all but 12 were dead at the time of this article deadline.
- Both the House (HB 450) and Senate (SB 2722) passed bills that would require that all deer harvested within high fences be tested for chronic wasting disease (CWD).
- SB 2723 would extend any hunting season scheduled to close by statute on a Friday through sunset on the following Sunday.
- SB 2717 would allow operation of electrical bicycles on state Wildlife Management Areas.
- HB 1309 would allow the use of air bows during certain open hunting seasons for hunters exempt from hunting license requirement by reason of disability.
- HB 1577 would allow schools to offer hunter safety education as part of the curriculum.
Be the first to comment