North Dakota
MDF Projects
Missouri River Breaks Food Plots Fencing Projects
In 2006 the Northern Badlands Chapter met with two landowners near the towns of Mandan & Fort Rice who were concerned about the local deer populations. Each lived in areas where poaching, deer/vehicle collisions, urbanization, or all of the above were becoming a major problem. One of the factors leading to this was that the deer had to go elsewhere to find food sources, thereby making themselves highly visible and even sometimes dangerous as they were crossing busy roads to get to those desired food sources.
The Northern Badlands Chapter partnered with them to establish food plots on their properties and cost-share on fencing materials to keep their cattle herds out of the food plots. In spite of the small size of the projects (the Mandan project was 15.4 acres and the Fort Rice project was 2 acres), both projects were an overwhelming success, with the landowners noticing substantially fewer problems with the above mentioned incidences.
Both landowners are very conservation minded and love to see the deer herds flourish in their areas. Being sportsmen themselves, they understand the need to preserve our wildlife populations for future generations.
This is just one example of how much can be done with little funding and effort invested. The two projects combined only cost the chapter $582.54, but the benefits to the local deer herds have been priceless!