Judge throws out Minnesota Lawsuit
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http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/11845027.htm

Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2005

Judge throws out Minnesota challenge to ND hunting rules

DALE WETZEL

Associated Press


BISMARCK, N.D. - A federal judge has dismissed a Minnesota legal challenge of North Dakota's restrictions on out-of-state hunters, concluding the rules do not violate constitutional protections for doing business across state borders.

In a ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland said hunters are interested in sport, not business, and are not affected by the U.S. Constitution's language on regulation of interstate commerce.

"The purpose for the nonresident hunters' interstate movement is the pursuit of a purely recreational activity - hunting," Hovland wrote. "There is a clear difference between the purchase of products and services - activities inherently economic in nature - and the engagement in purely recreational, sporting activity."
Hovland's decision did not rely upon a new federal law, approved by Congress last month, that said states may favor resident hunters and anglers in drawing up state game and fish regulations.

The Minnesota lawsuit, which was filed in March 2004, challenged North Dakota laws and hunting regulations that restrict where, and when, out-of-state sportsmen may hunt, and how much they must pay to do so.

Among the rules to which Minnesota objected was a ban on out-of-state duck hunters during the first week of duck season; restrictions on where, and for how long, visiting duck hunters may hunt; and a ban on out-of-state hunters for the first week of pheasant season. The pheasant-hunter restriction applied only to land controlled by the state Game and Fish Department.

Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch filed the lawsuit against North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven and Dean Hildebrand, the state game and fish director. U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and two other Minnesota residents were later added as plaintiffs.