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Game, Fish and Parks recommends Black Hills license shifts after 2025 elk surveys; commission approves prairie landowner license proposal
Summary
State wildlife staff told commissioners 2025 elk recruitment matched long-term averages (47 calves per 100 cows) and recommended shifting license types: a near 40% reduction in certain antlerless ("atlas") licenses in Black Hills and modest increases in "any-elk" licenses; commissioners approved a proposal simplifying prairie landowner-on-land licenses.
Andrew Norton, Wildlife Program Administrator, told the commission the department’s 2025 fall composition and aerial surveys show recruitment held steady at "47 calves per 100 cows," matching the long-term average, and a bull-to-cow ratio of 22 bulls per 100 cows, below the long-term average of 26.
Norton said the department’s 2025 winter abundance estimate is about 7,900 elk for the Black Hills and roughly 760 in Custer State Park. "We put that into our population model and this allows us to project abundance and growth rates of elk in the Black Hills, which ultimately allows us to recommend license allocation in order to meet our population objectives," he said.
Why it matters: staff are trying to keep populations near the plan objectives (6,000–8,000 in the Black Hills and 500–600 in Custer State Park) while providing fair opportunity for hunters who wait years for coveted tags. To maintain the Black Hills objective, staff recommended backing off some antlerless ("atlas") licenses—about a 40% reduction from the recent level—while modestly increasing some "any-elk" opportunities to improve hunter access.
The proposal also included management guidance for prairie and West River units: staff recommended low elk density on the prairie to minimize agricultural conflicts and proposed a new East River unit with unlimited any-elk licenses intended to allow landowners to use over‑the‑counter tags to address occasional lone elk on private farmland.
Commission action: after questions about survey coverage and chronic wasting disease research, the commission voted to adopt staff’s proposal to simplify the prairie landowner-on-land antlerless license availability so the reduced-price landowner option would be available statewide in qualifying prairie units (agenda item 410601). The motion was moved by Commissioner Cole and seconded by Commissioner Bartley and carried by voice vote; the record did not show a roll-call tally.
What’s next: staff said administrative license-number recommendations (the tables of specific numbers) will be finalized and presented for administrative action in April.
