24 Nebraska Game and Parks Commission • 2018 Annual Report
WILDLIFE
ebraska's land-base is over 97 percent
privately owned, and increasing access
to private lands is one of the agency's
primary objectives.
The Open Fields and Waters (OFW) Program,
which provides incentives to private landowners
willing to allow walk-in hunting, trapping and/
or fishing, is the agency's primary mechanism
to increase public access, and 2018 was a
banner year for the program. During the 2018-
19 hunting seasons, more than 317,000 acres
of private lands – an all-time record and a 23
percent increase over the 2017-18 seasons – were
enrolled in OFW.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
is grateful to the landowners across the state
who open their land to hunting, fishing and
trapping; conserve habitat; and implement land
management practices that benefit fish and
wildlife.
The growth of OFW enrollment during
2018 was strategic. Recruiting, retaining and
reactivating hunters and anglers – known in the
conservation world as R3 – was a topic of much
conversation throughout the agency in 2018.
We even hosted a national conference on R3.
Making sure beginning hunters and anglers have
accessible places to hunt with good habitat and
good opportunity is central to all R3 efforts.
Many efforts in 2018 sought to provide new
opportunities for hunters, better habitat for
wildlife or, in many cases, both. This section
contains notable achievements in hunter
outreach, habitat conservation and wildlife
research.
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