The South Dakota snow goose conservation hunt is the discipline's overlooked stepchild. It is not a tournament. It is a habitat program run as a hunt, where the shooters who show up are doing more for the prairie ecosystem than they get credit for, and where the days are long, cold, and worth every minute.
The 2023 program ran across a dozen properties in central and eastern South Dakota. The participating shooters were a mix of regional regulars and a small national contingent who treat the snow-goose hunt as a yearly pilgrimage.
This piece is the field dispatch, plus a closer look at what the conservation side of the program actually does.
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