36-2203. STANDARDS. (a) Each shooting preserve shall contain a minimum of one hundred sixty (160) acres in any tract of land (including water area, if any) and shall be restricted to not more than one thousand six hundred (1,600) acres (including water area, if any) in the event the land is leased by the licensee or four thousand (4,000) acres (including water area, if any) in the event the land is owned by the licensee. Tracts included in the preserve do not need to be contiguous. A licensee shall be granted only one (1) shooting preserve license. Multiple licenses shall not be used to circumvent the maximum acreage restriction.

(b) The tract or tracts of land concerned must be owned or leased by the licensee; must be adaptable to use as a game breeding and/or controlled shooting area; must not encompass any public land or limit any existing access to public land; must be of such nature that the game birds propagated and/or released thereon are not likely to become diseased and a menace to other wildlife; and the operation of a shooting preserve must be of such a nature as to not likely work a fraud upon persons paying a fee to hunt thereon.

(c) No license shall be granted for any shooting preserve, any portion of which is within one (1) mile of any state or federal park, wilderness area, refuge or wildlife management area operated by the state or federal government unless the commission finds that:

1. The state or federal park, wilderness area, refuge or wildlife management area is less than one hundred sixty (160) acres in size;

2. The state or federal park, wilderness area, refuge or wildlife management area is open to public hunting; and

3. Licensing the proposed shooting preserve will not affect the management of the state or federal park, wilderness area, refuge or wildlife management area.

(d) Any person who, on June 30, 2005, holds a license for the operation of a shooting preserve pursuant to the provisions of this chapter, shall be accorded "grandfather rights," and are therefore exempt from the prohibition against the tract or tracts of land constituting a preserve encompassing any public land or limiting any existing access to public land as provided for by this act. Notwithstanding the expansion of any preserve on or after July 1, 2005, this exemption shall apply only to the tract or tracts of land constituting the licensed preserve on June 30, 2005. "Grandfather rights" shall be deemed to have been abandoned by any such license holder that fails to obtain a shooting preserve license renewal on an ongoing annual basis.

History:

[36-2203, added 1977, ch. 324, sec. 1, p. 906; am. 1988, ch. 204, sec. 1, p. 385; am. 1990, ch. 250, sec. 1, p. 719; am. 1997, ch. 349, sec. 1, p. 1035; am. 2005, ch. 368, sec. 1, p. 1168.]