Nebraska Hunting, Fishing and Park Permits for Veterans

Nebraska's outdoor benefits for veterans sit at four different levels and a veteran can be inside one and outside the next. The free permanent permit, under 37-420. Any veteran who is a legal resident of Nebraska, discharged or separated with a characterization of honorable or general under honorable conditions, receives without fee a combination fishing, fur-harvesting and hunting permit, a habitat stamp, an aquatic habitat stamp and a Nebraska migratory waterfowl stamp, if the veteran is rated by VA as fifty percent or more disabled as a result of service, or is receiving a pension from VA as a result of total and permanent disability not incurred in the line of duty. That second route is the one most guides omit. A veteran drawing the non-service-connected VA pension for permanent and total disability qualifies with no service-connected rating at all. It is the same status that opens the income-tested homestead exemption category, and a veteran in that position should apply for both. Subsection (3) makes these permits perpetual. They become void only when eligibility ends. There is no renewal. The free park entry permit, under 37-438(5), uses exactly the same test: fifty percent service-connected, or the non-service-connected total and permanent pension. It gives one disabled veteran permit for one resident motor vehicle, perpetual on the same terms. One vehicle is the limit, and an annual resident park permit otherwise costs up to fifty dollars, so this is the more valuable of the two for most people. The Department of Veterans' Affairs notes that the application needs a signature from a veterans service officer. The discounted annual permit, under 37-421(1)(a). A Nebraska resident veteran aged sixty-four or older with an honorable or general discharge may buy the annual combination permit with all state stamps for five dollars. A Nebraska resident who is not a veteran reaches the same five dollar price at sixty-nine. The benefit is a five-year head start, and it has no disability requirement whatsoever. A DD Form 214 or the veteran indicator on a Nebraska driver's licence is presented in person. The Veterans Day permit, under 37-421(2). The commission shall issue, without fee, a one-day hunting permit, habitat stamp and Nebraska migratory waterfowl stamp to any Nebraska resident veteran with an honorable or general discharge, for use on Veterans Day. The permit and stamps are valid only on November 11 of the year issued. No rating, no age, one day. The waterfowl season, under 37-357, is different in kind and worth reading separately because it uses a different definition of veteran from everything else in this file. The commission shall prescribe a migratory waterfowl hunting season for veterans and members of the armed forces, and veteran here means the federal definition in 38 U.S.C. 101 as it existed on January 1, 2024, not any Nebraska definition. Member of the armed forces means active duty, including Guard or reserve members on active duty other than for training. A veteran with a valid hunting permit and the required stamps may hunt during that season, and subsection (4) waives any motor vehicle entry permit or fee for entry into a permit area during it. Two more provisions round out the chapter. Section 37-419(1) lets any person in United States military service ordered to active duty at a Department of Defense facility in Nebraska buy resident permits regardless of their state of residence, on proof of thirty days present for duty. Section 37-438(6) sells an active-duty military park permit for five dollars regardless of residency, on production of a military identification card and proof of being stationed at a Nebraska military base. Special permits to hunt and fish from a vehicle are available without cost under both 37-420(2) and 37-421(3) to disabled persons unable by reason of physical infirmity to hunt and fish in the normal manner. Those permits do not authorise shooting from a public highway.