May IDFG Commission Recap
By: Kyle Maki, IWF Sporting Partnerships and Policy Manager
The IDFG Commission met in Coeur d’Alene on Thursday, May 7th for their quarterly meeting. Agenda items included funding for wolf control, migratory game bird season setting, changes to Unit 14 antlerless elk landowner permission hunts (LPH), and more.
The Commission directed the Wolf Depredation Control Board to spend up to $500,000 on wolf control in areas with underperforming ungulate populations and chronic livestock depredation over fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1st. There was discussion both at the meeting and the previous night during the public comment about how to allocate these funds. In the recent past, they had directed up to $200,000 to go towards cooperative agreements with non-profit organizations, in this case the Foundation for Wildlife Management, but there was discussion about reducing this and allocating the funds elsewhere because of the reduction in trapped wolves from the grizzly bear injunction. In the end, the Commission voted to approve the full $200,000 for reimbursements as they have done in the recent past.
Migratory game bird season setting was an interesting topic. Generally, this has already been completed before the May meeting, but this year the US Fish and Wildlife Service is transitioning to a new regulatory process and the IDFG was hoping this would be completed before approving seasons. While the new process should be shorter, easier, and take less time, it is not completed yet. There is an outside chance that the new process won’t be adopted before the September 1st deadline when some migratory bird seasons begin which would change the seasons the Commission approved, but this sounds highly unlikely. There were some minor changes to migratory seasons throughout the state, but for the most part they will be close to what hunters experienced last year. As always make sure you read the regulations for your specific area before going afield.
Big game hunting season discussions always seem to be a little interesting and everyone has their opinions about them. This is especially true when it comes to elk areas highly sought after by sportsmen and women where there are also issues with chronic elk depredation on crops. This is currently the case in unit 14 in the Elk City zone. In response to chronic depredation year after year, landowner complaints that the current system isn’t working for them, and a recommendation by the department, the Commission took action and approved additional Landowner Permission Hunts in the area. LPH hunts are defined by IDFG as follows,
“...are a form of depredation hunt. They are established in areas with chronic depredation conflicts. These hunts cannot be applied for during a controlled hunt application period. LPH vouchers are provided by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) to landowners prior to the season or upon verifying depredation problems that cannot be resolved by non-lethal methods. Landowners can then distribute the vouchers to eligible hunters who may redeem the voucher for a tag.”
IWF provided testimony encouraging the Commission to increase opportunity for DIY sportsmen in addition to the increase in LPH hunts. While additional public land opportunities may or may not have a material impact on reducing depredations, there are currently no opportunities for archery hunting or controlled cow tags in this zone, and only a limited window to hunt cows with a muzzleloader with the Elk City zone A tag in November. Working to reduce depredations on private land is a critical component of modern wildlife management, but we also want to ensure that the Department utilizes DIY sportsmen and women as the preferred management tool wherever possible.
These additional tags are to help with flexibility in addressing these elk as they move from one private property to another, and they likely won’t all be given out since there needs to be verified depredation before a landowner gets a voucher. We hope that with the next season setting cycle that begins next winter we will be able to discuss additional general sportsman opportunities and hopefully find a good balance between public land opportunities with private land depredation hunts.
A few other highlights from the meeting are listed below:
$281,334 was approved in grants for shooting ranges in Idaho. There were 19 selected projects at 15 ranges and all 7 fish and game regions had at least one project that received funding.
There could be a new way game management plans are put together. Currently they are species specific plans, but the Department is working to transition into a game management plan with specific chapters for each species and a habitat management plan broken out by habitat types. This would reduce the total number of management plans, reduce staff time spent updating them, and hopefully make the plans more useful to other agencies like the Forest Service and BLM when they are doing habitat work.
As always if you are interested in watching all or parts of this meeting, it is posted on IDFG’s YouTube page. Please reach out to us if you have any thoughts, questions, or concerns on how this meeting went!