Bill Makes Sportsmen Pay for Damages to Irrigation Equipment

Rep. Fred Wood introduced legislation for a Print Hearing to the House Resources Committee January 31st.

Existing Idaho law allows landowners to be compensated for crop loss from big game. A part of your hunting license funds this depredation claims fund. Sportsmen understand that crops are beneficial to wildlife and are willing to pay farmers for their losses. The depredation fund is a mutual benefit for hunters and farmers.

This new legislation would add damages to ” prepared seedbed ground” and “irrigation equipment on private property” from wildlife to the list of things sportsman dollars reimburse.

We won’t argue the damage to seedbed ground here. The only way to truly gauge an appropriate value loss for seedbeds would be to wait until harvest and compare yields to previous years, and subtract an estimate of water use and other ongoing labor involved until harvest.

The red flag here is that sportsmen will be responsible for damage to irrigation equipment, which is neither a loss to crop yields or a benefit to wildlife. The depredation claims fund is not a pork barrel buffet. That fund was created by legislation on the premise that farmers would be compensated for feeding wildlife. If there is truly desire to have sportsmen fund irrigation equipment damage it would be far more appropriate to introduce new legislation that would charge sportsmen a new fee, not draw from an account meant for other purposes.

The fiscal note, which accompanies every piece of legislation to address costs of enforcement or implementation, claims that $150,000 will be spent per year on average for payouts. But this fiscal note note is taking a crack at estimating an unknown liability. At the moment we are unsure where this estimate came from. The costs could be significantly higher, which could compete with reimbursement for crop loss.

The legislation is available for view below. We are tracking and will provide you the opportunity to comment when the time comes.