Four Rivers RMP needs a Sportsman’s Voice

The Bureau of Land Management is accepting comments on the Four Rivers Field Office Draft Resource Management Plan until August 22nd. Once finalized, the RMP will guide the management of 800,000 acres of public land within an 8-million-acre planning area spanning from the Bennett Hills, across the Boise Front, and to the banks of Brownlee Reservoir for at least two decades.

You can submit your own comments here.

Several hundred pages (and even three pages of acronyms) spell out the proposed management each alternative would take, comparing them to the current condition and management directive. Fire management, minerals and energy, wildlife, recreation, grazing, cultural resources, socioeconomics – you name it, it’s evaluated in this plan.

The BLM has set a range of alternatives with varying degrees of resource extraction availability, wildlife protections, and access considerations. Idaho Wildlife Federation urges the BLM to take proactive measures to protect highly productive chukar habitat, pronghorn and mule deer winter range.

A few takeaways from the RMP:
• The BLM’s preferred alternative (Alternative D) “emphasizes managing public lands to promote long-term, sustainable economic development by sustaining the productivity of natural resources.” Additionally, “Concerns about wildland fire, big game winter range, migration corridors and connectivity would result in sustainable management for plants and wildlife.”
• Alternative D would manage just over 96,000 acres with some level of special designation focus.
• The management area sees high levels of recreational activity, with hunting and fishing totaling almost 11,000 visitor days per year. If you combine nonmotorized travel with hunting and fishing, the number increases to 32,000 visitor days. The BLM should prioritize these high use areas to conserve the fish and wildlife within, and the recreational economy that relies on healthy and functioning habitat. Important to note conservation measures will not impact grazing and are subject to valid existing rights.
• The Four Rivers Field Office has spent years on this planning effort and sought to incorporate conservation designations into the preferred alternative, but officials from back in Washington D.C. have squandered any additional considerations despite strong sportsmen backing. We ask that as officials from D.C. push back on conservation designations and move towards increased active management, the BLM regional office still take wildlife and sportsmen and women concerns into consideration when developing management directives.

A bittersweet find. Photo: Becca Aceto

What IWF is advocating for:

• The Bennett Hills are deserving of the creation of a Backcountry Conservation Area (BCA). The preferred alternative currently lists the Bennett Hills as an Extensive Recreation Management Area (ERMA).

• Why a BCA?

  • The BLM states that the purpose of BCAs is to : protect, conserve, restore, and enhance larger areas of generally intact and undeveloped BLM-managed lands that contain functional, unfragmented habitats and migration/movement corridors for recreationally-important fish and/or wildlife species, and to provide for high-quality wildlife-dependent recreation associated with those species, such as hunting, fishing, trapping, and wildlife watching in the portion of the area under consideration where management of wildlife and recreation can both be enhanced.
    o Units 45 encompasses most of the Bennetts. Between 45 and its neighboring unit, these two controlled hunts are some of the most prized tags in Idaho, where 200-inch mule deer are a possibility. Those Boone & Crockett deer don’t get big with fragmented landscapes and lack of movement corridors.
    o Chukar hunters and their trusty bird dogs flock to the Bennetts each year. A BCA designation would also conserve these open landscapes for the benefit of the bird hunter.

“The Bennett Hills are an important hunting destination just a short drive from Boise and Twin Falls,” said Brian Brooks, Executive Director. “The BLM has an opportunity to do right by sportsmen and businesses through the resource management plan, and we are depending on the agency to incorporate measures in the final plan that will safeguard one of our best backcountry hunting areas near Mountain Home.”

• Keep the trails low on the Boise Front. The foothills above the rotunda of the Statehouse see heavy recreational use, where many locals enjoy an extensive trail network close to home. These hills also harbor one of the largest wintering mule deer herds in the state, where as many as 7,000 deer ranging from the Sawtooth Mountains come to graze on wind-swept hillsides on the Boise Front Wildlife Management Area. IWF is advocating against expansion of trail networks in the upper elevations of the foothills as continued expansion higher in elevation will negatively impact wintering animals during their most vulnerable period. Let’s keep any trail expansion close to the existing trails and lower near existing development. We encourage the BLM to continue coordination between Idaho Department of Fish & Game and the City of Boise to seek commonsense directives to avoid wildlife conflicts or further degradation of critical wintering habitat.

• Thumbs up for the expansion of the Hixon Sharp-tailed Grouse ACEC. The preferred alternative would retain and expand the Hixon Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse Habitat Area of Critical Environmental Concern (west of Midvale) by over 14,000 acres. It follows the current condition framework to still allow fluid mineral leasing but would implement timing stipulations for Grouse.

• Protect big game migration corridors and winter range from development with no surface occupancy stipulations.

Your input is critical. The RMP will guide management decisions on our public land for the next two decades, at least. Speak up for the health and integrity of the wildlife you value pursuing, and the landscapes they heavily rely on.

Cover photo by Zach Scott.

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