January IDFG Commission Recap

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game Commission met in Boise for their quarterly meeting on January 15th. At the meeting, a number of topics were discussed and decisions made ranging from Upland Bird seasons to Bighorn Sheep disease and translocation, and the recent Nonresident elk and deer tag draw. 

As an ongoing effort to simplify Idaho’s hunting and fishing regulations where possible, the Department scoped a number of upland bird season changes to make things simpler. In recent years, we have had our season opening dates for chukar, quail, hungarian partridge, and pheasant starting on a Saturday each year so the date changes every year. The Commission approved a change to this and going forward, starting in the 2026 fall season chukar, quail, hungarian partridge, and pheasant will all have a hard start date, rather than opening on a Saturday. In addition to this, pheasants in Idaho will have a statewide season that goes through December 31st instead of ending at the end of November in Southeast Idaho like it has. Sharptailed Grouse will also see a season extension from 10/31 to 11/8. Originally this was scoped to extend the season until 11/15, but after feedback received from the public asking about the effects this could have on their populations, the Department decided to be conservative and revised their recommendation. Additional turkey hunting opportunities, both spring and fall, were added in areas with expanding turkey populations. All these changes were highly supported through public comment. 

This year was the first when general deer and elk tags went to a draw and a presentation was given on the results of the first drawing period. There were almost 59,000 applications combined for both deer and elk (in the case where someone applied for both deer and elk they would be counted twice, once for deer and another time for their elk application) and all tags offered were drawn. The states with the most applicants were from Washington, Oregon, California, and Utah, but applications were received from all 50 states and over 7,000 who had never hunted Idaho before applied. There will be a second draw for nonresidents beginning February 5th for any tags that were not purchased by the deadline. 

California Bighorn Sheep in the Owyhee’s were a major topic of discussion throughout the meeting. Earlier this month, 25 ewes and 5 rams were successfully captured, transported from Oregon’s John Day herd, and released into the Jacks Creek area in hopes of bringing more genetic diversity to the area and helping this population. There was one mortality of an ewe after the release and in a Department management action, a female Mountain Lion and subadult female were lethally removed from the carcass. In another Department management action, another female lion was also removed. Part of the reintroduction plan was to do targeted predator management on individual animals that are targeting sheep so these removals will hopefully help the Jacks Creek herd. In addition to this, the Commission approved closing the California Bighorn Sheep hunt in unit 41, which is only one tag, for the upcoming season to give these sheep a greater chance of breeding and passing their genetics along. 

In not so great sheep news, Fish and Game will be lethally removing the herd in the Reynolds Creek area that tested positive for Movi in an effort to keep these sheep from spreading the disease to other Movi free herds in the area. In an effort to remove this herd of about 30 sheep as quickly as possible to reduce the chance of spreading, this will be done with helicopters instead of using hunters. This is unfortunate, but hopefully removing this small herd will keep the other herds in the area healthy. 

While these were the highlights, the following are a few updates from the meeting:

The new IDFG Strategic Plan was adopted. As IDFG Director Jim Fredericks said. “This plan provides the road map to sustain Idaho’s fish and wildlife and maintain the public’s right to hunt, fish, trap and enjoy other wildlife-related recreation.”

There was a presentation about translocating deer, elk, and pronghorn in Idaho. It began with the technical side of it such as the qualifications, permissions needed, and other necessary things that must happen before it is seriously considered and ended with a practical case of where this will be implemented on elk this year. The captured animals will be translocated to an area where elk are below objective. 

There will be new season dates for some furbearer animals, some beaver closure areas reopened to trapping, and expanded otter quotas in some areas. These changes were all scoped by the Department and supported by the public. 

So far from this year, there have been 17 positive CWD samples statewide with 212 pending samples as of the meeting. All these are in areas where CWD has already been detected other than unit 15, but the next-door unit 14 has had CWD on the landscape since 2021. The sampling year does go until the end of June so we could see numbers change before then. 

There were also more CWD positive samples from captive elk herds in the state. We saw the first case in December of 2024 in unit 63A and there have been more there as well as positives in unit 69, one of which came from an animal that was moved from a different facility in unit 1. 

There was a successful augmentation of Fisher from the Clearwater region to the Coeur d’Alene mountains. 7 males and 4 females were moved this year with the plans of moving more animals again next year. 

If anyone is interested in watching the full meeting, a recording is posted on the IDFG YouTube channel.