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Game farm ban on state lands fails to get traction Other hook and bullet bills advance through Legislature 2/26/2007 After testing the waters with a bill declaring state lands open to free hunting and fishing and a Constitutional amendment addressing the same, two lawmakers are settling for a letter to the State Board of Lands asking commissioners not to allow leases to private game farms. At a meeting Friday, Sen. Gary Schroeder, chairman of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee held up a copy of the Lewiston Morning Tribune with the headline: “Potlach sets user fee.” Schroeder said he does not want to wake up one morning and read that his constituents must pay to access state lands as well, because he might get fired. “We want to guarantee access and not allow them to lease them out for elk ranches,” Schroeder said. Schroeder, R-Moscow and Sen. Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum, have sponsored three bills this year trying to guarantee that state land remain open to the public for sporting and recreation. On Friday they discussed a measure calling for a study of the costs and benefits of shooter bull operations to the state land endowment. The committee decided instead to draft a letter to the Land Board encouraging it not to pursue that use of state land. “They’re five elected officials,” said Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett. “These guys aren’t used to running out in front of trucks.” The Senate committee also passed a measure Friday to ban hunting via the internet and a joint memorial encouraging Congress to hand over up to $1 million in Sikes Act funds for the South Central Idaho Isolated Wildlife Tract Cooperative Habitat Program. The money, for which the group Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife has lobbied, will be used to protect and enhance upland game bird habitat on 284 tracts of public lands comprising 33,533 acres on the Snake River Plain. Stennett also introduced a bill to increase the annual payment limits on the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) in an effort to register more acres for the federal land retirement program. “I hate to see it go by the wayside,” Stennett said. Two bills regulating the importation of cervid carcasses from out of state have yet to be heard. But a bill setting up a licensure system for domestic elk ranches passed the Senate last week and a bill to set up a license and tag system for wolf hunts in Idaho has also moved to the House. A hearing on the wolf bill is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in room 412 at the Capitol in Boise, to be followed by an annual review of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. |
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