The Senate Agriculture Committee has introduced bills this morning to permit an array of now-illegal measures to target wolves that attack livestock, from aerial hunting to live bait to use of artificial light; to address dangerous dogs, in a revision of a bill that passed the Senate last year but stalled in the House; and to make animal cruelty a felony if it's the third offense in 15 years. The animal cruelty law, proposed by the Idaho Cattle Association and the Idaho Wool Growers Association, would be "very narrowly defined" when it came to the felony offense, said lobbyist Stan Boyd. The measure "very clearly defines that all practices of production agriculture are exempt," he told the committee.

Committee Chairman Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, proposed the wolf depredation bill. "There was some concern that this might jeopardize the delisting or add flame to the fire that the pro-wolf groups might get more signatures for petitions, which they probably will anyway," Siddoway said. "They may not give you a permit at all if the population has been declined because of a  good hunting season or something like that, or they could give you permission to take a whole pack out. In reality, I've been hunting wolves really hard for three years and I haven't even got one, I haven't even seen one. So we need the tools to help protect our private property."

Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, proposed the dangerous dog bill. "It passed the Senate with a significant majority, and across the rotunda they did finds some corrections they wanted to have made, and we worked over the summer to resolve those differences," he said. "So there'll be a number of minor changes."

On the animal cruelty bill, Boyd said the only thing that would become a felony on third offense would be "the intentional and malicious infliction of pain, physical suffering or death upon an animal. That's all." A voter initiative already is circulating in Idaho to make "intentional torture" of an animal a felony, including on first offense, in addition to making a third offense of animal cruelty a felony; under current Idaho law, all types of animal cruelty carry only misdemeanor penalties. Idaho is one of only three states with no felony penalties for animal cruelty; the other two are North and South Dakota.