State Agencies At Odds Over Bull Trout Strategy Governor Hopes To Head Off Endangered Listing

Idaho’s governor is pleading with federal officials not to list the bull trout as endangered. He wants Northwest states allowed to lead recovery efforts.

But at the same time, his state Department of Lands is opposing a proposed statewide strategy to recover the native fish. So is the powerful timber industry.

Stan Hamilton, lands department director, calls the strategy “onerous” because it calls for restrictions on logging.

“I’m sure it would reduce the volume of harvest,” Hamilton said. “But I’m not sure that would make a tremendous amount of difference for the bull trout.”

In strong disagreement are members of the American Fisheries Society. They say the strategy is a “minimum” of what must be done to save the native species.

An aide to Gov. Phil Batt couldn’t be reached for comment on the Lands Department position.

Batt and then-Gov. Cecil Andrus asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December not to declare the bull trout endangered. They’d heard rumors that the federal agency, faced with an environmentalists’ lawsuit, plans to do exactly that come June.

Batt and Andrus did not specifically endorse the proposed state strategy, which Idaho Fish and Game Commissioners are scheduled to vote on next week.

If they approve the strategy, it could form the basis of agreements to protect the trout on federal lands in Idaho. That might head off an endangered species listing.

“There’s no way we can force state and private property owners to comply,” said Will Reid of Idaho Fish and Game.

But biologists would love to see state and private landowners sign on voluntarily. Such cooperation is considered vital to recovering the wide-ranging species.

The Idaho Department of Lands manages 870,000 acres of forestland, with profits going to schools. Its officials contend they don’t have enough staff to conduct the watershed assessments that the bull trout strategy would require.

Reid countered that other state agencies, including Fish and Game, could provide expertise.

An even bigger objection from the Lands Department involves what happens near bull trout streams before the assessments are done and site-specific logging rules can be written. The answer, under the proposed strategy, is “not much.”

Logging would be severely limited within 300 feet on either side of spawning streams.

Under state forest practice rules, the widest “stream protection zone” is 75 feet.

Timber officials are upset that they weren’t consulted when the proposed strategy was written. At the least, it would limit logging in national forests, where similar restrictions are being considered to protect salmon.

Reid did meet with industry officials six weeks ago and, according to industry spokesman Joe Hinson, suggested that trout protection did not mean big impacts on logging.

“He said he didn’t see anything other than minor changes in the forest practices rules, but that’s not what the document says,” Hinson said.

Fish and Game representatives will meet with industry people again this week to discuss the strategy.

“It’s a sound biological document, but it may not be explicit enough in places to address industry concerns,” said Reid.

He said he’ll offer to meet again with the Department of Lands, although “I’ve done that five times already. They’re more nitpicky than industry.”

In a December letter to the Fish and Game Commission, Hamilton suggested that the proposed statewide strategy would be more restrictive than an endangered species listing.

He backtracked a bit last week.

“I’m not sure a listing is preferable,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that.”

The big, fierce bull trout was widespread before it began disappearing for a variety of reasons. Too many of them were caught. Eroding logging roads put sediment into spawning streams, which were sometimes blocked by dams. Introduction of non-native fish caused interbreeding and competition for food.

Lands Department officials contend the state conservation strategy doesn’t consider all of the nonlogging activities that have hurt the trout. They prefer that the problem be dealt with locally.

Hamilton cited an effort that’s under way to protect the species in the Lake Pend Oreille watershed. But that effort, begun by a sportsman a year ago, is bogged down by the same issues as the statewide strategy.

A committee is dissecting its fourth draft of a Pend Oreille bull trout management plan, said Shawn Keough of the Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce. They had hoped to be finished last March.

Said Koeugh: “We’re floundering at the moment.”

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