Group Wants Reduction In Hunting At Clearwater

A hunting advisory group thinks elk hunting should be reduced in Idaho’s Clearwater Region.

Options being discussed this week at Fish and Game offices throughout the state will be considered for adoption by the state Fish and Game Commission in March.

Fewer hunting opportunities in northern Idaho may cause an influx of hunters to other areas, officials say.

The ratio of elk bulls to cows is starting to decline, said Lou Nelson, regional wildlife manager. The ideal ratio for maintaining a herd is 20 to 25 bulls per 100 cows. In one hunting area of the Clearwater region, the ratio is under 20 bulls. Trouble begins when the ratio drops to 15 bulls per 100 cows.

Officials say Idaho has plenty of elk now. Almost 99,000 hunters went after elk in 1994, and killed a record 28,000. Just 10 years earlier, 15,600 elk were harvested. And in 1974, it was 8,712.

Nelson said if care isn’t taken to reduce the elk harvest, Idaho could run into the same problems as other Western states.

There also are proposals to have more controlled hunts, thus limiting the number of hunters, or more spike-only bull elk hunts.

Oregon license sales scrutinized

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department plans to tighten checks on fishing and hunting license sales to ensure that non-Oregonians pay out-of-state license fees.

An audit report released Friday estimated that the agency could take in an estimated $1.4 million a year in added revenue by closer monitoring of license sales.

The department said it will begin sampling licenses and comparing them with motor vehicle address records and will monitor license sales agents.

Ducks may pay for balanced budget

Even as the largest fall migration of ducks and geese in decades flooded across the United States, Congress is working on legislation that opponents say could drastically cut the duck population.

It’s all part of hammering out a 1995 farm bill. Under the balanced-budget plan moving through Congress, farm subsidies would be cut by $13.4 billion over seven years.

The two points of contention are the Conservation Reserve Program and the 10-year-old “swampbuster” law. The CRP pays farmers to taking highly erodible land out of production and letting it revert to its natural state, frequently excellent wildlife habitat. The swampbuster law denies federal subsidies to farmers who drain wetlands, vital areas for breeding ducks and other waterfowl.

A House Agriculture subcommittee last week approved legislation that would allow farmers to drain small wetlands, including nearly 2 million acres on the northern Great Plains, the United States’ duck factory.

These exemptions would cut the duck population in the northern Plains by 48 percent and force the hunting season to be cancelled in three of every 10 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a recent report.

, DataTimes