Fish, game fees could change

BOISE – Some hunting and fishing opportunities are worth more than others, state Fish and Game officials say, so they’ve developed a plan to raise tag fees for salmon, steelhead, and antlered elk and deer, while keeping general fees lower.

“It’s a business standard – your high-quality products, you’re going to charge more for,” said, Cal Groen, director of Idaho Fish and Game.

The department, which runs entirely on revenue from license fees and federal and private grants and receives no state general tax funds, hasn’t raised fees in four years. Meanwhile, its fuel costs have gone up 58 percent, other costs are rising, and it’s waiting on needed improvements including more family fishing ponds around the state, fish hatchery expansions and improvements to access and wildlife habitat.

Studies show higher costs can deter lower-income Idahoans from fishing and hunting, officials said. With help from a committee that included legislators and Fish and Game commissioners, the department decided to propose the “differential fee” plan, rather than the usual across-the-board fee increase, Groen said. “We want to give a price break to residents that just want to go out and hunt, and also an opportunity for our seniors and our juniors,” he said.

Fish and Game officials have approved the $7 million fee increase plan, but now commissioners must pitch it to state lawmakers, who convene in January.

“I think conceptually, fee increases are going to be a tough sell in this Legislature,” said Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, co-chairman of the Legislature’s joint budget committee. But he said the differential fee idea has some appeal.

“I guess I can see the wisdom in not charging a person who’s going to shoot a doe or a cow the same as you would charge someone who’s going to shoot a trophy bull elk or a trophy buck,” he said. “But I want to see how they put it together and how it would work before I agree to anything.”

The plan also realigns fee categories.

The cost of a resident combination hunting-fishing license would go up about $3.50, to $35.25, an 11 percent increase. For nonresidents, a combination license would go up 20 percent, to $238.25. Nevertheless, department officials said those out-of-state fees would remain competitive.

If the fee increase is approved, 80 percent of the money raised would go toward maintaining existing programs, and 20 percent would go toward improvements.

Groen has cited a need for new designated family fishing waters. With Idaho’s increasingly urban population, urban family fishing ponds are becoming some of the state’s most-fished waters.

Groen said he’s hoping to develop five more designated and stocked family fishing waters around the state by 2010.

The proposal also calls for finding new ways to bring in funding for nongame wildlife needs rather than relying on hunters and anglers to pay for them.