Field reports: Idaho’s bighorn sheep tag auctioned for $100,000

HUNTING – Idaho’s bighorn sheep auction tag sold for $100,000 to an online bidder at the national Wild Sheep Foundation Sheep Show in Reno Saturday night – the fifth-highest winning bid since the program started.

This permit is valid for use in all of Idaho’s open bighorn sheep hunt areas in 2015.

Since 1988, the auction tag has generated more than $1.85 million for bighorn sheep research and management, Idaho Fish and Game officials say.

Money raised through the auction goes toward research and management of bighorn sheep in Idaho with special emphasis on restoring populations along the Salmon River and in Hells Canyon. The annual bighorn sheep lottery tag provides hunters with another opportunity. The drawing is held on the last Wednesday in July. Last year, more than 3,000 hunters from all over the United States participated in the raffle. Since 1992, the sale of tickets for the lottery tag drawing has generated nearly $1 million. These funds are also used for the benefit and enhancement of bighorn sheep in Idaho.

Hunting dog survives being caught in snare

TRAPS – An eastern Idaho hunting dog survived getting caught in a snare trap meant for coyotes by remaining calm.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game spokesman Dan Kelsey said the 5-year-old Weimaraner’s leash training likely stopped her from pulling against the snare and choking herself to death.

Leslie Soderquist was running her dog on 35 acres of family land next to a canal.

She heard the dog’s yips and was able to free it.

Kelsey found four more snares, one about 75 yards from Soderquist’s house.

Kelsey said the trapper received permission from another landowner and won’t be cited.

Soderquist said she now carries cable cutters.

Legislation calls for translocating wolves

PREDATORS – Two northeastern Washington legislators have introduced a bill that would require wildlife officials to take aggressive action to get wolves off the state’s endangered species list.

“The goal of the pilot project is to accelerate the restoration of the wolf population in Washington to a self-sustaining size with a geographic distribution that has a high probability of persevering in the state into the future,” says HB 1224, introduced by Reps. Joel Kretz and Shelly Short.

The state’s Wolf Management Plan requires the state to let wolves naturally repopulate their range in the state.

The bill would require the state to capture and translocate wolves to meet minimum recovery targets for statewide delisting.

Backcountry films will come to Spokane

SKIING – The Winter Wildlands Alliance Backcountry Film Festival is coming to Spokane Jan. 29 at the Bing Crosby Theater; tickets through TicketsWest.