Bills to address the bighorn sheep controversy in Hells Canyon and on the Payette National Forest have finally surfaced in the Idaho Legislature.
The bills would give county commissions the final say over the transplants of bighorn sheep, require the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to get certification that not only bighorn sheep but deer, elk, moose, antelope and other big game that might be transplanted or relocated in the state would have be tested by the Idaho State Department of Agriculture. It also would require Fish and Game to get approval from ranchers who graze in the area before they transplant bighorns.
Finally, the bills would place in statute Fish and Game policy to move or kill any bighorn sheep that move into an area where domestic sheep are grazed. The bills are Senate bill 1124, and Senate bill 1125. Both are sponsored by Republican Sen. Monty Pearce of New Plymouth.
Reading the bills you would think that the concern is the transmitting of disease from wildlife to domestics. But the issue has been decisions made by the U.S. Forest Service based on its scientists’ conclusion that domestic sheep transmit deadly disease to bighorns.
The Payette National Forest has a draft bighorn sheep plan that would force several domestic sheep ranchers to move their operations out of bighorn sheep habitat on the forest. One of the ranchers, Ron Shirts has taken his case to the Idaho Legislature with the Payette’s plan wrapping up its public comment period March 3.
Shirts and other ranchers are frustrated that the current Payette action would overrule a 1997 agreement between the state, the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep and others that allowed transplanting of bighorns into Hells Canyon. The agreement said the bighorns would not be used as a pretense to force the ranchers to quit grazing on federal land.
But the Nez Perce tribe, the Wilderness Society and other groups that were not party to that agreement, especially the Western Watersheds Project headed by Jon Marvel, forced the Payette to take action to protect the bighorns from possible disease transmission by making the Shirts and other ranchers remove their sheep.
Western Watersheds is challenging grazing permits throughout the state where they conflict with bighorns and that has angered and frustrated ranchers and lawmakers alike. Lawmakers can’t do much to go after Marvel but they can target the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep. The bills, if passed, would stifle if not end the transplant of bighorns into Idaho, a major initiative of the hunting group.
But Fish and Game, which has worked with Gov. Butch Otter to try to resolve the dispute, is caught in the middle. The bills not only would limit future bighorn transplants but also could affect relocations of other big game animals.
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Here are subsidies received:
Soulen Livestock Co received payments totaling $1,010,401 from 1995 through 2006
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/persondetail.php?custnumber=009379239
Ron Shirts received payments totaling $214,707 from 1995 through 2006
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/persondetail.php?custnumber=008358031
Frank Shirts Jr received payments totaling $775,817 from 1995 through 2006
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/persondetail.php?custnumber=008376206
Guy M Carlson received payments totaling $110,307 from 1995 through 2006
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/persondetail.php?custnumber=008371346
Real smart legislation.
Real smart legislation. Kill off the bighorns, which most recently for a single hunting tag in Hells Canyon brought in $120,000, and generate substantial dollars for wildlife watching and ecotourism.
Instead, subsidize the 20 public lands sheep grazers who are already on the welfare teat, using incredibly cheap foreign labor for herders and grazing 5 ewes and their offspring on federal lands for $1.35 per month.
Yes, these genuises will take Idaho right back to the 19th century!
GOOD!
We will have the money to fix the wagon ruts!
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If I wasn't such a freakin' GENIUS, I'd be pretty damned CONCEITED.
Bighorn Sheep - Domestic Sheep
Leave it to Idaho. Ron Shirts is out lying to the citizens of Idaho, telling them all transplants of bighorn sheep to Hells Canyon fell under the 1997 agreement. Hogwash. The transplants started in 1971---way before 1997. The 1997 agreement only tied to the Wallowa-Whitman and the Hells Canyon NRA. The ranchers have lost this one and are desperate to keep their government subsidies going.
The bighorns in the Salmon River drainage are native and not transplated there. This legislation will kill the last native herd in Idaho. This legislation will lead to the listing of Idaho bighorns on the Endangered species list. Then Idaho will loose control of the issue.
Be smart people of Idaho. Ruby.
Another Opportunity to Lose Control
Just as the legislative geniuses passed a law prohibiting IDFG from managing wolves, this will allow the Nez Perce Tribe, and the state of Oregon, to work w/USFS on Big Horn Sheep and cut the Idaho sportsman out of a world class hunting opportunity.
How much longer can we afford the morons "we" elect?
The bighorns will lose control if you give them meth/something
Then KTVB can have an anti-drug special for hunters. Make aboiut as much sense as the mystical garbage they are about to re-serve to the kids.
Doug Armstrong, if you are reading (ha), the way you perverted this tragic girl's life in last year's special was especially heinous. I don't even think Mormons could follow it without scratching their collective heads. Honor Rachel PROPERLY. Don't sully her name like her father has.
It's a rant, sorry, the analogy is clear though. I'm BAAAAACK.
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To read is wonderful. To comprehend art. Falling back to whatever you believed in is NORMAL.
More BS from the welfare ranchers
Come on Idaho residents wake up and smell the poop. They should run the sponsers of this bill outta Idaho and forbid them from ever returning. When is someone going to wise up and get rid of this whole idiot idea of grazing domestic animals on public lands. Everyone is complaining how the wolves have ruined their hunting spots, well I can honestly say domestic sheep have ruined my hunting spots.
1997 Hells Canyon Agreement
Rocky,
Ruby is right.
I've got an issue I'd like you to look at with this.
First:
"The agreement said the bighorns would not be used as a pretense to force the ranchers to quit grazing on federal land."
This claim is illegitimate and deserving of a little fact checking.
Read the agreement if you like:
1997 Hells Canyon Agreement
1. The Payette National Forest, the Forest that is taking action to preserve bighorn now, never signed any "agreement", it was the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest that signed the letter.
2. The letter suggests no such Forest obligation as is purported in the analysis provided by the article. The letter claims the 3 state departments are under such obligation with regard to management of bighorn.
3. Even if the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest was the Payette, a Forest has no authority to sign any such letter 'accepting the risk' in the first place. The 1982 Forest regulations maintain that Forests must provide for "species viability" - and the National Forest Management Act provides the statutory obligation that those regulations be followed. A Forest supervisor has no legal authority to trump those regulations and the will of Congress - that's the point - even if the agreement were between the parties involved (which it's not signed by the Payette - that party not allowing domestic sheep to graze in order to preserve bighorn), it's not worth the paper its printed on.
4. The wild sheep being protected are native - they weren't transplanted, Winmill made it very clear that this fact makes them uniquely valuable and subject to protection. And if you think about it, the agreement ought not to apply to those existing sheep - even if it were a legit agreement in the first place.
Are transplants often needed for some sheep?
Do they reject more?
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To read is wonderful. To comprehend art. Falling back to whatever you believed in is NORMAL.