By George Fallar 
Salmon, Idaho is in a beautiful part of the US. Our family sometimes stops further south in Stanley to be closer to the Sawtooth Mountains but Salmon is frequently on our summer vacation route.
Not that it will matter much to the gross income of Salmon, but we’ll be certain to gas up and be full of food before heading through there on our way up US 93. Why?
This weekend, Salmon is hosting their first annual coyote and wolf derby. The dates (and the inclusion of wolves) likely chosen because December 28 marks the fortieth anniversary of passage of the Endangered Species Act.
Competitive Killing
The largest wolf killed will bring the winning team a $1,000 minimum prize as will the most coyotes. The derby is sponsored by “Idaho For Wildlife” and has been coming under fire for awhile now. I knew about it, but didn’t feel motivated to discuss it here until the below tweet showed up under the #Coyotes hashtag.
Celebrating a pile of dead animals has nothing to do with hunting or sportsmanship. Having spent a good deal of time hunting and eating animals, I understand why people hunt game. Had I been a better hunter, I would have killed and eaten more.
This derby isn’t hunting and it isn’t “controlling a population” of predators causing real or imagined harm to domestic or game animals, it’s simply slaughter that has no place in modern society.
Coyotes Aren’t Game Animals
In Idaho, as in much of the North American west, coyotes are unprotected and classified as “varmints”. Thus, coyotes can be hunted throughout the year with no “limit” or tagging system. Coyotes derbies are not an uncommon occurrence out here.
Ranchers claim coyotes impact their livelihood, hunters claim coyotes damage the prey population of elk and deer, the businesses dependent on ranching and hunting naturally claim they’re impacted as well.
I won’t even take a shot at arguing either side of the fence. My opinion is that the predator/prey relationship between wild animals will ALWAYS even out populations over the long term. I also believe domestic animals can be protected well enough by many different means, including livestock guard dogs. I also think that removing problem animals could be necessary, although I feel wolves fall into a different category.
Ranching On Federal Lands
A lot of the land around Salmon is owned by the citizens of the United States. Ranchers using this land to raise their animals for sale pay a grazing fee to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or to the US Forest Service.
Grazing permits have to be renewed every ten years and the renewal process has become more contentious and difficult as non ranching citizens dispute the use of the land, citing damage to grazing lands by sharp hooves, river bank degradation and overgrazing,
Grazing fees are calculated in “Animal Unit Month” (AUM) increments. An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. Acreage per AUM in a verdant grassland would be considerably less than it would be in a less fertile grassland. In 2013, the grazing fee is $1.35 per AUM.
The State of Idaho classifies (click here) northern Idaho with 13.56 acres per AUM. It appears a rancher (or anyone with a “base property) can lease an acre of federal land for about ten cents per month and the lease is good for ten years. From my brief research, it appears this land can then be sub-let for substantially more, thus morphing the business from ranching to real estate.
Ranching is an industry that essentially relies on the continued availability of federal land to survive. It wouldn’t be hard to argue the price paid for renting our land constitutes a federal subsidy. Whether it actually is or not, US citizens that object to practices that affect our land have significant clout to bring about change.
Follow The Rules
A complaint was filed in the US District Court in Pocatello that points a finger at the US Forest Service for allowing the derby to progress without a commercial event special-use permit.
They had a phone hearing this morning (Friday, December 27) with US District Magistrate Judge Candy Dale. Apparently, the only arguments offered by the US Forest Service Attorney was that hunters would be coming to Salmon this weekend anyway, regardless of the state of the derby and that the complainants couldn’t demonstrate they would be irreparably harmed.
Those arguments sound so unconvincing that maybe the US Forest Service is throwing the case to remove themselves from the controversy?
The organizer has since changed the entry “fee” to a “suggested donation” to get around the commercial event question.
The judge has promised a ruling before the event kicks off tomorrow morning.
**UPDATE 12/27 2:14pm ** The judge has ruled the hunt can continue, that organizers are not required to obtain a special permit. Click here for the ruling.
The BLM also requires a permit for such an event. According to an AP article on MagicValley.com (click here), the BLM figures no hunting will be taking place on the lands they manage:
Linda Price, field manager for the BLM’s office in Salmon, said her agency didn’t have enough time to conduct the necessary review to issue such a permit by this weekend’s event.
As a result, Price said, its organizers are directing participants to Forest Service territory — as well as private ranching ground whose owners agreed to let them use it — and instructing them to avoid BLM ground.
Okay, then.
Lastly, Wolves
Current estimates have about 680 wolves calling Idaho home, up from close to zero in the 70’s. The sponsor of the event states they included wolves as an education measure, to inform people of the danger of tapeworm infected wolves infecting elk in the area through their scat. He cites danger to humans, as well.
Idaho health officials state they haven’t discovered any evidence of wolf-human transmission.
Even the organizer, who likely included wolves to jack up his entry count and generate buzz, concludes very few, if any, wolves are likely to be killed during his contest (click here).
One of the local Salmon outfitters had 39 different hunters in his camp the past 2 years and only 1 hunter saw a wolf and he took a shot and missed the wolf. Wolf experts know that sport hunting is not an effective wolf control measure and this two day derby will not negatively impact the wolf population in this area.
So, if this guy agrees “sport hunting” (his term, not mine) of wolves is not an effective wolf control measure, how could he then tout his event as helping solve the “wolf problem”?
According to Idaho Fish and Game (click here) wolves killed 90 cattle in 2011 and 92 in 2012 in Idaho. In 2011, wolves killed 147 sheep and 337 in 2012. During that same 2011-2012 period, the wolf population in Idaho was cut nearly in half (46%) from 1051 to 561.
If the wolf population is really a serious problem, how does one explain the livestock mortality actually increasing, significantly in the case of sheep, while the number of wolves in Idaho was reduced so significantly?
Got me.