Economy Hurting Idaho Hunting Or Poor Hunting?

Finding the truth in anything these days is harder than finding an honest man in Washington. Rumors are flying off the wall about Idaho’s upcoming hunting season and it’s difficult to get any information that can tell us if hunting license sales are falling or this is simply a rumor.

Bouncing around the Internet, through emails, chat rooms and forums, some hunters are saying that an unusually high number of non residents will not buy a hunting license in Idaho because they are sick and tired of not finding any game to hunt. Much of the blame being placed on wolves.

I do not know whether Idaho’s license sales are lagging to this point of the year as compared to previous but it has been confirmed that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has been sending out letters to past non resident hunting license holders encouraging them to buy their licenses and at the same time saying that the hunting prospects are great.

Truth is, in 2 of our 29 elk zones, wolves have been shown to contribute to declines in elk numbers and our Fish and Game Commission is acting aggressively to address those problem areas. In other elk zones, numbers are holding up or actually increasing. And this fall Idaho will likely be able to offer a wolf tag for the possibility of a unique mixed bag hunt.

There seems to be two bones of contention with this information being sent out. First, many hunters, both resident and non resident, do not buy into the concept that only 2 of 29 elk zones are seeing any problems with elk numbers declining. As a matter of fact, hunters are angry that they can’t seem to get the IDFG to admit there is a problem. In the two areas IDFG is willing to admit to, at least one of those areas now suffers from the reality that the elk herd has reached non recoverable numbers.

Why did it take so long for IDFG to publicly admit this problem? And because of that, hunters are afraid that many other elk zones are suffering far worse than IDFG wants to let on and by the time it is admitted, those zones will also be in serious trouble.

If there really are as many elk to hunt in Idaho as IDFG is telling previous license holders, then would there be any real decrease in license sales other than what we should expect as a result of a bad economy?

The second issue that is troublesome is telling perspective license buyers that it is “likely” the state of Idaho will be offering “over-the-counter” wolf tags this fall. It is about as likely that Idaho will have a wolf hunt as it is that the moon is really made of cheese.

Only time will tell, I suppose, as to whether Idaho will suffer a setback in hunting license sales. What we should be just as concerned about is whether there really is an elk population problem and whether the IDFG is trying to hide it in order to keep license sales from disappearing.

Tom Remington