Senate committee advances three wildlife-related requests to print, including winter-feeding committee change and depredation appeals board

The Senate Resources Committee on Oct. 24 advanced three related legislative requests from the Idaho Farm Bureau to print, moving them one step closer to formal drafting and potential introduction.

The three requests address: RS31883, which would require at least one agricultural producer on Fish and Game winter-feeding advisory committees and require members to reside in the district the committee serves; RS31921, which would create a state Depredating Wildlife Appeals Board to review Wildlife Services’ determinations of cause of livestock deaths; and RS31922, which would place required hunter and trapper education content into code, add trespass instruction, and allow novice trappers to operate under the supervision of a licensed outfitter or guide without first completing the trapper education course.

Why it matters: committee members and the Farm Bureau framed the measures as intended to bring more agricultural experience and a state-level review option into wildlife-feeding and depredation processes, and to clarify training requirements as online education and in-field training become more common for hunters and trappers.

Discussion and key points

RS31883 (winter-feeding advisory committees) Dexton Lake, representing the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, told the committee the proposal responds to producer concerns in the Bear Lake area where elk depredation led to questions about the membership and local representation of district feeding committees. “What is before you today are 3 RS's that have not only been important to our members but to what we feel like is the general ag community of Idaho,” Lake said when introducing the three requests.

Under the request, at least one committee…