‘Farm Bill’ Pleases Outdoorsmen

Hunters and outdoors enthusiasts won an important victory when the U.S. House of Representatives approved the “farm bill” last week and sent it on to a conference committee. Among the bill’s many benefits to wildlife and land conservation, however, is a provision that could harm some trout fisheries.

The bill reauthorizes the Conservation Reserve Program, which allows the agriculture department to pay farmers to retire marginal or highly erodible land from crop production and devote it to soil, water and wildlife conservation for at least 10 years.

The 36.4 million acres of land in the program includes about 8 million acres of prime waterfowl breeding habitat in the prairie pothole region of the upper Midwest.

The bill maintains the program at its present size, 36.4 million acres, an area the size of Illinois, at a cost of $1.5 billion over seven years.

The stinger is an amendment by Sen. Hank Brown, R-Colo., which allows operators of private dams on public land to completely stop water flowing through the dams.

“It could severely damage trout fisheries out West,” said Mike Hayden, president of the American Sportfishing Association. Other than that, “it’s a tremendous bill, as good as we could hope for,” he said.

CRP has tripled waterfowl nesting success and helped increase North American duck populations by 40 percent, according to the conservation group Ducks Unlimited. Reauthorization of CRP was one of DU’s top priorities for the farm bill.

Skil Baron, National Wildlife Federation Central Division staff director, said the bill “represents a consensus among the farming, sporting and environmental communities for common-sense conservation that jointly benefits the economy and wildlife.”

Elk, deer dates changed

Killing an elk or deer in eastern Idaho just got more difficult, but also more rewarding.

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission accepted advice from Department of Fish and Game biologists last week and switched elk and deer hunting opening dates for the Upper Snake River and Southeastern regions. The change, effective this fall, moves up the generalseason deer opener by 10 days to Oct. 5 and delays the general-season elk opener by five days to Oct. 15.

Fish and Game officials said the change should halt hunting during the mating season for both species, making bulls and bucks less vulnerable to hunters who stalk them when they are least wary. That should help more of the animals survive to mature ages with larger racks.

The change also matches the regions’ openers with those in the rest of southern Idaho’s regions to reduce crowding specific areas.

But some hunters and outfitters worry that the change, which increases overlap between deer and elk seasons, will hurt deer populations that have declined.

But department officials said they are confident the effects on deer populations will be negligible because the overlap does not include doe hunting.

In the Panhandle, deer seasons will be similar to 1995, with most units opening on Oct. 10 and others opening Nov. 1.

Clearwater Region deer seasons will remain the same as in 1995, with most opening Oct. 10.

Panhandle elk season is set to run Oct. 10-Nov. 3, slightly longer than last year. Most Panhandle antlerless seasons will run Oct. 15-Oct. 24. The Unit 1 general season will close Oct. 24.

Archery and muzzle-loader seasons are similar to 1995, except that an either-sex controlled muzzleloader hunt was approved.

, DataTimes