Sportsmen take a stance on hunting rights

BOISE — Some Idaho sportsmen and statewide conservation organizations, such as the Idaho Wildlife Federation (IWF), are currently at odds with potential legislation that would increase the allocation of big-game auction tags in the state. At the heart of this division is a fundamental dispute regarding hunting rights and how tags should be distributed among Idahoans.

On one side, there are those who argue that the money raised by auctioning big-game tags can substantially increase Idaho Fish and Game’s resources. After all, there is one bighorn sheep tag that the state has auctioned off every year since 1988, and in 2016 that tag went for $90,000. That is a fair chunk of change, nearly all of which goes right back into sheep management and research.

On the other side of the fence are sportsmen who believe that opportunites to hunt Idaho’s wildlife should not be sold off to the highest bidder. These sportsmen fear that by doling out more big-game auction tags, the state would disenfranchise average hunters, who currently have equal opportunity in drawing big-game tags with the current lottery system but wouldn’t be able to afford a tag that costs as much as a brand-new Porsche 911.

Brian Brooks, who is the executive director of the IWF, stands with this second group. In his words, auction tags “go completely against the North American model of wildlife conservation.”

So Brooks and his colleagues with the IWF sprung into action when they saw that Rep. Mike Moyle (R-Star) and Sen. Steve Bair (R-Blackfoot) were attempting to push a bill through the legislature last January that would require the Fish and Game Commission to offer 12 “Governor’s Widlife Partnership” big-game auction tags — three each for deer, elk and pronghorn, and one each for bighorn sheep, moose and mountain goat. While legislation that passed in 2010 gave the Fish and Game Commission the authority to issue these Governor’s Wildlife Partnership tags, the commission has decided not to issue the tags in each year since.

There were two commissioners in particular, Mark Doerr and Will Naillon, who emphatically refused to support this bill, and a few months after last year’s legislative session came to a close, Gov. Otter failed to re-appoint them.

Naillon, who feels that he was pushed out of his role as commissioner for not bending to the will of legislators, says, “I got a phone call from Stephen Goodson from the governor’s Office. He told me that the governor is not going to re-appoint me. He did say that he guessed I would be eligible to put in again, but after he told me the governor is not going to re-appoint me, I saw no use in that.”

Naillon sees this issue as bigger than just him and Doerr losing their positions--he sees it as sportsmen, his constituents, losing their voice. According to Naillon, when the commission held open house public meetings last year, “95 people out of 100 were absolutely and vehemently opposed to auction tags.”

“I can even talk to you about some of the good things that auction tags have done in other states, or even in Idaho with the one auction tag we do have,” Naillon says. “Personally, I am opposed to auction tags,” he continues. “As a commissioner, however, if my constituency would have been in favor of auction tags, they would have had my vote. I think maintaining the integrity of the commission by representing your constituency is more important than your own personal feelings.”

Since most Fish and Game commissioners who are doing ther job well are usually re-appointed automatically, the governor’s departure from conventional procedure motivated the IWF to look deeper into the matter. After a substantial amount of digging, they uncovered an email from Doug Sayer to David Hensely, Gov. Otter’s Chief of Staff, which included a reccomendation to “change the chemistry of the existing commission.”

“I must however recommend to you that we do not reappoint Mark Doerr or Will Naillon when their term expires in June,” Sayer wrote in the email.

Sayer, a wealthy businessman from Pocatello and the current chairman of the Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), feels that the implications of his email have been blown out of proportion: “People want to say that I want [auction tags] to be mandatory, and that’s patently untrue.”

Sayer, who says that he reached out to the governor’s office simply to express his opinion as a lifelong hunter, believes that auction tags represent an important source of revenue that can be invested into conservation programs: “An auction tag that sells and then is matched three-to-one with Pittman Robertson dollars, and that money is earmarked for wildlife conservation. That just makes sense to me.”

Brooks, however, points to the fact that Sayer helped draft initial legislation regarding the 12 Governor’s Wildlife Partnership tags back in 2010. “And wouldn’t you know it,” Brooks says, “between now and then, Sayer has purchased himself three tags that we know of.”

Fearing that Sayer would continue to find ways to get lawmakers to support the auction tag agenda during this year’s legislative session, Brooks decided to release Sayer’s email to the public in October of last year. Soon after, the IWF hosted a legislative summit in Boise that was attended by over 20 sportsmen’s groups.

“We got sportsmen involved,” Brooks says. “We sent letters. We connected people with those legislators to the point where they have now publicly said, ‘Okay, I am not pushing auction tags anymore.’”

While the IWF feels satisfied that they have won the battle for now, Brooks has every reason to believe that the issue could resurface in the future.

“We were told in years past that auction tags wouldn’t come forth, yet here we are with them still pushing it,” he says. “We may have killed it for this year, but there’s no saying it won’t come back next year, or the next year...or the next.”