Idaho F&G Either Has An Agenda Or They Need Some Educating

Does the Idaho Fish and Game Department live in a vacuum or does the entire force or perhaps a certain number of employees have an agenda that is geared negatively toward the domestic elk industry in that state?

For the entire summer, all I have done is read account after account of growing bear/human encounters in the west. In some areas it is quite severe and all one has to do is open their eyes and they will see that areas in eastern Idaho not that far from the Yellowstone National Park area are experiencing perhaps the worst grizzly activity involving humans in history.

I have written story after story, selecting only those that appeared to be the most prolific, here, here, here, here, and here. Nevada has also had more than its share of bear problems as has Colorado and portions of California. It should also be noted that no reports from anywhere else that are having bear problems blame livestock ranching. As a matter of fact, everyone including the common man knows by now that with the climate conditions, i.e. heat, drought, etc., natural food for the bears is limited and in some cases severely lacking causing the animals to find food wherever it is.

In an article I wrote last week, I laid out exactly why eastern Idaho was experiencing such a problem with bears and it has very little to do with domestic elk ranching as some want to lay the blame on. The blame needs to be spread around where blame is due and that includes residents who don’t take care of their garbage, etc.

A weekend article in the Idaho Falls Post Register (subscription) by Matthew Evans even tells of the bear problems and how this year’s problems compare with past years.

The problem, however, isn’t limited to eastern Idaho or even the greater Yellowstone region. Throughout the West, from Colorado to Montana to Nevada, grizzlies and black bears are straying into towns and places they usually avoid to forage for food.

Those who work with bears say they’ve never seen anything like it.

“In my 16 years here, I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Daryl Meints, a regional wildlife manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. “All the stars are perfectly aligned.”

A spokesperson for the Grand Teton National Park supports the same theory.

“Some people say that at this time of year, bears are either eating or searching for food 20 hours a day,” said Jackie Skaggs, spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park, where rangers have killed four black bears this season after deeming them a threat to visitors. That’s more than she’s seen killed in her 20-plus years of working in the park — despite the fact that Grand Teton officials kicked off a “Be Bear Aware” campaign this year.

“We’re kind of scratching our heads,” Skaggs said. “There are many years where we don’t euthanize any bears. A couple of years ago, we had to euthanize two bears and we thought that was pretty extreme.”

And what does this article say is the reason for increased bear activity?

The problem stems from the ongoing drought, a mild winter and a dry spring. The conditions have decimated the berry crop, a mainstay in a bear’s diet.

“So when it comes to native forage, what bears are accustomed to eating, it’s just not there,” Meints said. “Even some of the kokanee runs are down.”

So why is the Idaho Fish and Game Department and a few local residents setting their sites on putting the blame on the Velvet Elk Ranch on Meadow Creek Road in Island Park? That’s the million dollar question and one many of us are searching for an answer. Either the Fish and Game have their heads stuck in the sand and can’t see the real reasons or they have an agenda. It may be that their agenda is to once again attempt to give the Idaho domestic elk industry a bad name.

Past accounts clearly show that Fish and Game doesn’t want elk ranching. Records also show that Fish and Game works very closely with other organizations that are working toward a ban on elk ranching – Idaho Sportsmen’s Caucus Advisory Council, Idaho Wildlife Federation, et. al.

Let’s be honest. There’s a bear problem in Island Park. Bears are hungry because there’s no food. Probably more bears are coming out of the Yellowstone area to find that food. Bears prefer berries and vegetation over gut piles to eat but they certainly will not pass up a pile of guts if that’s the only available meal. Readers should be educated to the fact that bears don’t have an affinity to elk entrails. They will also eat dead or live cattle, sheep, dogs, cats or whatever they can get when they are hungry but it’s not their meal of choice.

Mike Ferguson, owner of the Velvet Elk Ranch, has recognized that following the laws regulating the livestock industry to dispose of dead animals parts within 72 hours isn’t getting the job done. He has taken it upon himself to properly and legally dispose of his animal parts the same day. You can read his response here.

So, why isn’t this good enough? Ferguson is one rancher. From previous reports he had 167 head of elk brought to his ranch. There are thousands of head of cattle and other livestock all in this same area. Why aren’t we hearing about those ranches as being a magnate for bears? Is it because Velvet Elk Ranch is an elk hunting ranch?

Regional Fish and Game Supervisor Steve Schmidt said in an article in the Island Park News that his agency was concerned about all things that might attract bears to the area. Oh really? If that is true, then why did he finish that claim with this absurd statement?

IDFG Regional Supervisor Steve Schmidt said his agency is concerned about all attractants people are making available to bears, and concerns continue about Island Park residents who are not locking up their garbage. He said even if the Velvet Ranch is found to be disposing of animal waste properly, the operation still has the potential to attract bears to the area because there is so often the smell of blood on the ground.

With thousands times more cattle in the area than 167 elk, why isn’t Mr. Schmidt telling area residents to beware of cattle ranches? Their ranching activities may be an attractant to grizzly bears as well. Is Schmidt’s focus simply on elk ranches?

The Island Park News points out something that seems to be falling on the deaf ears of Fish and Game and a handful of local residents.

Grizzly and black bears have frequented this area of Island Park for decades and grizzlies have taken down sheep and cattle near where the Velvet Ranch is located. Around 30 years ago, the Forest Service canceled grazing leases in this area when it made the area Situation 1 grizzly bear habitat.

I wonder if any of those sheep and cattle that have been the target of hungry bears left any blood on the ground? Anyone who seems to want to single out the Velvet Elk Ranch or any other ranch for that matter, as the reason for increased bear activity has to have something on their mind other than the concerns for public safety. If their concern was protecting the citizens, why would the Fish and Game be wanting to spend thousands of Idaho tax payers dollars to investigate whether the bears in the Island Park area are eating Mike Ferguson’s elk guts?

The Fish and Game Department and Department of Agriculture are saying they want to investigate whether any of these bears are actually eating Velvet Elk Ranch’s gut piles. Mind none of these bears are dead, so in order to do this they would have to capture or bring the bears down by drugs, cut them open to extract remains from the bears stomach and try to match some DNA. This would cost tax payers thousands of dollars and for what?

I would be willing to wager poorly cared for garbage is more to blame for increased bear activity. Should F&G and AG spend money to try to find out which residents are getting their garbage eaten by bears? Can’t anyone see the ridiculousness of this entire event? It is nothing more than a blatant attack on one elk rancher which will have sweeping consequences for the entire elk industry. This is thuggery and extremely disturbing, say nothing about un-American.

Is there a bigger agenda or is this just a handful of people overreacting to a scary situation as described by Daryl Meints, a regional wildlife manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game as, “In my 16 years here, I’ve never seen it this bad.”

Perhaps we can get a better picture of what’s really behind these false accusations and attempts to scar the Idaho elk industry. Kirk Robinson of the Western Wildlife Conservancy in Utah says that the Idaho Fish and Game and the Department of Agriculture don’t need to investigate whether bears in the area have been eating Ferguson animal remains.

“What he’s doing may not strictly be illegal, but on the other hand what he’s doing is a hazard to the public and to these bears,” he said. “And it’s all the worse for a guy who’s making a lot of money off captive wild animals.”

So what is the Western Wildlife Conservancy and who really cares what Kirk Robinson has to say about what’s going on in Island Park, Idaho? From their website, this is their “vision”.

We envision a time when human beings accept the puma, the wolf, and their wild kin as citizens in the community of life – a time when, instead of hunting and trapping them for sport and profit we live peacefully with them, when instead of exploiting and despoiling land without restraint we accommodate their habitat and survival needs in our way of living. This will be a time when we have come to view nature quite differently from the traditional way that sees it only as a resource to be exploited or an enemy to be subdued – a time when we have adopted gentler life-ways that recognize and respect not only the fragility and sensitivity of natural systems, but also our own physical and spiritual dependence upon them.

The WWC also lists the species they aim to protect.

Ursidae (grizzly bear and black bear)
Felidae (mountain lion, Canada lynx and bobcat)
Canidae (gray wolf, coyote, and the gray, red, swift and kit fox)
Mustelidae (wolverine, fisher, marten and other members of the weasel family)

Make no mistake about the goals of this agency. They could care less about any rancher or even Derek Fesmire who was attacked by a female grizzly while bow hunting. Their interests lie strictly with the protection of animals and that supersedes any rights of Americans.

Last year after the “Great Escape” of Dr. Rex Rammell’s elk from his Chief Joseph Ranch outside Rexburg, Idaho, many people believed that certain legislators, wildlife advocacy groups and a handful of sportsmen, exploited this event in order to force their personal agendas on the citizens of Idaho by attempting to pass legislation that would have ended all elk ranching, not just ranch hunting. Some even thought the “Escape” was a set-up job. Those efforts were very much unsuccessful but those groups threatened to bring a citizen’s initiative to ballot in 2008.

With a soon to be convening of the fall Idaho Legislature and a deadline of next spring to get enough signatures on a petition in order to get an initiative on the ballot, we are all once again left wondering if this recent flurry of grizzly activity that happens to be near an elk ranch, is just another opportunity for these same people to exploit the situation for their own good. I’m sure some will even question whether any of this latest is also a set-up job.

Here’s some more disturbing rhetoric that has found its way into the local press. Local resident of Island Park, Martin Miller, says he won’t hunt again near the Velvet Elk Ranch after what he saw.

“It looked like a scene out of a ‘Halloween’ movie,” he said. “Heads, noses, legs sticking out in every direction, and gut piles everywhere. It stunk to high heaven.”

A spokesperson for Mike Ferguson told me in a recent interview that Ferguson was very upset that anyone would make such false accusations and said that those charges are not true.

If there is a hidden agenda here that is deliberately targeting the Velvet Elk Ranch in order to discredit and give the Idaho elk industry a black eye, it is certainly a sad commentary on the state of things within the minds of those who would do such a thing.

The Fish and Game and Dept. of Agriculture need to stop wasting taxpayer’s money and get back to their real jobs. It is time for the head of the Idaho Fish and Game to reel in and get control over his employees and put this non event into the perspective of what it really is – a hungry bear problem.

If the anti-elk hunting crowd has to stoop to this level because they have no evidence, facts or support for the perpetuation of their forced ideals, they are truly a sad lot. If the people of Idaho don’t want elk ranching as an industry in their state, that is surely their decision. For some to exploit a hungry bear problem for the purpose of creating a public safety scare to influence public opinion is really about as low as one can go.

Tom Remington