DeFazio pressures Forest Service to require permit for predator hunt

E&E News
By Matt Herbert
December 3, 2014

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and environmental groups sent letters to Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell yesterday asking the agency to conduct an environmental analysis of a proposed predator derby on lands in central Idaho.

In the letter, DeFazio, the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, requested that the Forest Service review its decision to not require a permit for the contest, sponsored by the organization Idaho for Wildlife. The contest would allow hunters to harvest wolves and an unlimited number of coyotes, raccoons, skunks, jack rabbits, weasels and starlings in a three-day period.

"I urge the Forest Service to require the organizers of the aforementioned killing contest to apply for a special use permit or other permit before considering whether the contest should take place on [National Forest System] land, as the [Bureau of Land Management] has required for the same activity on land it manages," DeFazio wrote.

Groups opposing the event, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Advocates for the West, Defenders of Wildlife, Western Watersheds Project and Project Coyote, sent a letter to Tidwell; Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack; and Charles Mark, forest supervisor of the Salmon-Challis National Forest.

The opposing groups also called on the agency to require a special use permit for the derby and said the derby falls under the "commercial use" category, due to the prizes being awarded.

Last year, $1,000 prizes were available to the participant who killed the largest wolf and the participant who killed the most coyotes. Prizes were awarded on private property, not Forest Service lands, said Steve Alder, director of Idaho for Wildlife.

Alder said people outside Idaho don't understand hunting culture and criticized the letter.

"DeFazio needs to stop meddling in Idaho's policies and get his 'own house in order,'" said Alder. "His radical bankrupt environment policies continue to negatively impact Oregon's economy, and we don't need his failed policies infecting Idaho."

This is not the first time environmental groups have challenged Idaho for Wildlife's use of Forest Service land. Last year, a federal judge ruled the group didn't need a permit for the event when the agency was challenged by WildEarth Guardians, according to an Associated Press report.

The requests by DeFazio and the environmental groups come after BLM canceled a previously approved permit for the pro-hunting group to hold the contest on 3.1 million acres of its land (Greenwire, Nov. 25).

Along with calls to review the permit process, DeFazio and the environmental groups asked that the contest not be held on Forest Service lands for the planned Jan. 2-4 event.

Idaho for Wildlife's first derby was held last year on 10 million acres of private and Forest Service lands near Salmon, Idaho. An estimated 125 hunters participated, and 21 coyotes were harvested.

In a statement last week, BLM cited Idaho for Wildlife's "material and substantive informal modifications" to its original proposal as a reason for the cancellation. Such modifications include eliminating a participation fee for participants and changes to prize awarding, according to the agency.

Prior to BLM's permit approval, Alder said the derby would take place on private and Forest Service lands regardless of BLM's decision (Greenwire, Nov. 14).

Forest Service representatives did not respond to interview requests.