Salmon Coyote & Wolf Derby To Continue

[bearpaw]

IDAHO FOR WILDLIFE, INC.
PRESS RELEASE (11-25-14)
By Steve Alder, Pres.

   The decision by the BLM to withdraw our permit will not stop the coyote and wolf hunt. We cannot dictate where people hunt. We will follow the same procedure as we did last year and require hunters during registration to sign a waiver stating that any wolf or coyote taken on BLM land will not qualify for the derby. The BLM at the DC level has become too politically influenced and motivated. The idea that they would require a full blown NEPA analysis including an Environmental assessment for only 100-150 hunters to cover over 3million acres is absurd and ridiculous.

   We worked very hard with the local BLM to be granted the permit. After the BLM refused to grant us a permit last year, they advised us to start the permit process early and we jumped through every hoop they required. They issued us a permit and then the DC bureaucrats revoked it. There is no doubt that the local BLM spend a time and resources on this permitting process. The BLM policies need to be changed and we will push for more legislative oversight of this out of control agency that is now caving to the radical anti-hunters.

We will offer 2 cash prizes, one for the most coyotes and one for the most wolves.  We will provide additional prizes for successful youth hunters.
 
100% of the excess cash contributions will be given back to the Salmon valley to various charities, such as a college scholarship, The local food bank, and to help a local rancher that was  severely impacted by wolf depredation this past summer.  This rancher is not one of the large ranchers and he  lost the majority of his calf crop along with 13 adult cows to wolves  this past Summer while they were grazing on Public land and this that has devastated him financially.  He’s hoping to get a job at the new ShopKo that they are building in Salmon as he doesn’t think he can recover financially.

Thanks,
Steve Alder

[Skillet]

http://nwnewsnetwork.org/post/blm-reverses-decision-permit-wolf-and-coyote-hunting-derby

"Federal land managers are rescinding a permit that would have allowed a competition to hunt wolves and coyotes in Idaho.The head of the Bureau of Land Management district office in Idaho Falls said changes to participant fees and competition prizes indicated the details of the derby still hadn’t been ironed out.It’s a reversal of his decision this month to issue a five-year permit that would have allowed the predator derby on 3.1 million acres of public land. In a pair of lawsuits, environmentalists argued neither the BLM nor the Forest Service had adequately considered the ecological impact of a competition to hunt coyotes and wolves.The BLM’s decision doesn’t prevent the derby from being held on private land -- as it was last winter. The organizer, Idaho for Wildlife, said the derby is intended to be an educational event for youth hunters.The event has attracted international attention online. During a 15-day period this fall the BLM received more than 56,000 comments. All but about 10 were against the derby."

I had a really hard time believing that last line as it's stated.  I contacted the author for clarification and source material. She supplied a BLM source document that confirmed this - out of 56,500 emailed comments, 56,490 were in opposition to the contest. The opposition was comprised primarily of nine form letters.
 
If responsible wolf management is ever going to occur, far more than .0017% of the input from the public needs to be pro-management - otherwise this issue is really a non-issue as far as the decision makers are concerned.