Guest Opinion
Backcountry Areas are Key to Idaho’s World-Class Hunting
By Joel Webster, Guest Writer, 10-03-07
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When it comes to big-game hunting, Idaho is about as good as it gets. From the Great Basin to the Panhandle, in places like the Bannock, White Cloud and Selkirk ranges, the Gem State’s expansive landscapes offer opportunities for backcountry experiences found nowhere else on earth.
This fall, deer and elk hunters are already enjoying another world-class Idaho hunting season. However, as sportsmen head into in the field, state and federal officials are at work on a plan that may impact the future of hunting on some of Idaho’s finest big-game habitat. Their actions are likely to determine the long-term management of 9.3 million acres of Idaho’s roadless backcountry.
Officially known as “inventoried roadless areas” by the U.S. Forest Service, backcountry areas without roads provide critical habitat for big-game animals. Roads are important for providing access for hunters and other recreationists, but studies show that too many roads cause an increase in elk and mule deer vulnerability, resulting in an imbalance in male-to-female ratios and a reduction in mature bucks and bulls.
Increased vulnerability usually results in shorter seasons and fewer available tags. Between 1969 and 1989, the elk season in the Targhee National Forest was reduced from 44 days to five, largely due to increased road construction and reduction in big-game hiding cover. While the season has since been lengthened, it might never be as long as it once was – largely because secure big-game habitat has been lost.
Even though some parts of the state have shorter seasons, Idaho still is known for legendary bucks, fine bulls and outstanding backcountry hunting. However, under the current rulemaking process, more than 500,000 acres of the nation’s best elk and mule deer habitat are in trouble. A big chunk of remaining unroaded backcountry, in what now is called the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, is slated to lose its conservation protections under the current planning process.
These treasured southeastern Idaho backcountry areas proposed for loosened management restrictions include the Italian Peaks, Southern Lemhi Range, Oxford Mountain, and Bonneville Peak – all excellent hunting destinations.
Other backcountry roadless areas around the state might also lose their current conservation guidelines. New roads in the Napoleon Ridge roadless area outside of Salmon could cause problems for important Steelhead spawning habitat while reducing security cover for elk. Kootenai Peak near Bonners Ferry also is proposed for lessened conservation guidelines, posing long-term risks for some of northern Idaho’s best sporting opportunities and finest fish and wildlife habitat.
Additional areas, including North Fork of Slate Creek south of Grangeville and Cache Peak south of Burley could face the same fate and be at risk of elevated levels of big-game vulnerability, increased stream sedimentation and negative impacts to hunting and fishing.
Altering the current management of Idaho’s roadless backcountry just doesn’t make sense. More than 34,000 miles of roads in Idaho provide plenty of access while maintaining high-quality areas for folks to hunt, fish and camp with their families. New roads will only reduce the appeal of the very places Idahoans are trying to access.
With a $660 million maintenance backlog on existing Forest Service roads, it is shortsighted to build new roads on national forest land when the Forest Service can’t afford the upkeep on the ones it already has.
Idaho is one of the last places in the nation where out-of-state hunters still can purchase mule deer tags over the counter. Sportsmen come from all over the country to experience the kind of once-in-a-lifetime hunting and fishing that Idaho’s backcountry offers, spending more than $566 million in the state every year.
Fuel stations, hotels and grocery stores, sporting good stores, guides, outfitters, and airlines all benefit. Idaho’s economy could take a hit if new roads in the backcountry impacted big game, thereby forcing the Idaho Fish and Game to curtail hunter opportunities through fewer available tags, shorter seasons or both. I doubt sportsmen would appreciate a reduction in hunting opportunity very much.
Idaho has a lot of things worth keeping; the backcountry is one of them. Our government must protect Idaho’s hunting opportunities by keeping roadless areas in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and throughout the state just the way they are – free of new roads and accessible by trails. Our children and grandchildren deserve to experience the same rugged landscapes and world-class outdoor experiences enjoyed by prior generations.
Joel Webster works to protect America’s hunting and fishing traditions as a field representative for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
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Comments
Lots of habitat just went up in smoke. There's darn little thermal cover left by de-vegetated snags, darn little ground food post-immolation in high-burn areas toasted by ahistoric fuel loads. Never mind the immediate short-term impact of all those drainages that now have no vegetative water uptake, plus no soil integrity because all the organics have been deconstructed. Great fishing, yah, if your idea of fishing is picking the dead ones out of the mud.
Further down the road, even elk don't like stumbling over jackstrawed timber for mile upon mile, don't forget Lewis and Clark almost starved to death on their journey through pristine, jackstrawed Lolo Pass back there in 1805.
When it comes to recovery of thermal veg, it's more likely that places where the seed source is smoked are going to take a long time to become forests again, compared even to a clearcut, and even more importantly, to a salvaged unit reseeded and replanted by professional foresters using salvage proceeds, something that happens more effectively with a road or few in the 'hood.
And why don't you tell us where this 660 million dollar road "backlog" really is. What class roads, how many miles, or are you just parroting what you were given as talking points by your money people at Pew Trust?
None of those activities are possible today. In Region 6, the USFS went into all designated wilderness and burned down the three sided shelters along the Skyline (Pacific Crest) Trail, and demolished the fire places and hauled out or buried the metal. That was their response to the 1964 Wilderness Act. And we, the people, are not better for their having done that. Today, they would be in violation of the Antiquities Act.
Man once was a real part of the land, and today, the experts in town are doing their darnedest to take man completely out of the picture. I used to get lectures from my parents on how saying nothing about some wrong was as bad as committing the wrong. There are acts of commission and acts of omission. The USFS and their minders in Washington DC, their Quislings in house, and their allies in the NGOs have subscribed to this acts of omission forest management scheme, outside of public oversight, and the results are darned damaging to resources, many of which may never recover.
I wish people like Joel would write about having the managing agencies report their estimates of resource damage in dollars, annually, so that we know what we are losing to untended fires. This argument about the cost of fire fighting and protection, without a cost-benefit accounting, is blather, bureaucratic mumbling. The Coast Guard can tell you to the penny how much property they save in a year and lives, in their SAR mission, or how much dollar value of contraband the intercepted. Why can't the land management folks tell us how much they lost, or saved? They are quick to tell us how much they spend controlling their wilderness fires that go to occupied private lands. There is more to those numbers than we are getting. And, more importantly, if there is some transgression against the public domain, without value estimates there is no damage. If the burned timber has no value, the damaged watershed has no value, then there is nothing to take or ruin of value, and Katy, bar the door!! The resource has a value in the market place, and that same value needs to be known when it is lost to conflagration, and the subsequent forces of nature that then come to bear.
Great article and message that I 100% support. The best hunting from a quality perspective is found on our roadless lands.
The new Travel Management Plans I have read address this issue and almost universally have increased limitations on motorized travel. This is a good thing, good for the wildlife, good for those who use the forests and good for the forest service who is struggling with increasing demands from the public and radically decreasing support from the current administration.