BOISE, Idaho-
An attempt to boost state oversight of Idaho’s $30 million elk-ranching industry is dead after a bill to license elk ranches was killed Friday by an unlikely alliance of anti-regulation Republicans and Democrats demanding stricter rules.
The measure deadlocked 5-5 in the House Agricultural Affairs Committee after passing the Senate last month.
That means nothing will come of the late-2006 furor after dozens of domesticated elk bolted from a private hunting preserve into the wilds of eastern Idaho near Yellowstone National Park, prompting sportsmen’s groups and then-Gov. Jim Risch to call for new measures to protect wild herds from disease and genetic impurities.
Friday’s three-hour debate featured bickering elk ranchers who criticized the bill—even though it had been drafted by members of their own industry association.
“The industry, regardless of what you’ve been told, 80 percent is totally against licensing,” said Charles Warner, an elk rancher from Kellogg in northern Idaho and a board member of the Idaho Elk Breeders Association.
He said other members of the association came up with the licensing plan in secret.
Warner argued licensing was a violation of his property rights, especially when years of disease testing have shown no signs of chronic wasting disease, brucellosis or tuberculosis in domestic herds.
Two Republicans, Reps. Dennis Lake, of Blackfoot, and Jim Patrick, of Twin Falls, voted against the bill because they were against new regulation.
Meanwhile, three Democrats on the panel said the bill was too weak and they believed its failure could add momentum to a possible citizen initiative, like Montana’s in 2000 that outlawed so-called “shooter bull” operations, to clamp down on elk ranches.
“(The bill) is a whitewash from industry,” said Rep. Branden Durst, D-Boise. “It’s a way they can inoculate themselves from a citizen initiative, and I think that’s a travesty.”
Idaho has 78 elk ranches that harvest elk for meat and antler velvet. Seventeen also allow fenced hunts for trophy bulls, which some hunting groups argue violates fair-chase ethics of wild hunts.
Last August, as many as 160 elk escaped from the Chief Joseph private hunting preserve that sold trophy bull expeditions behind high fences for $6,000. Risch ordered an emergency hunt for fear the runaways could spread disease to wild elk and damage Idaho’s $300 million big-game hunting economy.
Forty-three were killed, some were recaptured and others remain on the loose.
Chief Joseph owner Rex Rammell, who has since sold the business, was at Friday’s committee hearing, where he urged lawmakers to kill the bill.
“This is the bill that’s supposed to put bad actors like me out of business,” said Rammell, whose has tangled with the state for years and last week filed a $1.3 million tort claim for the elk shot in last year’s hunt. “The Department of Agriculture has wanted this licensing requirement since 2002. It stomps us out of business.”
The bill that died called for a $5 licensing fee for the state’s nearly 6,000 farm-raised elk, along with a $200 fee for Department of Agriculture inspections.
It would have made only ranch operators who “knowingly” broke state rules subject to losing their licenses. The word was inserted this week by House Speaker Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, who said he hoped the change would help broker a compromise between opposing sides in the industry.
But as Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home and the measure’s sponsor, pointed out, elk ranchers who had split divisively were a difficult group to please.
He argued licensing would allow the Department of Agriculture work with ranchers to prevent farm-raised elk from escaping, while also helping keep disease in wild herds from spreading to domesticated animals.
Should that happen, state intervention would be required, Corder said.
“The loser in that battle will be the domestic elk,” he said.
