In Idaho, legislators are playing politics with fish and game management and public lands access. Wildlife advocates and outdoor enthusiasts are pushing back.
On March 2, a Senate bill known as SB1300, which would make the directors of the Fish and Game, Parks and Recreation departments political appointees, passed the Senate and was referred to the House State Affairs committee. Senator Doug Okuniewicz, a Republican representing Hayden, Idaho, introduced the measure, saying the goal of SB1300 is to bring these departments in line with other Idaho agencies, most of which are led by governor-appointed directors.
However, wildlife advocates have been quick to voice concern. According to Nick Fasciano, the executive director of the Idaho Wildlife Federation, managing game species is an in-depth calculus that requires incorporating the best available science and staying out of the political fray.
“Right now, the Fish and Game director is appointed by a bipartisan commission,” Fasciano said on a call with Mountain Journal, “which helps insulate it to the greatest degree possible in a way that keeps the focus on the resource and keeps the focus on science-based wildlife management. The concern with this bill is that it introduces an additional layer of politicization into the process, which long term could be problematic.”
In Fasciano’s view, the current system has served the state well for decades. “Idaho has some of the best hunting, fishing and trapping in the world,” he said. “That’s not by accident. Our science-based wildlife management system and the North American model is why that’s the case and we want to keep it that way.”
Developed in the first half of the 20th century, the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation holds science-based management as one of its seven tenets and it is often credited as a key pillar of an effective wildlife conservation framework.
Politics, on the other hand, would simply muddy the waters, says Ryan McGoldrick of Idaho Conservation Voters. “Decisions about outdoor recreation, habitat and wildlife are measured in decades,” McGoldrick said. “We need to have independent directors who have the time to focus on purely what’s happening on the land that they’re managing, and that gets more difficult when you have political appointees who have to respond … whenever a new governor shows up.”
Elsewhere in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, governors already have the power of appointment, making the Gem State’s current system unique to the region. Directors for both Idaho’s Fish and Game and its Parks and Rec are chosen by a bipartisan commission based on merit, a structure that enjoys broad public support.
“We need to have independent directors who have the time to focus on purely what’s happening on the land that they’re managing, and that gets more difficult when you have political appointees who have to respond … whenever a new governor shows up.”
Ryan McGoldrick, Idaho Conservation Voters
As Henry’s Fork Wildlife Alliance Co-Director Alison Brown notes, an independent appointment for Fish and Game director was a hard-fought victory won by the public. “Back in the 1910s to 1930s, the public pushed and prodded the Legislature to create that [bipartisan] commission that gave that buffer between politics and natural resource management, ” she said.
When the Parks and Recreation Department was created in 1965, it followed a similar model. “Idaho voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative establishing the Commission — earning 76 percent of the total vote and a majority in every county,” Brown noted in a March 6 letter addressed to Idaho’s House of Representatives.
On the doorstep of Yellowstone, Okuniewicz’s bill could have immediate tangible impacts to that hard-won, publicly-supported model. In Island Park, questions have emerged about Harriman State Park and its very existence going forward.
“[SB 1300] poses an existential threat to one of the all-time gems of the Idaho State Parks portfolio,” said Friends of Harriman State Park board president Charlie Lansche, who is also a Mountain Journal supporter, “which is home to grizzly bears, wolves, all the ungulates of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem and trumpeter swan nesting areas.”
Eleven-thousand acres of what is today Harriman State Park was gifted to Idaho by the Harriman family in 1961, and the deed of gift states that the Parks and Recreation director could not be a political appointee. Now, opponents of SB1300 say the bill violates that stipulation, opening the possibility of legal action, a path at least one descendant has promised to take.
“If [the Legislature passes] the bill, the state is not living up to the agreement,” Tom Dixon, grandson of E. Roland and Gladys Harriman, told Mountain Journal. “If [the state] violates the deed, it opens the possibility of legal action.”
In a letter to the House State Affairs Committee Chair Brent Crane, lawyers representing Dixon asserted that the state agreed to accept the gift subject to specific conditions, including park staff “chosen on the basis of merit alone.”
“What’s the danger?” Dixon asked. “All of a sudden you have a political entity that doesn’t know parks.”
For his part, bill sponsor Okuniewicz denies any threat to Harriman, saying there is “zero risk” to any agreement with the Harriman family, a claim that is at odds with the statement from Dixon’s legal representatives from the Boise law firm Hawley-Troxell.
As of March 17, the House State Affairs committee had yet to schedule a first reading of SB1300, and advocates continued to lobby state legislators. “We’ve had a lot of good support from our supporter base,” Idaho Wildlife Federation’s Fasicano said, “in terms of reaching out to try to have this opposed or amended on the grounds of trying to keep wildlife management as science-based as possible.”
At the same time, Tom Dixon holds out hope that public lands like Harriman will stay in public hands. “I’m keeping my grandparents’ wishes alive to protect nature,” he said. “Our intent is to keep the park as a park.”
