Accountability depends on who you are

Idaho's wildlife belongs to all of us — but only if the people who manage it are held to the same standard.

That standard hasn't been applied consistently.

In 2018, Commissioner Blake Fischer resigned after photos surfaced from an African hunting safari. The backlash was swift — Fischer was gone within days.

Compare that to sitting Commissioner Brody Harshbarger, charged this year with seven misdemeanors after allegedly poaching two elk in Fremont County — hunting without a valid tag, shooting from a vehicle across a public road, trespassing and failing to retrieve the animals, per court records.

This time, Harshbarger merely agreed to step back from his duties while the case plays out — no resignation, no reckoning and little said by the commission or governor's office about standards of conduct.

Whatever the specifics, the contrast is hard to ignore. One controversy, rooted mostly in perception, ended a career overnight. The other, involving actual game law charges, has drawn a far softer response.

Resident hunters are asking a fair question: does the commission hold its own to the same standard as anyone else?

Public trust in a system built on shared ownership of wildlife depends on people believing the rules apply equally, especially to those who write them. Two comparable controversies, two very different levels of accountability — the gap erodes trust.

If Idaho wants hunters and anglers to keep believing in the system, it starts with consistency: the same standards, no matter who's holding the rifle.

TODD HOFFMAN

Coeur d'Alene