COUER d’ALENE— Locals sounded off to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission on Wednesday, and foremost on their minds were wolves and elk.

Larry Hatter said he believes the stark increase in tags and hunts could seriously affect elk populations.

“Elk are an iconic piece of the West,” he said, “it has a serious effect on something so valued and treasured for the vast majority of rural residents.”

According to an IFG goldsheet, the amount of Landowner Permission Hunt tags has been proposed to be increased, specifically in area 14-1 and 14-2.

The proposal would change the 80-tag limit to a 150-tag limit in area 14-1 and would change the 80-tag limit to a 100-tag limit in 14-2. It would also change the 2026 hunts with extra antlerless elk LPH tags and to retain the original hunt dates for 2026. 

The proposal would also add a new antlerless elk LPH hunts to units 14-1 and 14-2. These hunts would have 100 extra antlerless elk LPH tags in area 14-1 from Jan. 10, 2027, to Feb. 28, 2027, and add 50 extra antlerless elk LPH tags in area 14-2 from the same dates. 

The aim of the increase in tags is to offset the losses that farmers are reportedly incurring from elk grazing on their land and crops. 

As elk numbers have risen, so has their use of private agricultural lands, where they spend a significant portion of the year. This has resulted in damage to cultivated crops and rangeland intended for livestock grazing, said the IFG goldsheet.  

Hatter recognizes that farmers are being affected negatively, but doesn’t necessarily believe that two negatives equal a positive. 

“We don’t have an infinite resource in our game,” he said. "The wonderful thing about Idaho, and we would like to see this into the future, is that we still can get a tag every year and our children know they’re going to go hunting every year."

Justin Webb, executive director for the Foundation for Wildlife Management, spoke to a related issue. 

“Right now wolves are so overabundant that they are killing each other over territorial disputes, they are digging black bears out of their dens in the winter months and they are pressuring mountain lions off of kills,” he said.   

Webb said wolves have become so overabundant in the mountains that they are displacing calving elk.

Calving elk usually come down from the upper mountains to the valleys to calf, then they would lead those calves back up to the upper mountains where they would stay for most of the year.  

“Now those cows refuse to leave the valley floor because of the wolf pressure that is in the mountains surrounding it, and those calves never learn they were supposed to go back up the mountain,” Webb said.

Now herds of elk are staying in the valleys for extended periods eating crops and ruining fences. This not only affects farmers and ranchers, but also sportsmen who are accustomed to hunting for elk in the backcountry. 

These hunters, in order to be successful, now have to hunt along the borders of wildland and agriculture lands. 

Webb believes that a public misconception around the original methods of eradicating grey wolves from the United States is what leads to negative public attitudes toward their harvesting. 

“So many people believe that hunting and trapping will somehow decimate wolf populations because they don’t understand that what extirpated wolves the first time was not hunting and trapping, it was poison,” he said.

Webb said the commission has a difficult role trying to satisfy people. 

“It really puts them in a tough spot and I just really admire all of their dedication to step up and take on that role and to accept those challenges as they come because that is not an easy position to be in,” he said.

Commissioner Dave Bobbitt said he was thankful people attended the meeting in Coeur d'Alene.

“We are here to perpetuate game into the future,” he said.