11-12 SS ICA and Fish and Game

In a newsletter coming from the Idaho Cattlemen's Association, Wyatt Prescott wrote the following: "This fall ICA has been engaging discussions between Fish and Game and cattlemen, regarding the increasing issues of elk and wildlife depredation. From the onslaught, the state's game management agency commented that Fish and Game commissioners were unaware of the wildlife depredation severity being suffered by landowners, because the public had not commented on the problems at the commission's meetings. This being said, the commission needs ICA's input on this ongoing problem." I had a chance to catch up with Wyatt at the ICA meeting in Sun Valley and he commented: "it is very good to stay closely engaged with fish and game on a number of fronts but this issue is around elk and wildlife depredation. Essentially in the fall and winter months we find increasing problems with large numbers of ungulates coming down on our private land, eating through hay fields and cornfields and wheat fields, all of which is feed that those producers have spent months, a lot of money and water and growing and saving that feed for their livestock so it is time for the producers to make sure that fish and game commission knows that they are having a problem out there so that they can work with us to try and find solutions in order to alleviate some of that depredation.