BOISE — Idaho wildlife officials on Thursday approved expanding trapping for river otters despite widespread opposition.

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission approved a plan that lifts trapping restrictions on the mainstem of the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River, mainstem of the Snake River and mainstem of the main Salmon River. It also lifts restrictions on portions of the North Fork of the Payette River.

Commissioner Ron Davies of Clayton voted against the change, noting the commission should also consider Idaho residents who want to see otters in the wild but don’t want to kill them.

“There is a significant portion of the residents of the state of Idaho that don’t want to see this happen, and the responses are overwhelming toward that,” he said. “But probably my biggest reason against this is that trapping is under a microscope right now, particularly after the changes that were made to wolf trapping in our state. This will add fuel to the fire of that community that is against trapping.”

About 100 otters have been killed in Idah so far this trapping season, according to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. The maximum number of otters that can be trapped is 160, and that’s broken down to maximum quotas in various regions of the state. The current season runs to March 31, or until a region’s quota is reached.

The change approved by the commission expands where trapping can occur, but retains the maximum quotas for each region.

State officials said there are between 50 and 80 trappers who pursue river otters, and that the Idaho Trappers Association expressed interest in the expansion. Backers said trapping is part of Idaho’s heritage and cited in the Idaho Constitution.

“When I first heard this I thought, well, OK, I can see their point,” said commission member Don Ebert. “Maybe we shouldn’t trap the river otters. People can see them, everybody loves them. I love them. I love to look at them. But the bottom line is, the heritage of the state of Idaho is to preserve the right of hunting, fishing and trapping. That’s a big deal in Idaho. With more population, more infringement on wild areas, that’s going to become more of an issue all of the time.”

Idaho lawmakers last year expanded wolf trapping and snaring to reduce wolf numbers, an action decried by environmental groups and that is being challenged in federal court.

John Robison of the Idaho Conservation League called the commission’s decision to expand river otter trapping baffling.

“While hopefully river otters will still be seen in these rivers, there will be fewer opportunities for folks to have memorable encounters with river otters,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “Decisions like these tend to alienate large swaths of the public, just at a time when Fish and Game needs more volunteers, partners, and supporters than ever before to accomplish their mission.”

STANLEY — Central Idaho ranch owners want construction of a trail connecting the popular tourist destinations of Redfish Lake and Stanley stopped and additional work to make it a smooth path for hikers and bikers prohibited.

Sawtooth Mountain Ranch owners David Boren and Lynn Arnone have been fighting construction of the trail with a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government and last week filed new documents contending the proposed trail violates terms of an easement.

The U.S. Forest Service has a conservation easement deed dating to 2005 that allows a trail 30 feet wide to cross about 1.5 miles of private property.

The lawsuit recognizes that an easement exists but contends it doesn’t allow the Forest Service to bring in machinery to create or maintain an improved trail for recreationists.

The lawsuit asks the court to rule that defendants “may not enter and construct, use, or maintain a developed commuter trail through the property.” The lawsuit says signs for the trail could be put up on the “unaltered landscape.”

The filing follows a federal judge’s order in June allowing work on the trail to begin after a ruling that Boren and Arnone failed to show they were likely to succeed on the merits of their arguments. That initial lawsuit filing contended the plan needed additional environmental reviews, and that the proposed path strayed from the easement.

The lawsuit names the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, Sawtooth National Recreation Area and others.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which defends federal agencies in lawsuits, didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press.

Dave Coyner of Quality Asphalt Services has a contract to build the trail. He said Friday that work hasn’t started. He said the plan is to start on the north end of the trail near Stanley, a tiny mountain community heavily dependent on tourism. The northern end is where the easement is located through private land as well as some wetland areas that Boren and Arnone contend need additional environmental study.

The Forest Service for years has wanted to build the trail in the rugged, scenic area that attracts thousands of tourists and offers many outdoor recreation activities.

The trail is also part of a bill signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015 creating three new wilderness areas in central Idaho.

Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho sought support for the wilderness areas for years among local residents, environmentalists and ranchers before finally finding the right mix.

The deal that emerged brought in more than $1.5 million for trail maintenance in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and includes money to build the new trail between Redfish Lake and Stanley.

BOISE — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game will not recognize as a state record a bighorn sheep that was killed nearly three years ago by a Nez Perce Tribe member because the agency said the ram was shot in violation of state hunting regulations, even though those regulations do not apply to tribe members hunting on ancestral lands.

But the Boone and Crockett Club hunting group has recognized the kill by hunter Gary Sublett in September 2016 as being within his tribe’s 1855 rights and has invited him to its Big Game Awards banquet in early August in Springfield, Missouri, where the bighorn’s head will go on display.

The animal’s massive horns rank No. 1 for Idaho and No. 26 for the U.S. and Canada on Boone and Crockett’s list of largest Rocky Mountain bighorns.

“It is the largest that we have recorded from Idaho,” said Justin Spring, director of Boone and Crockett Club’s Big Game Records. “From what we’ve seen, there were no reasons why we wouldn’t accept that entry.”

Idaho Fish and Game had closed the area to bighorn sheep hunting and Sublett said he was heavily criticized after he killed the bighorn at the end of a three-day hunt in an area called Hells Canyon. The canyon forms part of the Idaho-Oregon border and Sublett was on the Idaho side of the canyon about 40 miles west of the Nez Perce Tribe’s reservation in northern Idaho but within the tribe’s ancestral lands.

“There were people calling me everything but a human being,” said Sublett. “In this canyon, there are petroglyphs and arrowheads. My tribe has lived in that canyon for over 10,000 years.”

Fish and Game spokesman Roger Phillips said state officials recognize the treaty but won’t recognize the bighorn as being the biggest killed in Idaho.

“We’re not going to call it an illegal kill,” said Idaho Fish and Game spokesman Roger Phillips. “But for our state records, they have to be in accordance with our fish and game laws.”

The 1855 treaty gives Nez Perce Tribe members access to federal public land on about 26,500 square miles of the tribe’s ancestral areas that are now part of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana. About 3,500 tribal members can use those rights retained when the tribe ceded the land to the U.S. government.

The Boone and Crockett Club said it recognizes Sublett’s ram because of the treaty and because the tribe has a management plan for sustainable hunting of bighorns.

The tribe was notable for helping Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery as it traversed through the region in the early 1800s. The tribe is also known for its unsuccessful flight from the U.S. military to Canada in 1877. Sublett said he’s a direct descendant of Nez Perce leader Looking Glass, killed in the Bear Paw Mountains in a battle during that attempted flight.

Sublett said he has used the treaty rights to hunt bighorns in Hells Canyon and some neighboring areas since the mid-1970s. He said he has killed 10 bighorns and that nine of them rank as trophies by scoring more than 180 points in Boone and Crockett scoring.

Non-tribal hunters in Idaho face long odds of winning a tag to hunt Rocky Mountain bighorns or California bighorns, the other species in the state. Non-tribal hunters can kill one of each in their lifetimes.

Bighorn poachers in Idaho face stiff penalties. In 2016, Paul Cortez of Nampa received a fine of $10,000, 30 days in jail and a lifetime hunting ban for killing a trophy bighorn sheep along the Salmon River in Idaho.

Sublett said there was a lot of publicity about his bighorn ram before he killed it, including speculation it might be a potential trophy for Idaho’s annual bighorn ram auction tag that could sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that ended after Sublett, 62, killed the ram.

“They acted like I basically robbed the bank and got away with it,” he said.

The Nez Perce Tribe declined to comment about the bighorn.

The tribe has played a leading role in Idaho in attempting to preserve bighorn sheep habitat. Among those efforts, the tribe was part of a federal lawsuit that concluded in 2010 and forced the removal of domestic sheep from parts of the Payette National Forest, including portions of Hells Canyon. Domestic sheep carry diseases that can wipe out bighorn herds.

Meanwhile, Idaho lawmakers in 2009 passed legislation favoring domestic sheep producers and limiting Idaho Fish and Game’s ability to transplant bighorns to expand bighorn populations to suitable bighorn habitat in the state.

Federal officials have agreed to settle a lawsuit with environmental groups that prevents domestic sheep from grazing in Eastern Idaho until a scientific study addressing how they might threaten bighorn sheep with deadly diseases is completed.

The U.S. Forest Service last week agreed with the Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians to prohibit domestic sheep owned by the University of Idaho from grazing via permits issued to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sheep Experiment Station.

“It’s a significant step forward for bighorn sheep to have these allotments remain unused by domestic sheep until the agency does a thorough environmental analysis,” said Laurie Rule, an attorney for Advocates For The West representing the groups.

Court documents say the lawsuit will be dismissed unless the American Sheep Industry Association, which intervened in the case, files an objection by July 27. Chase Adams, senior policy and information director for the association, said Tuesday the association is consulting with its attorneys.

The lawsuit filed in October challenges the Forest Service’s authorization of the grazing allotments in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, an area also used by a herd of about 36 South Beaverhead Rocky Mountain bighorns. The federal court in November issued a temporary injunction preventing domestic sheep from being released into the area last fall and winter.

U.S. Forest Service officials did not return a phone message seeking comment on Tuesday. University of Idaho officials had no immediate comment on the lawsuit, said spokesman Brad Gary.

The domesticated sheep have grazed in the area cited by environmentalists for years. The sheep station conducts agricultural research and operates on about 75 square miles in Idaho. It also grazes sheep on federal public land in Idaho and Montana.

That public land includes the Snakey Canyon and Kelley Canyon grazing allotments on the southern end of the Beaverhead Mountains west of Dubois, Idaho, where 2,200 sheep are permitted to graze.

The sheep station has operated for about a century. Environmentalists have filed previous lawsuits over the grazing areas in the region that are in a key east-west wildlife corridor in the Centennial Mountains between Yellowstone National Park and rugged central Idaho lands.

A 392-pound male grizzly bear being tracked by researchers disappeared in September 2012 from sheep station property. Its collar was later found hidden under a rock in a creek. The body of the bear was never found.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service proposed changes Wednesday to sage grouse protections in six Western states that call for eliminating special designations for crucial habitat as well as keeping areas open for mining.

The agency also said restrictions on water development for livestock will be removed as will other requirements that could limit some livestock grazing.

The plan, detailed in documents, covers 9,500 square miles of greater sage grouse habitat in Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah and Montana.

“The objective of what we’re doing right now is to be, on the whole, neutral to positive for the grouse,” said Forest Service spokesman John Shivik.

The Obama administration in 2015 opted not to list the chicken-sized, ground-dwelling bird as needing federal protections under the Endangered Species Act and instead imposed land-use restrictions leading to multiple lawsuits from industry and environmentalists.

In one of those lawsuits, a U.S. court agreed with mining companies that the Forest Service created some safeguards in Nevada after failing to give the public enough information to participate in a meaningful way. In response, the Forest Service said those same safeguards exist in other states, so it decided to review plans outside of Nevada as well.

Greta Anderson of Western Watersheds Project, an environmental group, blasted the Forest Service proposals.

“What it’s doing is making it easier for industry to work around the conservation measures that were intended in the 2015 plans,” she said. “The greater sage grouse continues to decline in the West. These revisions aren’t changing that trajectory.”

Between 200,000 and 500,000 sage grouse remain in 11 Western states, down from a peak population of about 16 million. Experts generally attribute the decline to road construction, development and oil and gas leasing.

Researchers say sage grouse once occupied about 463,000 square miles, but that’s now down to about 260,000 square miles.

The males are known for performing an elaborate ritual that includes making balloon-like sounds with two air sacks on their necks.

Sage grouse didn’t receive federal protection in 2015, but officials are expected to review that decision in 2020.

A key component of the 2015 plan included establishing key sage grouse habitat called focal areas that restricted development. The move is considered part of the reason sage grouse didn’t receive federal protections.

Under the Forest Service’s latest proposal, focal areas would be eliminated.

Shivik said the elimination of the areas doesn’t mean protections for sage grouse will be removed. He said the land will still be designated priority sage grouse habitat with restrictions on surface development.

The Forest Service only has jurisdiction over about 8 percent of sage grouse habitat, with most of the rest on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property. The Forest Service has been working with the BLM, which also is reviewing its plans for the struggling bird following an order by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

John Freemuth, a Boise State University environmental policy professor and public lands expert, said there’s significant pessimism among conservationists on how the Trump administration ultimately handles sage grouse.

“The seeming promotion of oil and gas over every other value — there are reasons for people to be concerned about this,” he said. “But in defense of the administration, let’s just see how it all plays out.”

The revision process started in November with the Forest Service seeking public comments. Those remarks — some 55,000 — led to the current proposals, with new comments being taken through July 20. The agency will use the comments to create an Environmental Impact Statement for sage grouse habitat.

BOISE — Idaho is as prepared as possible for the approaching wildfire season, with fire crews and air resources strategically placed, more ranchers signing up to help fight fires and two state-owned drones that can be deployed, officials said Tuesday.

Idaho Department of Lands workers provided the details to the Idaho Land Board, which also received a report from a federal expert predicting what appears to be a typical wildfire year for Idaho.

There are “not a lot of abnormalities, but certainly fire activity will exist,” Jeremy Sullens of the National Interagency Fire Center told the board of statewide elected officials.

The five-member board had only four members participating as Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter was traveling.

Sullens predicted that rangeland wildfires will begin occurring more often in southern Idaho in the next several weeks, with wildfires expected in forested lands farther north later in the summer and fall.

He said there’s a dividing line across the top third of the state. Above it is thick snowpack and below it is an area where concern is growing as temperatures increase.

“Everyone is expecting a warm and dry summer,” Sullens said.

Rick Finis of the Idaho Department of Lands said 35 more people have signed up to participate in Rangeland Fire Protection Associations, a program that trains ranchers to fight wildfires on private and public land.

Ranchers can often respond quickly to new wildfires and are especially needed if state and federal firefighters are tied up on fires elsewhere.

Finis said there are now 450 members with firefighting training in associations that cover 2,800 square miles of private rangeland and 11,000 square miles of federal and state land. He said the state has supplied seven fire engines to the associations.

Elsewhere, the state has helicopters and airplanes available in Coeur d’Alene, Grangeville and McCall, areas within striking distance of timberland.

The Idaho Land Board manages state endowment lands to make money that benefits mostly public schools. Endowment lands that produce timber are a significant source of revenue.

Idaho last year tried using a drone on an experimental basis and this year has two with five certified pilots and two more in training.

Acting Idaho Department of Lands Director David Groeschl said the drones have turned out to be especially helpful in getting information on a fire that has just started, and locating hot spots in established fires that crews can then attack.

“You can find the fire start and be very efficient on what resources you send in and how many,” he said. “You can spend quite a bit of time trying to locate a fire with typical aviation resources, which are much more expensive than a drone.”

Public lands managers are losing a battle against a devastating combination of invasive plant species and wildfires in the vast sagebrush habitats in the U.S. West that support cattle ranching and recreation and are home to an imperiled bird, officials…

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — There’s a sense of relief at the U.S. Forest Service because of the billions of additional dollars made available by lawmakers over the next decade to fight catastrophic wildfires but also a duty to spend it wisely, the acting chief of the U.S. Forest Service said Wednesday.

Vicki Christiansen, speaking at the National Interagency Fire Center about the recently approved Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, said the money will help the agency avoid raiding other parts of its budget and allow work to prevent wildfires while also tackling a backlog of trail and road maintenance.

“We really have an opportunity to put the work on the ground, improve the conditions of the national forests and create more opportunity for access and recreation as well,” she said.

Also taking part in the news conference was Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Republican U.S. Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo of Idaho. The lawmakers for about five years had been trying to pass the legislation to pay for catastrophic wildfires rather than using money from elsewhere in the Forest Service’s budget, a practice termed “fire borrowing.”

“The passage of our legislation to end fire borrowing means today that westerners can celebrate an uncommon triumph for common sense,” Wyden said.

Previously, a 10-year average of firefighting spending was used to set the Forest Service wildfire fighting budget.

But the wildfire season has become longer and wildfires themselves more destructive in the last several decades. In 1990, the Forest Service spent about 13 percent of its budget on wildfires. Last year it reached 55 percent at $2.4 billion, a season that saw 8,500 homes and business destroyed, about 15,500 square miles burned, and 14 wildland firefighters killed.

Experts at the National Interagency Fire Center at the news conference predicted another tough wildfire season this year for the U.S. West.

The Wildfire Disaster Funding Act this year gives the agency $3.2 billion to spend fighting wildfires and another lump sum next year. Starting in 2020, the wildfire budget will be fixed at $1.1 billion but the agency will be able to tap into about $2.2 billion to pay for catastrophic wildfires. That $2.2 billion cap climbs to nearly $3 billion by 2027.

The Forest Service manages about 300,000 square miles that include 154 national forests, 20 national grasslands in 43 states and Puerto Rico.

Wyden last week asked Christiansen to prepare a document explaining how the Forest Service planned to spend money now available for use outside of fighting wildfires. Christiansen said Wednesday the agency had drafted an outline and expected to present a completed version to Wyden and other senators in five or six weeks.

Besides the infusion of money, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act includes aspects intended to streamline some forest projects, including allowing logging through “categorical exclusions” that limit some objections.

Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League, an environmental watchdog group that has challenged federal land management agencies in court, said the group generally backed the new law because of the negative impacts to campgrounds, trails and roads that the Forest Service couldn’t afford to maintain under the previous budgeting system.

“It really has had a significant impact on Idahoans and other American’s ability to utilize and enjoy their public lands, so we see this as a big step forward,” he said.