Hunting

Idaho Matters takes a look at a unique form of craftsmanship.

The art of hunting demands close attention to wildlife. In the fall, waterfowl hunters lure their pretty through mimicking calls and setting out decoy birds.

A Wyoming court case involving public land access may soon head to federal court. Landowners there want damages from four Missouri men who went over a corner where four pieces of land meet: two private, two public. They didn’t touch the private land, but landowners argue they still went over it and, therefore, trespassed.

A special surveillance hunt and testing in central Idaho has found four additional cases of chronic wasting disease in about 550 samples.

Without snow or cold temperatures, hunters in the Mountain West have had a difficult time this fall and winter.

Idaho Matters talks with Mountain West News Bureau reporter Madelyn Beck to learn how meat processing plants are doing after the pandemic caused disruption to their business model early on.

Idaho Fish and Game and wildlife managers are planning an emergency hunt to understand how widespread chronic wasting disease is in Idaho’s deer population.

Chronic wasting disease attacks the brain and nervous system of deer, elk, reindeer, and moose. It was first discovered in Colorado in the 1960s and has been in Wyoming and Montana for decades.

The pandemic slowed food supply lines across the country as workers at major meat processing plants got sick. That meant more ranchers were turning to local butchers for processing, and consumers were turning to them for meat. But more business at local meat shops means less room to process wild game for hunters.

The U.S. Interior Department is expanding access to hunting and fishing on about 2.1 million acres of Fish and Wildlife Service land. That’s nearly the size of Yellowstone National Park. While hunters and anglers applaud the efforts, other conservation groups believe that refuges shouldn’t have hunting or angling at all.