December 2, 2016
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9
Idaho
Wheat Commission fully funds $1M endowments
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Idaho’s minimum, documented
wolf population has been on a
steady decline since the state
began allowing hunters to kill
the animals.
Hunting stops
growth in
Idaho’s wolf
population
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
BOISE — As hunting is
resulting in a slow but steady
decline in Idaho’s wolf popu-
lation, a Boise State Universi-
ty poll taken earlier this year
showed strong statewide sup-
port for hunting wolves.
Idaho’s minimum, docu-
mented wolf population has
been on a steady decline since
the state began allowing hunt-
ers to kill the animals.
It peaked at 856 in 2009,
the first year Idaho allowed
hunters to take wolves, before
a lawsuit that resulted in the
animals being put back on the
endangered species list halted
that hunting season.
Since wolves were perma-
nently delisted and hunting re-
sumed in 2011, the population
has slowly declined and was
786 at the end of 2015.
“The overall wolf popula-
tion has stabilized since state
management (and hunting)
began in 2011,” said Idaho
Department of Fish and Game
spokesman Mike Keckler.
“That’s when that 30-40 per-
cent population increase we
were seeing annually stopped.”
A poll taken in January
shows support for the hunts.
“Our ... survey showed it’s
not popular to be a wolf in Ida-
ho,” said Corey Cook, dean of
BSU’s School of Public Ser-
vice, which conducted the poll.
“People didn’t express a lot of
support for wolves.”
The phone survey of 1,000
Idahoans was conducted in all
regions of the state and the re-
sults — strong support for wolf
hunting — were the same.
The poll results showed
that 72 percent of people sur-
veyed supported wolf hunting
while 22 percent opposed it.
Fifty-one percent of re-
spondents strongly supported
wolf hunting compared with
13 percent who strongly op-
posed it.
Even in Boise, Idaho’s larg-
est urban area, 64 percent of
respondents favored allowing
hunters to take wolves while
28 percent opposed that.
The poll results show that
Idahoans understand hunting
is an important wolf manage-
ment tool, said Idaho Farm
Bureau Federation spokesman
John Thompson.
“It certainly is a good thing
to hear,” he said. “You cer-
tainly wouldn’t expect to find
that (support) in some of the
other states that wolves are
moving into.”
After wolves were re-in-
troduced into Idaho in 1994
and 1995, the animal’s popu-
lation grew rapidly, expand-
ing at a rate of 30-40 percent
annually.
Hunting has stopped that
growth.
“We’re getting over the
honeymoon period (and) peo-
ple see hunting as a good tool
in the management toolbox,”
Thompson said.
While wolf hunting has
been successful in controlling
the animal’s population in
Idaho, IDFG numbers show
that wolves are getting smart-
er when it comes to avoiding
hunters.
During the 2010-2011
hunting season, Idaho’s first
full year of wolf hunting, 181
wolves were killed by hunt-
ers. That number rose to 376
the next year but has declined
each year since then, to 319
and then 303 and 249 last
year.
So far this season, 154
wolves have been killed by
hunters in Idaho.
When it came to state ef-
forts to reduce the wolf pop-
ulation, support was solid but
a little less favorable than for
hunting.
BOISE — The Idaho
Wheat Commission has ful-
ly funded two $1 million re-
search endowments five years
earlier than planned.
The endowments, which
were established in 2012 to
bolster the University of Ida-
ho’s wheat research capabili-
ties, support a wheat breeding
and a wheat agronomist pro-
fessorship at UI’s Aberdeen
Research and Extension Cen-
ter.
The commission kicked
off the endowments with
$500,000 and planned to con-
tribute $150,000 a year over
10 years until they were fully
funded.
But several good wheat
production years provided
the commission with more
funding than expected and
the IWC also used some of
its reserve money to help pay
the endowments off sooner,
said IWC Chairman and Soda
Springs farmer Jerry Brown.
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Wheat is harvested in Eastern Idaho in late July. The Idaho Wheat
Commission has fully funded two $1 million wheat research
endowments.
“Those two positions are
very valuable to us,” he said.
“We’re getting some good bang
for our buck with what we’re
investing in the university.”
IWC board member Ned
Moon, marketing manager for
Jentzsch-Kearl Farms in Ru-
pert, said fully funding the en-
dowments early was also a way
to show the industry’s com-
mitment to the university and
Michael Parrella, the new dean
of UI’s College of Agricultural
and Life Sciences.
“The (research) work they
do there really affects and ben-
efits the entire wheat industry
in the state of Idaho,” he said.
“The money was there to fully
fund the research endowments
sooner rather than later (and)
the time to do it is now.”
Juliet Marshall, the recip-
ient of the cereal agronomics
professorship, said the endow-
ment will allow her program
to purchase necessary new
equipment, such as that need-
ed to test for falling numbers.
She will also direct some of
the money toward graduate
students.
The agronomics program
performs important tasks for
Idaho wheat growers such as
testing varieties for resistance
to various diseases and “they
provide a lot of technical sup-
port to the industry as well,”
Brown said.
“It’s going to help us so
much,” Marshall said of the
endowment. “It gives us a lot
of freedom to put the money
toward things we think are
extremely important to make
our program better.”
Jianli Chen is the recipient
of the wheat breeding profes-
sorship.
The focus of her program
is on using advanced methods
to increase breeding efficiency
and develop superior cultivars.
Besides using some of the
money to enhance the sala-
ries of herself and her staff,
Chen uses some to boost her
program’s limited travel fund.
She said traveling to various
meetings is important when
it comes to marketing her va-
rieties and seeking additional
support for the program.
Chen used some of the
money this year to help fund
a new post-doctorate position.
IWC board members
named one endowment the
“Potlatch Joe Anderson Cere-
al Agronomics Professorship”
and the other, the “D. Blaine
Jacobson Wheat Breeding
Professorship.”
Anderson, a Potlatch area
farmer, is the former com-
missioner who originated the
UI endowment idea, and the
commission’s spending on
wheat research has doubled
during Jacobson’s 15-year
tenure as executive director,
Brown said.
“Both of those gentlemen
have contributed an awful lot
to the Idaho grain industry,”
Brown said.
New UI Bear Lake County hire brings ranching expertise
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
MONTPELIER, Idaho —
Les Nunn has been meeting
with ranchers and determining
how to best help them during
his first few months as the Uni-
versity of Idaho’s Bear Lake
County Extension educator.
The position had remained
vacant for six years — one of
many university casualties of
the economic downturn — be-
fore Nunn was hired in June.
With UI now on sound-
er financial footing, Nunn is
among a flurry of hires UI of-
ficials have made lately.
Nunn, 41, explained too
much time has passed to at-
tempt to resurrect former pro-
grams or to press forward un-
der the job description of his
predecessor, Joel Packham.
He plans to reinvent the
position.
“Because there hasn’t been
a lot going on in this position,
people are accustomed to not
having an educator here,”
Nunn said. “It’s taken a while
to get things going again and
looking for the assistance we
can provide.”
Nunn was raised in Central
British Columbia, where his
family ran a couple of ranch-
es. He earned an associate
degree from Rick’s College
and a bachelor’s degree in re-
Courtesy of Les Nunn
Les Nunn is the new University of Idaho Extension educator serving Bear Lake County, Idaho. His
expertise is in ranching and ranch management.
source recreation and tourism
at UI. For a while, he managed
recreation facilities in Hell’s
Canyon for Idaho Power.
He then earned a master’s
degree in ranch management
from Texas A&M Universi-
ty-Kingsville before working
for more than six years as
assistant operations manager
for a large ranch in Sheridan,
Wyo.
In January, Nunn got a call
from his college friend, UI
Extension agricultural econ-
omist Ben Eborn, notifying
him of the Bear Lake County
job opening.
“I didn’t think we had
much of a chance to get some-
body like him to work for the
university, but it turned out he
was interested,” Eborn said.
Nunn will spend about 60
percent of his time assisting
ranchers, 30 percent in com-
munity development and 10
percent with the 4-H program.
With his community develop-
ment mission, he’ll work with
general businesses in the area,
and plans to reach out to offer
support to the local tourism in-
dustry.
Many ranchers in his area
— known for its high eleva-
tion and extreme winters —
have full-time day jobs and
small herds, so he’s planning
to offer courses in the eve-
nings to accommodate their
schedules. He’s developing a
course in ranch management
and strategies for weathering
low commodity prices, which
he plans to offer in January.
Nunn will also encourage
producers to share their good
animal welfare practices with
the public to change negative
perceptions about the indus-
try.
“He knows how to talk
with the ranchers. They re-
spect him,” said Wayne Jones,
UI Extension interim Eastern
District director, acknowl-
edging Nunn has had to “start
from scratch” in his job.
In addition to Nunn, UI
hired Jennifer Werlin in April
to fill a position in Teton
County, Nikki Dalton during
the mid-summer to work in
Bannock County and Joseph
Seagers in August for Jeffer-
son County.
Jones said UI anticipates
making additional hires soon
for Oneida and Butte coun-
ties.
Ag seminars will focus on
conserving farm resources
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
MONTPELIER, Idaho —
University of Idaho Extension
agricultural economist Ben
Eborn has added some spe-
cial topics to the agenda of the
upcoming Idaho Ag Outlook
Seminars to inject some hope
into what would otherwise be
a dreary slate of commodity
outlook presentations.
The seminars, in their third
year, will be hosted Dec. 6 at
Burley Inn for Magic Valley
residents and Dec. 7 at the
Idaho Falls Residence Inn
for those in Eastern Idaho.
The agenda for both locations
starts with registration at 8:30
a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m.
University and USDA ex-
perts and commodity group
leaders are scheduled to pres-
ent their usual projections on
the beef, hay, potato, dairy
and grain markets, as well as
the overall global and U.S.
agricultural market outlooks
and the long-term weather
forecast.
With commodity prices
down across the board, Eb-
orn said UI has added panel
discussions — which will
include growers and industry
experts — about how to use
technology to conserve farm
resources, emphasizing that
growers can be proactive and
improve their own situations.
“The outlook for all of
these other commodities was
so gloomy, we felt we’d better
put something else in there,”
Eborn said. “Otherwise, we’d
have a bunch of depressed
people leaving the confer-
ence.”
UI’s Power County Ex-
tension educator, Terrell Sor-
rensen, is also scheduled to
discuss the steps Idaho has
taken to improve its water
outlook relative to elsewhere
in the U.S. and the world.
His talk will delve into
Idaho’s new groundwater
management area, the 2015
settlement agreement between
groundwater users and Ida-
ho’s Surface Water Coalition,
discussions about removing
dams in the Lower Snake Riv-
er and other topics.
“We’re in a good situa-
tion compared to the rest of
the world, but where I think
we’re ahead of the curve,
we definitely want to stay
ahead,” Sorrensen said.
The cost to attend is $30,
which includes lunch and a
200-page book with slides
from all of the presentations
included.
Call 847-0344 for infor-
mation and to register.
“The feedback we’ve
gotten is that it helps (grow-
ers) make marketing deci-
sions and planning deci-
sions as far as what to plant
and when to try to market
their crops and their live-
stock,” Eborn said.
Eborn said the seminars
are also popular among
lenders, who usually com-
prise about half of the
crowds.
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