HB 591: Elk quarantine rules v2.0 — 2024

Rep. Jared Raymond (R-Menan) introduced HB 591 that will be considered in the Agricultural Affairs Committee. The bill is a rewrite of the earlier HB 536, and relates to elk farms in Idaho. Specifically, the bill weakens existing rules that require elk farm quarantines, if the elk may have been exposed to Chronic Wasting Disease, a fatal brain disease similar to Mad Cow Disease that threatens both wild and domestic elk.

Unfortunately, for the first time in Idaho’s history, two elk farms in eastern Idaho imported 153 potentially infected elk from Alberta. Existing Administrative Rules from the Idaho State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) already provide for quarantining these elk, but this bill would weaken those rules and make it harder to update them in the future.

HB 591 also has several differences from its predecessor, including eliminating requirements for double-fencing, which ensures that potentially-infected domestic elk do not infect nearby populations of wild elk. The bill also weakens and confuses existing definitions of “commingling” elk.

Finally, HB 591 permits owners of domestic elk under quarantine to move those animals between facilities they own, although the new bill states that such transfers must be approved by the ISDA director.

Given the fact that CWD-suspect herds were just discovered in Idaho in 2023, it’s the worst possible time for the legislature to be weakening these rules and eliminating the flexibility that ISDA needs to respond to this threat.

As Idahoans, we want to see this public resource well managed, so that future generations can benefit from healthy and abundant populations of fish and wildlife.