National Projects

This year the US District Court of Oregon sided with IWF along with fishing businesses and other conservation groups as plaintiffs, that the federal Columbia/Snake River Salmon Plan was illegal. IWF has been a leader in advocating for management strategies to increase salmon returns to restore ecologic health, enhance Idaho’s angling culture, and stimulate the commercial and sport fishing economies in the state. IWF as a founding member of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in the early 1990s, and as such is a key player in the most beneficial actions taken to date for Idaho salmon. Our court victories and the subsequent court orders expanding spill programs over Snake/Columbia dams and reservoirs during the salmon migration are the single most beneficial thing that has occurred for Idaho salmon in the past 30 years.

Since the 50’s IWF has played a major role in acquiring funding for land conservation for salmon habitat in Idaho as well as working at the national level to keep the Salmon and Clearwater River drainages a sanctuary for salmon and steelhead, and river recreation.

IWF is leading the campaign of Idaho sportsmen and wildlife groups to get our congressional delegation to support the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. This act would allocate $1.3 billion annually to dedicated wildlife funding for state wildlife management agencies. The funding already exists in the federal treasury and would greatly supplement IDFG’s conservation operations.

IWF supports utilizing federal grants to construct wildlife bridges over Idaho interstates to reduce loss of human life, encounters with endangered species, and tax dollars spent on incident response. The main areas we are focused on are located in the eastern part of the state where endangered species migrate throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.