IRON MOUNTAIN—The professional elk killer can always find elk.
Whether he can kill them depends on where they stand.
“That’s kind of my limiting factor: Whether or not they’re on the property where we have permission,” the elk killer said from the rocky, snow-drifted slopes of Iron Mountain.
Prophetic.
The twenty-something aspiring wildlife professional, whose official title is technician, is being left nameless at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s request because of the sensitive nature of his job.
Within hours of making the remark, he spotted his quarry. He and Matt Withroder, the wildlife management supervisor for the state agency’s Laramie Region, stood glassing a herd of about 300 animals through binoculars. But the big-bodied ungulates never strayed from a parcel of private property where the elk-killing crew lacked permission. Those elk lived to graze another day.
Hiring someone whose whole gig is to kill elk for months at a time is a relative oddity in western big game wildlife management. Almost always it’s the other way around. Hunters pay the states often handsome sums for the privilege of killing an elk. In Wyoming, nonresidents can fork over well north of $1,000 for the opportunity.
Such arrangements are foundational to the North American model of wildlife management: hunters fund management agencies through their license fees while helping those managers achieve their herd-size objectives.
Hitting and maintaining those goal numbers can be a real challenge. With more sensitive species like pronghorn and mule deer, there often aren’t enough animals to reach the objective. But with elk, in many places, it’s the opposite: the hardy, adaptable ungulates reproduce unchecked by significant predation and run rampant for years with no easy way to bring herd numbers down.
And so the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has resorted to measures like paying technicians to kill elk, among other unconventional methods. On a Friday in early March, Withroder and the elk-killing technician were doing their business on the historic Farthing Ranch, which falls within the state’s elk hunt area No. 6. The elk herd here, named after 7,408-foot-high Iron Mountain, was last estimated at 3,500 animals, which is roughly double the 1,800-elk goal for the herd.
“It’s kind of the ground zero for us in terms of how to come up with ways to manage these elk,” said Doug Brimeyer, Game and Fish’s deputy chief of wildlife.
Uncapping the quota
Brimeyer delivered that description last week in Riverton while addressing the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. He was presenting hunting season proposals that included a first for elk hunting in modern Wyoming: a new license for cows and calves that hunters, previously restricted to three elk, will be able to buy in unlimited quantities. The commission OK’d that plan, and the unlimited licenses will be debuted during the 2024-’25 hunting season in eastern Wyoming’s elk hunt areas 3, 6, 7, 8, 117, 122 and 126.
There’s more to the elk-reduction effort than paying technicians to kill elk and uncapping quotas. Facing legislative pressure to rein in elk numbers and radically change management regimes, the state agency has engaged in an informal 5-year plan. Part of that plan reinstated and rebranded special “depredation prevention” hunts that function independently from Wyoming’s normal game seasons and quotas. Statewide, there were “pretty close to 450” elk killed via the new “auxiliary management” hunts, Brimeyer told WyoFile. These hunts, which equip landowners and their friends and families with special licenses that cannot be purchased from local tag sellers or on Game and Fish’s website, did not take place in the Iron Mountain area where Withroder and the elk-killing technicians scanned for herds.
In that swath of northern Laramie County, where land ownership is overwhelmingly private, the state employs another tool outside the normal hunting tag regime. By the time WyoFile rendezvoused with the elk-killing technician in early March he had taken down 13 animals, and every one of those animals was tagged with a “lethal take” permit authorized by Chapter 56 of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission’s regulations. With these permits, the state gave itself the ability to kill up to 300 elk in hunt area 6 alone. Last September landowners in the unit received an additional 450 lethal take permits. They’ve put them to use, Withroder said.
“I think we were at 160, 170 [elk killed beyond normal hunting] at the end of the calendar year,” he said at the time. “Those are still ongoing.”
Taken together, the array of unconventional methods has stretched modern Wyoming elk management beyond the bounds of what was. Whether the new regime can reduce populations to the objective within five years remains to be seen, but state officials like Game and Fish Chief Warden Rick King remain hopeful.
“This is year two,” King said. “So three more years before you can tell me whether I was right or wrong.”
There are some promising signs. The estimated population of the Iron Mountain Herd has fallen for five straight years, from a high of 4,600 in 2019 to 3,500 in 2023 — though that’s still double the goal.
Bigger picture statewide, dynamics are reversed. There were 29,000 elk killed in the 2023-’24 season, an all-time high for the Equality State, home to some 109,000 wapiti — a population that keeps climbing, despite the high harvest.
Wyoming isn’t alone in its too-many-elk predicament. Montana’s elk population has ballooned by 42% in less than two decades despite Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ efforts to hunt it down, leading to an all-new overarching plan.
Some measures pursued in Montana to up the kill of ranchland elk have triggered huge pushback, including accusations that the state is privatizing the public’s elk.
Any criticism out there?
Like Montana, Wyoming’s elk-reduction plans have also given landowners and others with private land access a leg up, yet the shift has gone over much more smoothly with the hunting public here.
Jessi Johnson, government affairs director for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, says that the steps the state is taking to knock down elk numbers are “really widely accepted.”
“In the wake of [House Bill] 60, I think everybody realizes that this is a problem that we need to get under control,” Johnson said.
House Bill 60 – Excess wildlife population damage amendments, which died in the 11th hour of the Legislature’s 2024 budget session, was a bill born from ranchers outraged by the state’s ineffectiveness at achieving its elk population goals.
Jim Magagna, longtime lobbyist for the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association, architected the legislation, though it was reworked by a committee ahead of the session. Essentially, the bill proposed to compensate ranchers for grass eaten by elk — at one juncture proposing to pay more than the grass was worth on the open market. There were worries that the bill could have been a huge financial drain on the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, a largely self-supported state agency that funds itself through hunting and fishing license dollars.
“I think it shook the Game and Fish and everybody to the core last year,” said Sy Gilliland, a past president of the Wyoming Outfitters and Guides Association. “That [bill] had legs, and rightfully so.”
Gilliland, who supports the state’s elk reduction efforts, is hopeful that the new unlimited cow-calf licenses could help wean Game and Fish off less desirable programs, like paying professionals to kill elk and the new auxiliary hunts.
Both Gilliland and Buzz Hettick, who co-chairs the Wyoming Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, have concerns with how the state has administered the auxiliary hunts.
“It’s not very transparent,” Hettick said. “There should be a report [on the program] that’s presented to the commission and the public.”
Although HB 60 died last session, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is taking the initiative to rework its regulations concerning compensation for “extraordinary damage to rangeland” — perhaps to avert another run at legislation by making it easier for ranchers to dip into the pot.
“The exact framework, I’m not sure what it’ll look like,” said King, the chief warden. “Our direction has been to take that [regulation change] in front of the commission in September.”
Magagna will be watching to see what changes in regulation as he weighs whether to bring back an HB 60 mirror bill. Overall, he’s “pleased” that Wyoming Game and Fish is now responding to ranchers who say they’re being overrun with elk, though he added a caveat: “A lot of us,” he said, “we don’t understand why it took the threat of legislation.”
Magagna is skeptical that the department’s goals are attainable.
“They talk about a five-year plan and I welcome that, but I think in some of these areas it’s going to be a challenge to get it done,” he said.
He cited two reasons: elk numbers and access. The Iron Mountain Herd isn’t Wyoming’s only elk herd dramatically out of whack with the desired number. Just to the north, the Laramie Peak Herd is even more inflated — its 12,000-plus elk are nearly 2.5 times the herd’s 5,000-head goal. When elk in these areas get heavily hunted they form mega-herds, find safety and become increasingly difficult to hunt.
Access woes
“One of the challenges to making hunting an effective tool is we have landowners who don’t allow access for hunting on their land,” Magagna said.
That’s the case on Iron Mountain. Although cattleman Charlie Farthing gave the state the OK to dispatch its elk-killing technician on his family’s 121-year-old ranch, he knows from experience that elk learn fast and find places to hide out.
“Part of the problem is that some of the land [in the area] has been sold in recent years,” Farthing told WyoFile, “and it’s gone to people that aren’t necessarily in the ranching business. They bought it for recreation — mainly for hunting and fishing — and they don’t allow any [public] hunting.”
The elk find those places of refuge and hole up. The savvy behavior has made the elk-killing technician’s job much more difficult. In 2023, the first year that Game and Fish commissioned elk killers, the agency hired a couple of brothers who live in the area, and they were “very successful,” Farthing said.
At a cost of roughly $20,600, the two brothers took out 129 cows and calves. Save for one animal that tested positive for chronic wasting disease, all the meat — plus what’s been killed by the state’s new technician this year — has gone to good use. The elk get quartered and processed, and the finished product is distributed for free via First Lady Jennie Gordon’s Food from the Field program, Withroder said.
This past winter the elk and the meat were tougher to come by. Partly it was because the brothers got busy and declined to take the gig again, turning over the duties to the elk-killing technician and whatever Game and Fish employee could accompany him on any given day.
“Not knowing the area, it was a pretty good learning curve for them,” Farthing said. “They did OK.”
By the end of the season, the Game and Fish crew managed to kill only 23 elk, some 18% of what the elk-killing contractors achieved in 2023. Overall, however, landowners and the state agency managed to take down an estimated 250 elk in hunt area 6 using the “lethal take” permits.
In Farthing’s view, everything the state’s doing, including hiring professional hunters, is a step in the right direction. But the Iron Mountain Herd grew to where it is today over decades, he said, and they’re not going to get it done “overnight.”
“Whether or not they can do it, I don’t know,” Farthing said. “These elk never have a bad year.”
“If I never see another elk, it’d be just great.”
Charlie Farthing
At 69 years old, Farthing is ready to be done dealing with elk, which have caused him “shock and awe” by the immense amount of work they create, like fixing fences. He’s come into pastures, where elk superherds moved through, to find 300 yards of barbed-wire twisted, tangled and on the ground.
“It takes an hour or better to fix one little spot,” Farthing said. “If I never see another elk, it’d be just great.”
I will come out there soon if you need my help
If you want to hunt come and fix fence free labor to access and hunt elk. Make lemonade out of lemons.
I am a79 year old hunter who love to get more cow elk while I can. Wyoming has complicated license application. This year I contacted some ranchers about access. Farthing turned me down, others were rude and I feel that the outfitters control all fees. They don’t want unguided hunters wandering around on public or private land. Jim Magagna was helpful in that he passed my request along to ranchers who would let me hunt.
I’m 64 years old and love elk! When I was young man while the news one there was rancher that complained about the wild pigs damaging property, the next week I went out and found the ranch and ask permission to hunt and promptly ask for 300 dollars??? The rules for permission to hunt were simple back then, you hunt at your own risk, closed the gates that were closed and left opened was open, picked up your trash and shell casings and offered to help the ranchers anytime they need it. If they applied these simple rules and allowed respectful folks to hunt the may not have these problems I use to ranches that had rules but then the attorneys got involved and all of sudden we became a liability to the ranch and our simple code of hunting ethics went out the door.i dropped out of the RMEF because they did nothing for the common guy with risking tag prices in every state. I have yet to see a senior citizen tag in any state which equates to reason to just get out in mountains. There’s more to the elk killer then there telling us, private property be dammed! Why doesn’t Wyoming take eminent domain of elk herds in the state ? The take property that way and we public pay for these elk herds through licensing and tags , they are public property in my opinion. Ranchers may not be telling us the whole truth. Many elk in migratory areas die very cruel death every year in hardwire fence. Elk make that rancher money one way or the other, I’m so sorry that it takes the rancher a few hours to fix his fence, what we not realize that cattle can do the same damage. I’ve seen cattle and bulls especially jump a five foot gate with ease. Damage? It all about money and we’re the rancher can make the most of it! Wyoming regardless should happy that it has great surplus of these animals. We’d be in heaven in Nevada if we had that! But, everything is about money and not common sense.
I am a permanently disabled 70 year old outdoorsman who would love to harvest a cow elk before my time is done. My family has farmed and ranched in the San Joaquin valley since the 1880s. We understand that there must be Ranch Rules and we have had to deal with poachers and other bad apples. I’ve hunted in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and my home state of California,and have always been respectful and law abiding. Please help me achieve my dream of hunting in the Cowboy state. Thank you!
In my experience ranchers normally bring it on themselves on too many elk if they would allow hunters to come in and access to the elk the numbers could be managed better we have too many people that it’s all about the money. And you have ranchers that fly around in heard elk to certain areas for outfitting purposes. I have property that has a lot of elk on it when the ranchers are not driving them off my place fish and game won’t do anything about it and friends and family come up to elk hunt and generally goes home empty-handed due to greed I don’t think ranchers should get compensated if they’re not going to allow hunting on private land. Granted we have people that don’t respect the land and there is a problem there. But instead of charging big money to trespass put someone in charge of the hunters that will make sure that they’re following the rules and not tearing up the land there is too many people that would do that in a heartbeat even to the point of them have access for hunting.
To me it seems like fish and game and ranchers create their own problem and mismanagement.
People can’t afford to pay huge amounts of money for tags and property access when they’re trying to put meat on the table especially nowadays. If you will just look and think the meat that you harvest costing more than the beef you buy from the rancher there’s no comparison in the cost. And your non-residence hunters pay a larger cost $1,000 for a tag and another thousand to $1,800 trespass fee and the processing you’d be better off going to buy you a half a beef from your local rancher or processor.
I would gladly pay to get access to a private ranch to hunt elk and show the upmost respect for the land and the rancher would have a new great friend.
There is so much state land or public land that is landlocked by private ranches. My family had 10 cow tags last year. While everyday we saw elk and got so close, we were unable to harvest as the elk were safe on land that is private. Yes the ranch I specifically am thinking of does allow hunting it also costs 1800$ for a cow. It upsets me that they would get compensated for the elk destroying their grass, fences or grounds when they don’t open it up. You can give as many tags as you want, but with limited access makes it difficult to harvest.
I would love to come out there and help. I have been hunting for 50 plus years, I understand the need to get the herds down, for resources, the health of heard, and land damage.
I am from WI.l would pay good money to hunt private a private ranch why don’t ranchers want this all party’s involved win.I am a very responsible person and respect the privileged rancher. Thanks
Perhaps Wyoming should look into a system like New Mexico’s EPLUS. Yes, it may be controversial but it is a good management tool.
I’ve had it up to my ears with this stinking access issue. I get it: there’s always one or two among us that spoils it for the rest of us. But the wholesale slaughter of our elk herds is so wrong headed, I can barely believe it. But leave it to the sacred cattlemen to create yet another problem for the state. The relationship between the land holders, and cattlemen and the public at large is bad enough already, and has been since our dubious introduction to statehood. It’s always something. If not wild horses, then it’s the elk. We give way too much credence to these people who’ve made the land and the animals that naturally live there into a means of lawfare. Especially for a state that is hanging on to a mystical past, which endures only to prop up misplaced power in the hands of powerful men who have land and cattle. Or sheep, increasingly.
Killing off our game herds is not going to cure anything. It’s going to set a course for failure. Kinda like Wyoming generally.
For the folks in the comments wanting to come hunt with an unlimited elk tag but don’t know where to start, Eastmans’ Hunting Journals will gladly point you in the right direction and arm you with the information you need to have a shot at filling your freezer with elk meat; email editorial@eastmans.com for more information or visit http://www.eastmans.com and reach out there as well.
The Wyoming Game and Fish website also has information on public access in those areas and can point you in the right direction via a simple phone call to the offices in the affected areas mentioned in this article.
On one hand, Wyoming has an overpopulation of elk. On the other hand, Wyoming residents, especially hunters, complain that wolves eat too many elk and must be exterminated. Did I miss something?
The ranchers are afraid that the wolves would prefer an easy livestock hunt rather than hunt elk. Doubt that ranchers allow public hunters to shoot the wolves.
Resident hunters do not want to pay to hunt private property nor share the available elk permits with nonresidents.
If the large elk herds are doing so much damage, maybe public access would cause less damage. But then the ranchers could not get government subsidies to prevent the public from hunting state owned elk.
People who complain about the damage that Elk do were never forced to purchase land that Elk graze on! They are free to purchase land in other States where Elk are not established. It doesn’t do any good when these people want compensation for Damages that Elk caused but could have been avoided if they allowed the Elk to be hunted!
Hunted the farthing ranch back in 90’s Charles was having trouble with people driving where they weren’t suppose to so he turned control over to the game and fish. Elk were not that abundant at that time there. Apparently he must of shut hunting down all together on the ranch to have a heard of that size. Just thinking that if there wasn’t so many don’t give a crap huntets out there maybe hunters would of had a chance to keep the heard in check. My wife’s and my hunt went well. But when we seen a truck drive across his alfalfa field we new hunters time was up on the ranch. I disagree with what is going to happen to the elk but can understand why.
Game & Fish could easily develop a cooperative agreement with landowner(s) establishing an agreed upon set of hunting rules: (limit number of days; drive on main established road; park and then walk-in; number of hunters per week, length of hunting available dates (months), etc) and, upon a successful hunt, landowner coupon.
As usual there are a lot of good comments here, with a diverse opinion of cause, remedy, terminology and so on. I’m not sure I’m on board with WYG&F actually paying someone for herd reduction, nor am I comfortable with the concept of the new “unlimited” cow/calf licenses available in certain eastern areas on private land only. I will remain cautiously optimistic, but frankly don’t hold much hope that this new license type will provide the outcome that WYG&F anticipates. Large landowners derive income from Outfitters and Guides that “rent” their land for hunting. Most hunters don’t want to pay a guide big $$$ to kill a cow or calf. At the same time these same landowners provide little to no access for the average Joe. Perhaps WYG&F needs to think outside the box and come up with a better mouse trap, cause what they’ve been doing hasn’t been successful. Maybe this new license type will work. Maybe not, one thing I know for sure, every Tom, Dick N Harry will buy one of these tags, which leads to more money for G&F so they can pay someone to do a job that they can’t seem to manage.
Just maybe if you Wyoming game com. Lowerd the price of the elk tags more than likely more people could afford to buy a tag I Wyoming makes it hard to get tags and the ranchers do not help out the problem I would love to hunt there but it’s so hard to find a place to do it
Will they allow out of State Hunters to come and take some of the over abundance of elk
Truly tragic when millions ofcows are covering American parks and landscapes, destroying native grasses, polluting water, destroying native habitat, and costing millions in park management – while killing off wildlife. Only in America does Big Ag and Ranching Associations define environmental policy. Insanity.
Maybe ask other states if they want any elk for transplanting to their states. What is going to happen to the meat ? Hopefully goes to shelters and food banks. Why not let people hunt them ?
How does one apply for a license for an area needing culling? I live in Cody and I could use the meat.
Interested in this process. I live in Uinta County and am a landowner that elk frequent.
What is the best way to get a out of state Wyoming elk permit?
I’ve hunted area 6 & 7 for forty five years & access is the key. You don’t need to pay two guys to shot elk when local hunters would appreciate the opportunity. I’ve asked the farthing ranch & they never let you hunt. They want to make money off the bulls & bitch about all the cow herds.
There’s this amazing elk control solution. It’s called natural selection and has been working for thousands of years. We have let the natural balance of predators and prey become out of balance by killing off wolves, bear, and coyotes that have kept those pesky ungulates in check. Go figure.
How much of this land is land locked public land?
Grazing rights should be taken away if they don’t allow hunting. Possibly could fix 2 problems at once. Open up hunting and stop the need to corner cross. Sounds like a win win.
Sounds like a great solution!. Landlocked public property is a real issue! The ones controlling said property are out of control! Greed and control!. There are millions of acres of public properties that are inaccessible! And the game and fish are involved in special interests to keep things as they are! Public land is exactly that! Open up Landlocked properties to the public!. This would help to harvest animals! They claim corner crossing are unlawful!? But yet there are absolutely no laws against doing so! As a matter of fact the federal government has ruled just the opposite!. This issue needs to be addressed!..
I understand that elk can cause damage, lots of damage. But if you don’t allow access (even permitted or limited) to the public then you can’t demand the public pay for that damage. If elk are a problem and you don’t let anyone in to kill said elk then it’s YOUR problem, not the public’s.
Bring on the wolves, LGD, range riders, some common sense, please.
Man I’m glad I moved out of WY years ago. It doesn’t get any dumber than to let private landowners close access to hunting, then pay them over market rates for grass because (duh) they’re overrun with elk.
Why doesn’t the state quarter the licensing fee to non-residents who would love to hunt elk?!
There wouldn’t be a surplus of elk if wolves were also on the terrain. You guys are slaughtering wolves and complaining there are too many elk. Duh!
I too would like to come to Wy and hunt elk! but would def need pointed in the right direction , Ranchers that have to many would b a good start ! i am 69 yrs young and would like to go a few more times ! Thanks
As an avid hunter, I would love the opportunity to hunt WY elk. However, the barriers to entry for out-of-state hunters is a significant deterent (lottery systems and limited tags) and many of us must have applications in multiple states (all of which cost $) just to have a shot – pun definitely implied. If the elk are such a problem, why do they (regulatory agencies) make it so hard for folks to visit their state, provide revenue, and take an animal? In TN, whitetail have become such a problem, a licensed hunter with the appropriate tags can harvest up to 174 animals (with only 2 antlered) per season. If they truly want reduce herd numbers, they should make it easier for people to hunt. If you are a land owner and would like my brother and I to hunt your property, we have unlimited PTO and would be grateful for the opportunity. Thanks for reading
I have been supporting Rocky Mountain Elk to build a small herd in my state and will probably never draw a tag in my lifetime, send out some invitations and hunters will be happy to help for free.
Maybe you could stop killing wolves and let them kill the elk. You know, the way nature intended.
Right….how ignorant, just blatant ignorance on display!!
Trap some of those elk and ship them off to the blue mountains of Washington and Oregon.
I’m a non resident from Pa. I’ve hunted in CO since 1990. Just recently my two son’s and I were thinking of elk hunting in WY. It seems that we would need alot of preference points to do so.I agree with David Congo’s post
If residents of WY were able to easily get Large land owner tags, in my opinion it would be easier for us non residents to get elk permits for the public hunting lands.Just saying! If anyone could give me some advice on the best way to acquire an out of state elk tag, I’m all ears. Thx Jeff
I’m a WI resident and have hunted elk in WY. I’m collecting preference points and would like to do one more hunt. Let large ranchers sell tags with amenities for whatever the market allows. It would then be easier for non-residents to draw an elk tag to hunt public lands. Also, let ranchers sell trespass rights. In exchange for selling tags/access, ranchers must meet an established harvest quota or lose this revenue source.
The professional hunters that don’t cost a dime and have been here for 30,000 years are called wolves. The apex of this problem is the introduction of a invasive species which has disrupted the order of the Creator. I quit eating beef a couple years ago – I only eat venison, elk, and bison.
My retort to Farthing would be if I never see another cow in Wyoming that would be just great.
1,000 % agree with not eating beef- an evil, cruel industry with an overpriced product anyway. It seems like Farthing and other ranchers think their gods or something. My hope is that more and more Americans will increasingly turn away from beef until their are no more cattle ranchers.
Agreed! It is the cattle that are invasive not the wolves. Excellent post.
Is there a way to link out of state hunters with landowners who have excess animals? I have wanted to hunt elk in Wyoming but don’t know where to go. The classic “knock on doors and ask” really isn’t practical. I’d be happy to come knock down a cow for you guys!
My two sons and I are very interested in hunting WY. If any ranchers are interested in giving permission please contact me.
Can you provide a link to applying for the elk harvest program? I am interested and cannot seem to locate. Thank you.
This is what happens when the state turns over management of wildlife and fish to landowners who manage wildlife and fish for their own personal profit.
Much has changed regarding public access to the publicly owned wildlife. All that really needs to be done is for certain landowners to open the gate, and let Wyoming sportsmen do the “contractors’ job.” As it was originally intended.
But over the last 40 to 50 years the value of certain wildlife species has skyrocketed for certain unscrupulous landowners who have traded Agriculture for “Wildlife Management” on their private lands, and made access to the public lands nearly impossible.
The legislative solution is for landowners who have taken agricultural lands out of agricultural production to lose their exemptions and subsidies as long as they derive their profit from exploiting access to the fish and wildlife. It will require ammendment(s) to the state constitution to place wildlife harvest goals back in the hands of the citizens of Wyoming. The current situation will remain as long as the financial incentive to conduct “wildlife ranching” remains in the hands of a privileged few. Many landowners have no incentive for management of the fish and wildlife outside of their own outfitting business. Good neighbors are becoming scarce in Wyoming!
Everybody I know in Iowa that used to hunt elk quit hunting when Wyoming and Colorado jacked up their prices. It’s no wonder they have an overpopulated herd now. Somebody explain to me why they could not see that coming.
Wyoming should look at Montana block management program. Maybe have a special season when elk start showing up. Rancher need open things up in one form or another.
This is ridiculous what is going on out there, the cattle people should be ashamed of them selves, they should allow people to get to the heards of elk and give out cow and calf tags.
I feel u guys are doing a great job I do feel that the sportsmen have been set aside or they r just not participating. Anyway there is a landowner tag for a reason so I suggest use it, up it to a number that works for the landowners with the we are shelling out for grass, fence,and everything should be a darn good tag and incentive to the landowners and access to public lands would help by all means.well guys good
Has Wyoming thought about replacing mule deer tags with elk tags at the same price as mule deer along with suggested locations for diy hunters and without all the overhead requirements of needing an unneeded guide.
Too many elk , and everyone said the wolf would decimate the herds ,
Were going to need a bigger freezer
Try trapping and proud cutting (that is removing one testicle). What ever way is practical to sterilize the bulls. That way they breed but don’t reproduce. Don’t castrate they won’t breed at all then.which won’t help our cause at all. Oh it would probably be a good idea to mark them in some way so hunters don’t shoot them. Just food for thought.
Any job worth doing is is worth doing properly and humane when it comes too decreasing animal herds. Hiring killers of these animals is wrong especially when they could be caught and reestablished in areas that want them.
The elk, nor wolf, nor mountain lion should be killed when there are areas in the U.S. they could be placed. Many national forest are large enough too carry a herd. After a few years hunting can be allowed and regulated.
If elk herd is to large why not capture hundreds and send them to states like WV, Ken, Tennessee, North GA. North AL. Instead of killing them. These states are reestablishing elk. Cost isn’t a problem, millions are wasted everyday for less noble projects.
With the price of beef today. Hunting is the best way to illuminate two problems, the over population of elk and more grass for cattle. The issue is allowing hunters on the ranches and requiring landowners to allow the animals in great numbers to be shot of the small places. If you wait tell animal wasting kills them. Powell area as an example. Five years ago usually 20 to 30 head of dear were in my lower hay field. Now I saw two white tail and two muley’s all last summer. Dead and dying dear everywhere. So either take care of the problem landowners.Or you can wait until you kill them by disease. By protecting them with hunting or wait until animal wasting takes them. Mad cow disease is close to animal wasting disease. If you wait until it mutates and kill cows, elk and deer, you won’t have to worry about either problem. Eric H. Loloff
In Wisconsin, farmers can recieve crop damage payments caused by wildlife in exchange for allowing public access. It’s a win-win.
I’ve seen the Farthings use there SXS to herd the elk back on there property and not let it go into public land. Maybe the problem isn’t the herd but the property owners trying to make money instead of reducing an over population of elk.
These subsidies for elk killing here, bison killing there, wolf killing everywhere is a malignant form of socialism that harms everyone except those getting the payouts and lucrative govt contracts. What nonsense.
Are they letting the meat of killed elk go to waste? If so that is a crime in G&F books. Nothing in article about that. Run the numbers at 500 pounds per animal. 20,000 pounds of meat wasted.
Obviously, you didn’t read the entire article. The meat is given to needy people.
I believe that if a land owner will not allow hunting on their property, they should not receive any compensation for destruction of fences, feed and other items. Private land owners only want to make money off of the wildlife. No public hunting, no state aid!! Let the wildlife ruin their lively hood.
In five years they won’t be running cattle.
Read the article again but slower! It referenced donating the meat!
You missed the part where they said that they donated the meat to those in need. It doesn’t go to waste. If that was not being done you are right it would be a ” crime “. It’s to bad that free range cattle make it difficult to maintain a proper predator population. But us city slickers do love our beef. Yargg.
Solution? Why not put a stop to killing wolves and let nature do its good works? You can’t always manage wildlife with bullets. Reply?
Wolves don’t just go where you or I might want them to go. They go wherever they want to go.
Ummmm, wolves do get relocated and with food that plentiful why wouldn’t they be. Instead of 85% of the state of Wyoming massacring and torturing wolves why don’t they put them to good use. Sounds like a bunch of fools are running that state. But then the world already knows that to be a fact.
Exactly! Quit killing wolves for the fun of it! Ranchers get paid when one kills livestock n quite handsomely in Colorado!
Well, that’s what ya get when the state kills all its natural predators and crushes the few wolves they do have with snowmobiles. They are getting exactly what they should have expected. Of course with no predators there will be game overpopulation. Is everyone in charge there just stupid?
Yes, we’re all just stupid here. All of us run predators down with snowmobiles and then torture them. It’s getting very old reading about how every single person in Wyoming is a cold blooded animal torturer. I’m over it. Boycott us. Don’t come here. I DON’T CARE.
Wonder why the elk can’t be found on the public land? Oh, forgot, the welfare ranchers grazed it all down to nuttin’. Elk have no where else to go to find food but on the private ranch land and the irony is, rancher’s don’t like it plus most won’t let hunters harvest some of them. Pure buffoonery on the part of both ranchers and the game and fish and again, the one’s who ultimately pay are the citizens of Wyoming
People do not want the wolf population involved, but wolves were part of the eco system, before ranchers and people started to invade the west. Wolves kept down the elk herds etc. When you start to mess with mother nature , then we encounter problems. Clear cutting forest results in mud slides . As humans we need to start taking care of Mother Earth before it is to late.
I understand so many elk and not enough predators. I thought this was big cats, wolves and bears job. A wipe-out of all above does not make sense. It always seems to there is a reason for humans lust for blood.
Let me guess you eat meat or just don’t have the guts to take care of it yourself you let somebody else do your dirty work
It looks like the elk are going to be treated like the wolves in Wyoming the rancher legislatures don’t never wanna see another elk again and they usually get their way. So to manage them you hire a sniper this just does not seem to be the Wyoming way when there are so many hunters who would love to get an elk. I think the ranchers should pay the snipers
That you can’t name the F&G technician but you can print his photograph is silly. Game and Fish are Wyoming’s keystone cops and their continuous blunders prove they need to hire some adults. They don’t think they need to be accountable to the sportsmen who pay their salaries. I’m sure they refused to grant this reporter an interview without promising anonymity to the hired hunter.They sat on the information about the wolf in the GRB for over a month and wouldn’t have said a word about it had it not been for bar patrons who leaked the photos from that gruesome night. F&G seem to think they should be allowed to operate on their own terms with no oversight.
Why would he want his name out there? So people like you could harass him? BTW, G&F are beholden to the legislature. The legislature passes all the laws. NOT THE G&F. Education is important.
Clifford Folkert’s – Education is important and this has nothing to do with any laws that are in place or any reason you can dream up that I might want to harass the guy. G&F asked that his identity be withheld for some strange reason and then WyoFile printed his photograph. So what good did it do to withhold his name? I’m sure there’s lots of people who know who he is and now know what he does for a living. My personal belief is that state agencies should be accountable to the people who pay their salaries. This guy is a state employee who receives his salary from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and there’s no good reason why his name should be protected – especially since his photograph is right there for everyone to see
John, the request for anonymity did not come about until the end of my day spent with the Game and Fish crew. It was an unusual request that surprised me, but I thought it was reasonable given the topic and it being a seasonal job for an early-career biologist. Frankly, on this one I’d commend the Game and Fish for granting me access to a difficult story. We were out there to kill elk, after all — it just didn’t happen. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
I have stated this before I think there is a better way.the first thing is (the brain is liken to a parachute it works best when it’s open ) not too much of that in Wyoming I have ranched for a long time and was taught by my father in law and his brother who were ranchers and farmers for a longer time and they didn’t have to deal with elk they had alot of deer and again game and fish weren’t much help you can’t take someone from town or not coming from a ranch working on one hire them into game and fish they won’t understand the problem just like our government is working now having read about wildlife management around the world we should pay attention to what some others are doing some are doing pretty good working with the land owners there are two things I see is some of my neighbors ranchers would kill every thing that eats any of their grass greedy next is game fish are greedy and they think the a ranchers should feed and house wild life it’s the ranchers job how they make money ask any game warden how much wildlife he feeds with their paycheck as I have said before I don’t think the ranchers should bare the whole burden the greedy game and fish should give the ranchers tags that they can do with what they want my father in law said it’s about money so I say the ranchers what is difference if you sell beef or tags for wildlife you are getting paid for the feed one way or another then the state doesn’t have to pay damages the rancher makes money the sportsman is happy a closing thought not all plants and tree’s are forage for domestic livestock that’s where wildlife comes in they eat alot that domestic doesn’t so that way you are utilizing everything and you have a good ranch myself I always like seeing wildlife and it shows you have a healthy ranch
So I’m going to state the obvious here: when one decimates the populations of predator species (specifically wolves) this is what one gets… out of control elk populations.
I also have little sympathy for the ranchers, who seem to want to do away with everything wild. If they had their way (not all, but many I think), the only animals left in Wyoming would be their cows and sheep…
Be easy remedy for access. No access for hunters. No wildlife damage claim paid out. It that simple. Land owners are doing more damage than “bad” hunters.
Well said… Another thought they could trap every elk off every piece of private land, move them to public land then use high fencing to keep elk off private land. Done right once the problem solved. I’ve put up high fencing for large game and livestock. The problem is the rancher would rather bitch about the problem and actually fix it or spend money to fix it cost to doing business the state could help out use some of the revenue they waste trying to solve the problem all these years Unsuccessfully this works I’ve seen it. What time does rancher probably complain because they wouldn’t get to make money off the hunters
Well sounds like the wealth land barons want their cake and eat it to. Locking up the lands to hunting and fishing but then they don’t like the results of overpopulated game numbers. Go figure.
more socialism for magagna and the stockgrowers and I thought the wolves ate all the elk in Wyoming and Montana?
It’s amazing…ranchers graze their livestock on public lands for pennies vs. actual market lease rates…these cows and sheep nub the public ground down to nothing but dirt, leaving nothing for the wildlife…starving, the elk then go to the lush private lands where the rancher cries foul and hides under the skirts of their bought and paid for game and fish department. It’s a continuing cycle that no one seems to want to talk about
And yet I’ve been told by people in WY there are no elk anymore because of the wolves. Sigh.
Kinda funny in’it?
Nope not funny at all. Got to find some common ground so we can work together for the common good. By that I mean good for the environment.Healthy environment and all of us (animals and people) can live long happy lives.
Hope this isn’t construed as cherry picking, but it’s seems Wyoming has an elk problem, that just happens to be in the 80% of the state that is also the predator zone.
“Overall, he’s “pleased” that Wyoming Game and Fish is now responding to ranchers who say they’re being overrun with elk, though he added a caveat: “
“Essentially, the bill proposed to compensate ranchers for grass eaten by elk — at one juncture proposing to pay more than the grass was worth on the open market.”
“At 69 years old, Farthing is ready to be done dealing with elk, which have caused him “shock and awe” by the immense amount of work they create, like fixing fences. He’s come into pastures, where elk superherds moved through, to find 300 yards of barbed-wire twisted, tangled and on the ground.
“It takes an hour or better to fix one little spot,” Farthing said. “If I never see another elk, it’d be just great.” “
The irony in the situation is profound.
So, private landowners won’t let us hunt elk on their land but they get paid by Wyoming because the elk eat the grass on their land. Wyoming? QUIT paying them if this is the case! I would love to shoot a cow elk and feed my family for a year.
Rather than calling the teams “elk killers “ let’s call them harvesters.
As a retired agriculturist/ natural resource professional words are important.
To the non hunting public harvest is much more acceptable than kill.
We don’t want another Daniel wolf issue biting our backside.
I totally agree, words are very important harvesters or hunters.
Perhaps you should consider being honest and use the most accurate term: killing. The general public associates “harvest” with grains and other crops, so promoting misunderstandings, confusion, and misinformation is harmful and reflects poorly on you as an agriculturist/natural resources profession. Be up front about what is happening and defend those actions if you can.
If a land owner doesn’t allow hunting, there should be no damage payments. They are on their own.
Where their are no wolves and grizzlies the game numbers are fine .
Like in Nevada that has very small populations of Elk and all the rest cause there is only bare desert with no food on it. What would you expect a predator to feed on? So, no predators + no game herds = A good thing? I don’t think so. Magagna and the rest of the welfare ranchers (all who rape the land with their miniscule grazing fees) should start paying their fair share before being allowed to manage any state or federal lands. I know Folkerts could harvest a few.