Rep. Tom Walters (R-Casper) is worried the Wyoming Legislature could create new inequities with a proposed overhaul of the program that compensates landowners for grass eaten by elk or deer.
Under changes being considered via House Bill 60 – Excess wildlife population damage amendments, landowners who “potentially want to have lots of elk on their property” could do so “and get paid for it” by the state, Walters told representatives Friday on the House floor.
“Then they can outfit and bring in one or two clients, and get paid even more money to use all the state’s wildlife for their profit,” he said.
A Walters amendment sought an exchange. Any landowners who wanted to get paid for their lost grass would have to allow for “unrestricted hunting on their property.”
Rep. Art Washut (R-Casper) liked the idea: “This is a mechanism by which we allow Wyoming sportsmen who aren’t going to be able to pay big outfitters’ fees to get access to all this land an opportunity to fill the freezer,” he said, “and at the same time diminish the number of these cow elk out there that are causing so much damage.”
But several influential members of the Legislature’s 62-member House weren’t so fond of adding the contingency to HB 60. Speaker of the House, Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale) — who’s a rancher and large landowner — was against the amendment. Reps. Bill Allemand (R-Midwest) and John Winter (R-Thermopolis), who often vote with a sizable bloc — the Wyoming Freedom Caucus — also opposed Walter’s amendment.
It failed, 26-30.
Four days later while HB 60 was being read before the entire House for the second time, Reps. Trey Sherwood (D-Laramie), Cyrus Western (R-Big Horn) and Walters made a run at a potentially more palatable amendment: Landowners who siphon away Wyoming Game and Fish Department funds for grass lost to elk would have to enroll in the state agency’s Access YES program, where the terms of access can be negotiated.
House Majority Floor Leader, and a Freedom Caucus member, Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) didn’t like it. It too failed.
The majority of the 11 amendments proposed to the controversial legislation were either withdrawn or voted down. Several revisions, however, made it through the legislative process, significantly altering a bill that’s raised the ire of hunting and conservation groups and state wildlife managers worried about unintended effects, like exacerbating elk overpopulation problems by incentivizing landowners to keep money-making herds on their property.
Concern about the difficulty of running cattle amid those same overpopulated herds — which are especially prevalent in central and eastern Wyoming — is what whipped the bill up last summer, where it emerged from the Joint Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee.
Rep. Ember Oakley (R-Riverton) brought one of the more notable amendments to make it through the House, a change to the compensation rate, dropping it from 150% of market value down to 100%.
Then on HB 60’s third and final reading in the House on Tuesday, Sommers and Rep. Barry Crago (R-Buffalo ) — who helped formulate the legislation in the interim — backed an amendment that made several significant changes. Grass lost on state land grazing allotments would no longer be eligible for compensation, and the revision added that eligible landowners must permit “reasonable” hunting opportunities on their property.
“That gives the department that handles our wildlife some discretion,” Crago said Tuesday.
The Freedom Caucus bloc was on board, the amendment passed easily, and the bill itself passed the House, 43-18.
Opposition to the legislation, especially from the hunting community, remains.
On Wednesday morning, HB 60 was received for introduction in the Wyoming Senate and it’ll likely head to the Senate Agriculture Committee next. Casper resident Adam Morris didn’t delay in sending members of that committee an email.
“The question is, what motivates landowners, state, or private land lessees to reduce over-objective wildlife herds?” Morris wrote to lawmakers Wednesday morning. “The proposed amendments do absolutely nothing to encourage these groups to reduce the herds.”
Staff at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership also emailed its Wyoming members, asking them to urge their senators to quash HB 60.
“While TRCP supports wildlife damage compensation, this bill disincentivizes the partnerships we need to effectively address elk overpopulation in Wyoming while costing [Game and Fish] and Wyoming sportspeople millions of dollars,” wrote Alex Aguirre, the group’s Wyoming partnerships coordinator.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Rep. Sherwood is a Democrat – Ed.
If they wanna get reimbursed for the grass that the elk ate, give them back their $2/acre rent they paid to the BLM to run their invasive species on public land. The rent payment that more than likely, that you and I cannot bid on in the rig system to keep red prices of public land, artificially low and fleas the taxpayers once again.
Get the cattle off the BLM, and then there be enough grass for the elk, which, by the way, or not invasive specie. Is it surprising that some rancher that exploits the taxpayers doesn’t want to be responsible for their inability to manage a cattle herd without the taxpayers and hunting license holders funding their operation. Never put somebody from agriculture in the legislature. Everything they do is for themselves, never the common people.
Is there a program in Wyoming, to allow cow harvests in private land under these bills, if so what information is available to hunt for over populated elk areas?? Thank you
Easy solution: Pay the ranchers from the general fund. We, the hunters of Wyoming DO NOT WANT TO PAY RANCHERS FOR GRASS DEPRADATION FROM LICENSE FEES IF SAME RANCHER DOES NOT ALLOW ACCESS TO HUNT. Period. End of story.
State owned property should be accessible to the public period! Enough of the exclusion, and so called control of these properties! Public property is just that Public! Representatives need to have integrity and quite the special interests!. Because it’s all about money! Making Public land accessible makes sense in every conceivable way, except 1. And that’s special interests! that more than some Representatives are involved in!.. represent your constituents, instead of being self serving! That is exactly why some are in the legislator, Is to protect their own interests!.. if a land owner doesn’t want hunting access to their property, especially the state and blm, Properties they run. in no way should they be able to be compensated for loss caused by game animals!.. from my observation this is my strong opinion. as a hunter, and a land owning citizen, of Wyoming, and our Great Republic of America!.
Fence out right?
It’s not the states wildlife it’s God’s. Wildlife and also if damage is being done they should be able to do this and ve compensated if they want.
Instead of paying ranchers for grass eaten by elk . Pay them per cow elk shot on there land. And don’t use money from hunters that are not permitted on there land.
Aren’t state leased lands open to hunters now
No! There are millions of public properties inaccessible! On the Belle Fouce, there is 1 spot where it is a county road going into the bear lodge forest that is posted by the game and fish that denies access to 14,000 acres! It is all about money! The landowners either rent or lease their properties that include land locked state or blm property to individuals or outfitters! They try to say corner crossings are illegal! And they off set the fences, so there are no true corners! But there’s no law that actually states that corner crossing is illegal! There should be a staircase built in these places from 1 piece of state property to the other, like you used to see! Money money money!…
hunters and ranchers are getting ridiculous. OMG getting paid for grass that wildlife eats– off their rockers. Bad enough they get to rent that pasture for practically nothing and take it away from the wildlife to start with. More wolves and bears will help clear out the path from the wildlife overpopulation. That’s how the boss mother nature plans it anyway. Can I get reimbursed for grass eaten by other animals besides my livestock. I effing wished
It’s funny how the conflict of interest involved here always gets pointed out when it’s Democrats doing it. When the speaker of the house has a direct conflict in that he is a large rancher, and yet gets to vote in his own interest, then how will it ever matter what the general public wants??? It’s not just the speaker, but as many of these other comments state, the wealthy land owners that sit in power. They only vote their own interests. These people work for us. They don’t care what we want or what’s fair. I no longer live in Wyoming, but this matters everywhere. VOTE THEM OUT.
I live in Indiana I don’t have the money anymore to get an outfitter or a guy live on my social security I come from a farming family anytime you guys like to get rid of some elks I’d love to feel my freezer full of me at God bless you ranchers out there you guys work your butts off That’s for damn sure
Wyoming SHOULD NOT provide yet another subsidy to Ag for yet another environmental problem that they, themselves, have caused. Ranchers have caused this problem by illegally blocking access to public land and prohibiting hunting on their own land. This could all be solved by the ranchers themselves. However, they seem to always be looking for yet another welfare handout.
What they continue to fail to miss is the fact that most of these landowners if not all of them hold grazing permits on BLM national Forest lands that are public and they’re slicking off all of the winter feed before the elk ever get there and they wonder why they end up on their ranches that have had the feed saved for fall beef to cut down on the use of hay the problem is far more complex than just allegedly too many elk!
Wyoming definitely has their work cut out on trying to resolve this problem. Finding a solution that everyone will approve and get the issue resolved will be about impossible. Frustrating part is sportsman like myself and I’m sure many other would love to come to Wyoming and spend money to hunt. But between getting tags and land access where the animals are is very difficult. They seem to be making it a pay to play, pricing the average sportsman’s out.
Open up hunting on lands that are owned by ranches and farms with out special permit to first nations first then others get rid of the good old boy system that u have to know the land owner be for u hunt
The freedom caucus wants to control your personal life, and they don’t want to give an inch of THEIR FREEDOM. Until you-we- learn to vote out ranchers, we will forever be beholding to supporting them.
Paying landowners for forage lost to over-objective elk herds without the opportunity for hunters to reduce those elk herds is a non-starter. If a landowner wants public compensation, then public access to hunting has to be granted.
You nailed it on the head.
I’m not sure how the state would determine if a land owner actually allowed unrestricted hunting? What is the mechanism and how is it monitored? How is unrestricted hunting for a particular parcel communicated to the hunting community? Looking deeper into this idiotic legislation – how will the state determine what grass and how much was overgrazed by wildlife? Does anyone in this state’s legislator think problems through or do they just knee jerk to special interests? If you want a problem to concentrate on – work on snow removal.
Vote the rich land owners out who want to profit on both ends. They want grass damage & outfitted with no public hunting. They are getting richer off the people’s wildlife which they won’t let the public hunt. No public hunters allowed NO COMPENSATION FOR GRASS. They’re holding the stacked deck. Sportsmen need to run for for public office to put a stop of the greedy landowners.
Plus they need to open corner crossing to allow checkerboard land to be accessible to the public. Let’s band together Sportsmen we have the power to end the greed,it’s our wildlife. Cut off the greedy landowners money supply!
I don’t like the idea that land owners should be compensated for wild animals that eat grass on THERE land. The fact is. Most land owner run there cattle on least land. That they do not own. The public owns that land. And the wild animals have more of a right to graze on it then there cows do. If land owners would allow more access to there land an d least land and public land that is land locked by there private land this would not be an issue! I have lived in Wyoming my whole life. And the hunting opportunities are not the same as they were win I was younger. The older generation understood and agreed with what I just said. But the newer generation is all about profits and exclusivity.
If it passes, I think the public should be able to view the list of pending payments/recipients. This would enable the public to see if these landowners are indeed providing reasonable hunting opportunities to alleviate this problem.
If that isn’t happening, then that payment should be cancelled.
If any land owner gets this money all land oners should get it. Not just your favorite land owners. If anyone gets the cash they will have to allow unguided hunters in to hunt.
Everyone needs to look at the whole picture. These landowners get to graze government land for nearly nothing with their cattle. This forces the elk to move to their private land to graze. If we just take away the cattle from government land, the elk will move back there to graze AND hunters will have access to them.
QUIT PRIVATIZING AND PROFITEERING OUR WILDLIFE! The same welfare ranchers that graze the public lands to sticks and rocks, leaving nothing for wildlife would love nothing better then big “damage” checks and at same time, outfitting the people’s elk. $$$ Starve ’em off the public and then sell hunts for the elk when they get on the private land, plus get a nice big G & F check ta’ boot
Why not give the ranchers tags for the amount of elk on their land to sell
Thus the hunter would pay instead of using public money