FWS again accused of trespassing
By ALLISON BATDORFF
Gazette Wyoming Bureau
MEETEETSE – A second trespassing complaint has been filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an incident that occurred on Feb. 15 at the Flying River Ranch west of Meeteetse.
According to Flying River owners Dan Ochsner and Sue Barrett, the trespassing occurred the day after and next door to Larsen Ranch, the site of another highly publicized trespassing claim involving four tranquilized wolves, an FWS agent and his assistant.
Though they did not see any wolves, Ochsner and Barrett said they spotted two FWS agents on their property who hadn’t asked if they could be there.
“My concern is with the trespassing on our property without permission,” Ochsner said. “I don’t know what they were doing there.”
According to their statement filed in the Park County Attorney’s Office, the owners spotted an FWS truck parked in the ranch’s driveway. A half-hour later, an FWS agent rang the doorbell and asked for the ranch manager. But, after getting directions to the manager’s house down the road, the agent drove the truck farther into the private property, near the riverbed, they said.
“We trusted that he was going back to the highway,” Barrett said. “Instead, he went the other direction.”
Ranch manager Jim Gould tried to wave the truck down, but it didn’t stop and made for state Highway 290, according to Gould’s statement.
The Flying River complaint now joins the Larsen complaint in the Park County Attorney s Office. The Larsen complaint is awaiting results of a Department of Criminal Investigation report and has been grist for the mill for the Park County commissioners, who requested a congressional investigation into the matter.
The FWS wolf policy has been repeatedly called into question, as the Larsen complaint alleges that the wolves were being released on the property without notifying the owners of the cattle ranch.
This couldn’t be further from the truth, according to a statement made by Ralph Morgenweck, the regional director of the Mountain Prairie Region of FWS.
The wolves at the Larsen Ranch were part of the Washakie pack and had been tracked and darted with tranquilizers during a radio-collaring exercise in order to discourage depredation, he said in a written apology to Ralph Larsen.
“Capturing and collaring wolves acts as adverse conditioning and often causes wolves to leave the area where they were captured,” Morgenweck said. “As a result of this monitoring, we now know that the Washakie pack moved out of the immediate area and are back near their usual territory near Dubois.”
If the FWS helicopter and crew landed on private property during the collaring exercise, it was an “honest mistake” that prompted FWS’ Mike Jimenez to call Larsen and apologize personally, he wrote.
“It is never the Fish and Wildlife Service’s intention to go onto private property without the express permission of the landowner,” Morgenweck said.