Wolf classification hearing gets emotional
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – Wolves aren’t welcome in Wyoming.
That was the general consensus at an emotional hearing by the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee on Wednesday. The hearing was held to take public comment on two bills about wolves proposed by the Legislature.
House Bill 229 mirrors efforts by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to come up with a wolf management plan as part of an effort to take wolves off the endangered species list.
The measure would create a dual classification for wolves – assigning trophy designation in areas around Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks allowing them to be shot during a hunting season. Outside the area wolves would be classified as predators, giving residents the right to shoot them at any time.
Rep. Mike Baker, R-Thermopolis, said the bill preserves the state’s right to bring a lawsuit against the federal government over wolf-reintroduction.
Senate File 97 asserts that the state has control over its wildlife, not the federal government.
Thirty-five gray wolves from Canada were released into Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s in an effort to reintroduce them to the park. Since then wolves have spread across the state and throughout the region.
That is what ranchers, farmers and outfitters came to address at the committee hearing.
Alan Rosenbaum, a rancher from Moran, said a pack of wolves located two miles from his ranch has intimidated his family and affected his livelihood.
“I need protection for my family, myself and the property I’m entrusted to take care of,” he said.
Jim Allen, president of the Wyoming Dude Ranchers Association, said the wolves were negatively impacting his business.
“Our customers don’t come here to see wolves, they come here to see elk,” he said.
Several others complained wolves were drastically reducing the state’s elk population, in turn affecting the state’s hunting industry.
But Patricia Dowd, with the Sierra Club, told committee members science doesn’t support the claim that wolves are decimating the elk population. She said her group does not support the dual classification.
A primary complaint heard at the hearing is that HB 229 doesn’t go far enough to address the problem because it still allows some wolves in the state.
John Robinette of Dubois told committee members he still lost 30 calves last year to predators even after selling more than half his cattle. Robinette said he put up an electric fence that had stopped grizzly bears from getting to his livestock, but wolves were able to get through it.
“I blame the U.S. Congress for this,” he said. “They mandated it and they funded it.”
He said his family has lost five dogs to wolves, and that one dog was attacked while his wife was walking it from their house to their barn.
“We’ve tried to do this coexistence thing, it’s not working,” he said.
State lawmakers are facing a U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife that could put the brakes on their efforts to delist the wolves if a state management plan isn’t approved.