Wyoming lawmaker proposes Yellowstone tax to pay for wolf management
By ROBERT W. BLACK
Associated Press Writer
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – A legislator is drafting a bill that would increase the sales tax on items sold in Yellowstone National Park to help the state pay for management of wolves and grizzly bears.
Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, said he will introduce the measure in the upcoming session to help defray Wyoming’s expenses in managing wildlife declared endangered or threatened by the federal government.
‘I am trying to drive home the point that you guys (feds) aren’t doing the job on unfunded mandates and the Endangered Species Act,’ he said Friday.
The bill would add a 1-cent tax on items sold within the park, raising an estimated $3 million to $4 million a year.
The money would be used by the Wyoming Department of Agriculture to manage wolves and bears with a portion returned to the park for infrastructure needs.
Childers said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ignored socio-economic effects of its decisions regarding endangered species management and has not worked closely with state and local governments. Also, the federal government has given Wyoming very little money for managing endangered species, he said.
‘It addresses a lot of the problems Wyoming has with this wolf issue,’ he said of the bill.
Federal officials are considering removing both grizzlies and wolves from the Endangered Species List and turning management over to states, but only if states devise plans assuring they won’t be endangered again.
Grizzly bears in 1975 were listed as threatened in the Lower 48 states but are doing better now.
Wolves have been spreading from Yellowstone National Park since they were reintroduced in the mid-1990s and currently number more than 200 in and near the park.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department spends about $700,000 per year managing grizzly bears, including investigating damage claims, researching and tracking bear movement and relocating problem bears, said Reg Rothwell, supervisor of the agency’s Biological Services Division.
The costs of managing wolves has been minimal so far for Wyoming but could jump to $1 million a year if the state takes over full management from the federal government.
‘I don’t disagree that the message needs to be sent,’ Rothwell said of Childers’ measure.
‘That might not be the most successful way to approach it, but the fact of the matter is the American public has supported dragging species in jeopardy back from the brink, and certainly Wyoming and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department feel the same way. The problem is those programs are terribly expensive.’
America’s hunger for energy, paper goods and meat has contributed to the wolves’ demise through oil and gas development, timbering and grazing on lands in and near their habitat, he said.
‘If we got help putting them on the brink, shouldn’t we get help pulling them back?’ he said.
Officials with federal agencies guiding wolf recovery reserved comment on Childers’ plan.
‘The service really doesn’t take a position on state legislative initiatives, but I would add to that, we value state efforts to promote wolf recovery,’ said Sharon Rose, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, Colo.
Yellowstone spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews said park officials had not seen details of the proposal and preferred not to comment.
Childers acknowledged there may be statutory problems implementing the tax but said he believes it is possible to devise language to work around those problems.
He also said he has received support for the concept from some federal officials close to the wolf reintroduction program.
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On the Net:
Wyoming Legislature: http://legisweb.state.wy.us
Grizzly bear information: http://endangered.fws.gov/i/A4I.html
Gray wolf information: http://endangered.fws.gov/i/A03.html