Wyoming committee hears wide-ranging debate over landowner hunting licenses; asks LSO for bill drafts

Wyoming Game and Fish Director Angie Bruce told the Agriculture, State & Public Lands & Water Resources Committee on Aug. 29 that the Game and Fish Commission largely backed the department’s recommendation after public comment on proposed changes to landowner hunting license rules.

Bruce said the commission implemented three main changes after a July meeting and statewide public outreach: it expanded the definition of “immediate family member” to include step-parents and step-children, clarified landowner involvement in qualifying for tags, and added a provision requiring the department to review and verify landowner license qualifications at least every five years.

The subject drew more than two hours of committee discussion and extensive public testimony. Dan Smith, the department’s chief game warden and wildlife division chief, summarized recent work: the department and commission had proposed changes such as increasing qualifying acreage thresholds and raising the animal-use-days requirement (from 2,000 to 3,000), and tightening ownership interest in an LLC to 20 percent. Smith said public feedback was overwhelmingly opposed to those specific proposals: the department received about 380 public comments (311 online) and, he said, “266 of those comments or 70% were opposed to those recommendations.” He said the commission chose not to adopt the acreage and animal-use-days changes after the public meetings.

Why this matters: landowner licenses award priority access to limited quota big-game tags to landowners who provide habitat, but commissioners, sportsmen and landowners disagree about whether the program has drifted from its original intent. Several lawmakers said the status quo risks concentrating limited quota licenses in a small number of properties and asked whether the commission or the Legislature should set limits.

What the department told the committee

Bruce and Smith recounted the Commission’s July meeting, where the department had presented a package of proposed rule changes intended to address concerns about sales of qualifying parcels and the use of small…