Game and Fish Commission leaves landowner-license thresholds intact, expands immediate-family definition

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department briefed the TRW committee on recent public outreach and Commission action regarding proposed changes to landowner licenses.

Chief Game Warden Dan Smith said the Commission's November proposals — including increasing the minimum qualifying acreage from 160 to 640, raising animal-use days from 2,000 to 3,000, and requiring a 20% significant ownership interest — received substantial public opposition. The department collected 311 online comments; about 70% opposed the proposed changes and only about 9% supported them. At a public Commission meeting in Casper roughly 150 citizens attended and at least 26 provided spoken comments.

The Commission decided not to adopt increases in acreage or use-day thresholds and removed the 20% ownership-interest requirement because it would have unintended consequences (for example, where many family members share ownership and no single person owns 20%). The Commission did expand the definition of "immediate family" to include stepchildren, step-parents, step-grandparents and step-siblings.

Smith said the Commission also directed the department to verify eligibility at least every five years going forward (the department will attempt more frequent reviews where possible) and to provide staff review of current landowner eligibility to reset a consistent starting point. Several committee members urged the department to consider a statutory cap on landowner licenses; Game and Fish confirmed a statutory change would be required to give the Commission explicit authority to set statewide caps or quotas for landowner licenses.

What’s next: Committee members asked LSO to draft legislation authorizing the Commission to set quotas or maximum limits for landowner licenses; the department will implement the Commission's direction to verify eligibility at a minimum five-year interval and report back to the committee as requested.