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WGFD Cuts Budget For 2026 Due to Lower Revenue
Wyoming Game and Fish Department has always been a bit of a unicorn in the West. No state general fund money. No safety net. Just hunters, anglers, and the wildlife resource itself footing the majority of the bill to keep the wildlife and fishing opportunities healthy.
That’s something most of us are proud of. We buy licenses. We apply for tags we don’t draw. We grumble when prices go up, but deep down, we know that money keeps wardens on the landscape, biologists in the field, and mule deer, pronghorn, elk, and everything else moving forward instead of backward.
But last week, the Department laid out a pretty sobering reality: fiscal year 2026 is shaping up to be lean. The working number is right around a $100 million budget, driven largely by declining revenue from license and tag sales. WGFD hasn’t been below the $100M mark since 2023, when inflation had overall costs around 10% less than what they are today.
On the surface, that doesn’t mean much to the average hunter glassing a ridge in October. But the underbelly of game and fish agency budgets should matter a lot to hunters.
Fewer Tags, Fewer Dollars, and No Easy Fix
Director Angie Bruce made it clear that some of the cuts will be practical. Older trucks staying in service longer. That alone is expected to save roughly $2 million. Most hunters I know are fine with that. Though their mechanic bill might increase, a good off-road capable truck doesn’t need to be the newest.
What might give folks pause is the literal pause on new projects. The Director focused on cutting new infrastructure projects, which likely won’t directly impact wildlife. But it can also mean projects that impact habitat work and long-term studies that help biologists make smarter, more precise decisions when it comes to herd management.
And here’s the catch-22 Wyoming finds itself in: the Department has cut licenses drastically for pronghorn and mule deer in the last 5 years and elk license sales are only slightly up.
From 2020 to 2024:
- Pronghorn license sales dropped nearly 50%
- Mule deer license sales dropped nearly 35%
Those weren’t arbitrary decisions. They were driven by real-world events most of us witnessed firsthand: brutal winters, multi-year drought on the east side, and massive wildfires like the House Draw Fire that erased habitat (and made way for invasives to take it’s place).
Fewer animals meant fewer tags. Fewer tags meant less revenue.
Wyoming tried to soften the blow by increasing nonresident special license prices (along with attempting to re-increase the disparity in points between the two draws). That helped a bit, mostly for pronghorn, but it didn’t cover the losses on mule deer license sales. When you stack reduced resident tags being purchased on top of fewer nonresident regular draw licenses, you’re staring at a multi-million dollar revenue hole tied directly to struggling wildlife populations.
License Discipline Is Expensive, But Necessary
It’s easy to point fingers when budgets get tight. But here’s where Wyoming deserves some credit: they didn’t turn around and flood the system with tags just to balance the books.
Plenty of agencies talk about conservation-first management. Wyoming seems to practice it, even when it hurts financially. Plus, resident hunters play a role here, too. When general opportunities don’t feel worth the effort, people self-regulate. Participation drops. The Department feels it on the balance sheet.
So instead of squeezing the resource harder, they’re looking inward and cutting expenses and postponing growth.
Based on Director Bruce’s comments, that likely means older pickups, delayed infrastructure upgrades, and fewer new initiatives in 2026. The hope, shared by just about every hunter I talk to, is that the cuts don’t touch the core programs that made Wyoming a destination in the first place.
Because here’s the truth nobody likes to say out loud: strong wildlife populations don’t rebound by accident. They rebound because of wardens on patrol, habitat projects on the ground, and biologists who have the time and resources to do more than just react.
For me, I’d rather buy a license knowing the money goes straight to the resource than hope wildlife funding survives a political budget cycle. Conservation and being able to hunt isn’t free. Sometimes it costs opportunity. Sometimes it costs money. And sometimes, like right now, it costs both.
The real test for Wyoming won’t be whether they balance the books in 2026, it’ll be whether Mother Nature and the upswing in mule deer and pronghorn help put us in a position to add opportunity back when the wildlife is ready.
The department also is seeking ideas from the public to raise revenue in the interim. What are your suggestions or ideas?
I am a longtime Wyoming resident hunter. Honestly, I think it would be okay to raise in state resident license fees across the board. I’m sure that won’t be wildly popular, but I would be okay to pay a little more.
Or…you could establish a resident special limited quota draw for a higher fee – you could make up that budget shortfall real quick!
Should start a Go-Fund-Me account to help with the shortfall
The decline is largely to do with the giant Price hikes that are imposed on the non-residents during this time. Non-residents can only carry the weight of the majority the tag sales for so long. I realize this article is written primarily for resident hunters, but pricing nonresident hunters out of the game. Isn’t the answer either. I recognize the residents dislike the nonresident hunters, but there’s gotta be better answer than just pricing out the nonresident hunters. No other state has had as many and much price increases as Wyoming.
Please keep in mind this is a GOVERNMENT agency. By its very nature it contains waste and bloat. A quick search of the job opportunities will reveal multiple positions of non essential jobs that could be done away with or combined with other positions. How many assistants to the assistants do they really need? I suspect a good DOGE audit would reveal plenty of areas to cut and streamline.
Maybe they shouldn’t have gotten so greedy with the last license increases that are driving hunters away from applying.
At this point in time I will not nor can I afford to hunt in Wyoming. The nonresident license fees have gotten ridiculously expensive and hard to draw. I am sure Wyoming residents are dancing for joy in the streets.
It should be noted that most all Big Game hunting in Wyoming is conducted on Federal Lands owned by all US Citizens. These lands include the National Forests, Bureau of Land Management, National Monuments, National Wilderness Areas and National Grass Lands.
Wyoming is also a State that requires and receives massive Federal Funding Subsidies to fund the schools, hospitals, welfare programs ,highways, airports and other programs throughout the State to the tune of approximately 50%. That is quite a dependency on the federal tit.
Wyoming has effectively destroyed hunting for your fellow US Citizen, the one that stood with you in Afghanistan and Iran, the one the treats you wounds and disease in specialty hospitals in the other States, the one who builds your autos, tractors and combines, and on and on.
Please dance in the streets you good fair minded Wyomingians…..l
In fairness, Wyoming’s nonresident fees are now in alignment with other western states…which I agree, isn’t cheap. I agree that Wyoming was more affordable for non-resident hunters in the past and it’s a shame how expensive it is in the western U.S.
Since all of the nonresident tags are fully prescribed with a LONG list of people with unfulfilled preference points each year, I don’t see any changes coming.
The issue with less revenue is a recovery from a brutal winter and die-off a couple of years ago; there are just fewer tags available. The antelope, deer, and herds are recovering, but the lower tag numbers need to remain in place for a few more years.
The very first thing considered and enacted was sticking it to nonresidents, hard and deep, while basically giving tags to residents. Nonresidents have had it. This disaster has been coming for many years. Now it’s here. Time for residents to ante up and pay double for resident tags if not triple, four times for the big 5. That will help alleviate the burden and stop the bleeding. Next, reduce nonresident tag costs and unfair draws. How many jobs will Wyoming continue to sacrifice by shutting out nonresidents? How many restaurants, Mom and Pop hotels, local guides, gas stations, and the like have been lost? The choice is yours Wyoming.
There isn’t a need for anything that drastic. Yes, a small increase in resident fees is appropriate, but nothing else is needed.
The nonresident prices Wyoming charges are now in line with other western states and there hasn’t been any reduction in demand.
When I see nonresident applications go down to the point there are leftover nonresident licenses, then there will be a problem.
I agree with you Jeff. Wyoming non-resident license fees are now on a par with the rest of the western states. I don’t hear any whining about what Arizona or New Mexico charges for out-of-state tags. There will always be non-residents with deeper pockets who will gladly take buy-up the tags from those who stop hunting Wyoming. Western Hunting is not becoming a “Rich Man’s Sport”, it has been for some time.
I agree. I think the idea or belief that a non-resident hunter may have that they’ll be able to hunt in other states every year is over. Services like Taghub, etc. has made that a thing of the past; there are simply too many applicants and a fairly set number of available tags. There is no getting around that fact – too much demand for a given supply.
I don’t know that makes non-resident hunting a “rich man’s sport”, but it definitely makes it a sport most are unlikely to enjoy every year. Save your points and money for the out of state experiences you value the most.