Photo Credit: byrdyak
Earlier this week, the Wyoming House Agriculture Committee passed along bill HB0186–Bear Coupons-game and fish to be voted on the floor with a narrow 5 to 4 vote. This bill, originally written to provide bear tags to every resident who purchased an elk tag, found itself with a lot of attention from bear hunters and sporting groups alike for the disruption it would cause to the current system for bear hunting in Wyoming and lack of science-based management behind it.
Currently, about 4,000 Wyomingites buy bear tags for the spring and fall seasons with a 10% harvest rate. This bill would provide a free tag to the over 60,000 elk hunters, giving them the chance to take home a black bear incidentally while elk hunting in the fall. The bill makes this only valid outside of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem recovery zone as established by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Interestingly, grizzly bears (yes, still currently on the endangered species list) are included in this bill. The result would be a system much like the trophy and predator zone combination for gray wolves in Wyoming, though this bill requires notification of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department if a bear were taken on one of these coupons.
Faced with strong opposition from bear hunters and those who want to see science-based management of wildlife, the Committee members deliberated amendments to the bill on Thursday and revised the original bill. When the dust settled, an amendment to only include grizzly bears on the coupon bill, not black bears, came through on the committee’s vote.
It makes a person wonder if this bill stands a chance on the floor as a “statement bill” from the Wyoming legislature to send a message to the federal government that Wyoming has had enough of the grizzly bears being on the endangered species list.
The debate then lies in whether or not making such a statement will be effective for delisting the grizzly bear or not. In the event this passes, a hunter who takes a grizzly bear on a tag provided via the coupon with an elk tag would be committing a felony offense maximum penalty of a $50,000 fine and up to a year in prison.
The Wyoming Wildlife Federation’s Jess Johnson says, “I think this will generate a lot of discussion, but I hope the legislature understands the precarious and dangerous position this puts our hunters in and defeats the bill.”
In other states that have brought forward aggressive bills on large carnivores, like Montana’s SB 98 earlier in January, the USFWS has responded with a letter suggesting they will relist gray wolves if the bill moves forward.
If you ask the American Bear Foundation’s Joe Kondelis, he says, “Our goal is sustainable, state-regulated hunting for grizzly bears that ensures a huntable population in the future. That being said, we are not sure how issuing 60,000 bear species tags in Wyoming is going to help with our efforts to delist. If anything, it shows that Wyoming Law Makers have eradication in mind and not sustainability. That in itself will not expedite the grizzly delisting process.”
Will it go anywhere? I am not putting my chips on it, being that the bill is such an egregious middle finger to the Federal government. However, it is 2025 and anything can happen.
