Wyoming Game & Fish requests Feds: “Let the hunters remove the goats”

robby denning

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Hey guys, I’ve had my head down for a couple of weeks and have not followed this issue. I may be way behind on this, however the letter they sent me was dated January 15, so it’s new information to me. I did a search but nothing came up, so if this has already been put up somewhere, let me know, I’ll take this down.
Here is the link to the letter that Wyoming game and Fish sent to the feds at the park service.
 
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wyosam

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Will never happen, unfortunately, and game and fish knows it. They finally spoke up a day after it was supposed to start, but the weather grounded the aircraft. Most of the park was already closed for the project. It’s been planned for quite a while. Zero chance our federal government is going to suddenly get functional and pass the law changes to allow a hunt in the park, and even if they did, it is too slow to reach the objective. The clock is ticking on the sheep herd they are trying to protect. Even if you somehow got the congressional action needed, and manage to run a hunt in an overcrowded national park, it would take years to hunt the herd down very far. Just because it is fairly population dense, they are still mountain goats living in places where most of the routes to where they are require technical climbing skills.


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Two Roads

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With a little forethought it could have been managed like White Sands in NM for oryx. And it could have raised a nice chunk of funding to support the sheep. Shot to rot is tough policy to pitch as conservation stewardship.
 

S.Clancy

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With a little forethought it could have been managed like White Sands in NM for oryx. And it could have raised a nice chunk of funding to support the sheep. Shot to rot is tough policy to pitch as conservation stewardship.
Terrain differences between those are extreme. You can drive a vehicle around White Sands, 99.9% of hunters wouldn't be able to even get into goat country there in the summer, let alone winter. It's an F'ed up situation, but aerial gunning is prob the only feasible option for removal, as much as it turns my stomach.
 

Ralphie

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Will never happen, unfortunately, and game and fish knows it. They finally spoke up a day after it was supposed to start, but the weather grounded the aircraft. Most of the park was already closed for the project. It’s been planned for quite a while. Zero chance our federal government is going to suddenly get functional and pass the law changes to allow a hunt in the park, and even if they did, it is too slow to reach the objective. The clock is ticking on the sheep herd they are trying to protect. Even if you somehow got the congressional action needed, and manage to run a hunt in an overcrowded national park, it would take years to hunt the herd down very far. Just because it is fairly population dense, they are still mountain goats living in places where most of the routes to where they are require technical climbing skills.


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What you are saying could never be allowed, has already been allowed.

 

jmez

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If the weather has been so bad to they can't get to them from the air how would guys get to them on the ground?

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Beendare

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Well we know there is at least one person- Mr Nesvik - in the
Wyoming fish and Game that is learning from the disasters of wolf introduction.

Apologies for being a broken record on hunters managing wildlife..... a Win Win for everyone....finally the F&G is starting to get it and dump these idiots that have guided their thoughts in the past.

Hey Buzz...bring in the Asian Snow Leopard, eh?

....
 

wyosam

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What you are saying could never be allowed, has already been allowed.


Hasn’t happened. It’s been talked about, but even if it somehow gets off the ground, it’s not going to look like a hunt. The fact that the commission believes “a year or two of hunting, then aerial gun to clean up the stragglers” shows just how far they are from reality. I think game and fish does a great job, but the commission is a political body that mostly works for the outfitter lobby. It is pretty rare that they make a decision based on science, evidence, or common sense.


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Ralphie

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It has happened. John Dingell conservation act signed into law in March allows hunting in parks as a management tool. As referenced in my link.

GTNP acts like this is all the sudden an emergency when they’ve been talking about it for at least a couple years. So now the goats have to go right this second? Or we couldn’t have let hunters try last fall? G&F has been supportive of hunting the goats for awhile. They had a pretty liberal goat hunt around the park to try and help where they could. I agree hunters wouldn’t get them all, but at least let some try. Hunters seem to be able to kill goats in other areas of North America.
 

Two Roads

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Terrain differences between those are extreme. You can drive a vehicle around White Sands, 99.9% of hunters wouldn't be able to even get into goat country there in the summer, let alone winter. It's an F'ed up situation, but aerial gunning is prob the only feasible option for removal, as much as it turns my stomach.
i would be willing to bet there would be a huge turnout for a tag drawing by people who understand chasing WY goats is not like desert oryx (which is no picnic either). Look at the effort put into sheep tags. And the journey is half the fun.
 

BuzzH

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Hasn’t happened. It’s been talked about, but even if it somehow gets off the ground, it’s not going to look like a hunt. The fact that the commission believes “a year or two of hunting, then aerial gun to clean up the stragglers” shows just how far they are from reality. I think game and fish does a great job, but the commission is a political body that mostly works for the outfitter lobby. It is pretty rare that they make a decision based on science, evidence, or common sense.


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That's not even close to true. I would say in about 95% of the cases, the commission sides with funding GF efforts, biology (think migration corridors, collaring projects, Mule Deer Initiatives, yada yada), biologist/GF recommendations on season setting, etc. etc. etc.

The commission isn't perfect, but I've personally presented them with ideas that they adopted...but not without having to provide damn convincing evidence that the changes were necessary. They've treated me right fair and I them...seems to work pretty well in both directions.

YMMV...
 

5MilesBack

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This kind of raises the question of who owns or controls the wildlife in a state. If the state does indeed own or control the wildlife, then it should be up to the state to determine what to do with those goats. On the other hand, the NPS doesn't have to provide them access in order to do that. But the NPS should need to get permission from the state to take out "their" animals. Kind of a catch-22 there.
 

BuzzH

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This kind of raises the question of who owns or controls the wildlife in a state. If the state does indeed own or control the wildlife, then it should be up to the state to determine what to do with those goats. On the other hand, the NPS doesn't have to provide them access in order to do that. But the NPS should need to get permission from the state to take out "their" animals. Kind of a catch-22 there.

I tend to agree with you on this, its an interesting situation and one I talked with a friend about yesterday for quite some time.

The supreme court has upheld the wildlife "ownership" argument saying that wildlife and land ownership are not connected. Wildlife is transient and also held in trust for the citizens of the State it resides in (ownership if you will).

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Wyoming tried to sue the NPS over this...it would seem to me, as a somebody with a laypersons understanding of wildlife law, that the NPS would be likely to lose in court. The wildlife they are choosing to kill is held in trust by the citizens of the state regardless of land ownership, including the Federal Government as a landowner.

That would be the first issue.

Second issue is regarding access to NPS land to hunt those goats, I don't think the State would have the authority to supersede NPS policy on hunting NPS land. That is typically codified in NPS management plans.

IMO, I would guess the State would have a solid case to stop the NPS from killing those goats, but the NPS would have a solid case to not allow hunting on NPS lands.
 
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Why does NPS get to play God anyway? If one species is better adapted to survive... especially if they are so set on not allowing conservation through hunting.
 

Ralphie

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I tend to agree with you on this, its an interesting situation and one I talked with a friend about yesterday for quite some time.

The supreme court has upheld the wildlife "ownership" argument saying that wildlife and land ownership are not connected. Wildlife is transient and also held in trust for the citizens of the State it resides in (ownership if you will).

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Wyoming tried to sue the NPS over this...it would seem to me, as a somebody with a laypersons understanding of wildlife law, that the NPS would be likely to lose in court. The wildlife they are choosing to kill is held in trust by the citizens of the state regardless of land ownership, including the Federal Government as a landowner.

That would be the first issue.

Second issue is regarding access to NPS land to hunt those goats, I don't think the State would have the authority to supersede NPS policy on hunting NPS land. That is typically codified in NPS management plans.

IMO, I would guess the State would have a solid case to stop the NPS from killing those goats, but the NPS would have a solid case to not allow hunting on NPS lands.

I was wondering this exact same issue as well. Would sure be interesting to see it played out.
 
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