It’s been over a year now that the Wyoming Wildlife Task Force has been meeting to discuss wildlife and licensing issues that affect all Wyoming hunters. It’s coming down to a couple very important issues that will affect your ability to hunt as a non resident in Wyoming. 

A major reason for the formation of the task force was to study and come up with solutions in how Wyoming issues licenses to non residents. This issue has been boiled down to two paths that are being considered.

The first is to leave quota splits as they are in regards to elk, deer and antelope. Wyoming currently issues elk limited quota tags in an 84/16 split. Deer and antelope are split in an 80/20 number. This ratio has been in place for many years and has worked well to provide a good revenue stream to the Wyoming Game and Fish and enough licenses so that our tourism economy has done fairly well. The outfitting industry has made this system work with the help of preference points and license fee increases especially for the special license. 

The second path being considered by the WWTF is reducing non resident licenses to a possible 85/15 in most areas and a 90/10 split in especially hard to draw areas. In order for these new splits to work the outfitting industry has pushed for an “Outfitter Draw”. The outfitter draw would consist of a % of the non resident quota to be available in a draw for outfitted clients. The logic is with reduced numbers of licenses available setting a % of licenses aside in an outfitter draw would help protect this segment of our tourism economy. A recent study conducted by Southwick and Associates has shown that non residents that use the services of an outfitter spend 6 ½ times the money as a DIY hunter in the state.

This issue will be coming up for a final vote at the August 8 meeting in Casper of the WWTF. It’s imperative that you take the time to weigh in on this issue if you haven’t done so already. Please contact via email the task force members listed below with your comments. It’s the hope of our Wyoming Outfitting industry that an “Outfitter Draw” is put forward by the WWTF and then passed in the Wyoming Legislature. 

If you have any questions, please contact me at (307) 266-4229 or by email at sns@huntwyo.com.

Sincerely,

Sy Gilliland
Outfitter

Members and Emails of the Wyoming Wildlife Task Force. Please individually email each task force member rather than send one mass email.  Please keep your comments personal and brief.

Rusty Bell: rustystaxidermy@gmail.com
Brian Nesvik: brian.nesvik@wyo.gov
Duaine Hagen: duainehagen@gmail.com
Elissa Ruckle: elissa@elevatewyoming.com
Joshua W.D. Coursey: josh@muleyfanatic.org
Lee Livingston: livingston@tctwest.net
Liisa Anselmi Dalton: liisaanselmi@me.com
Pat Crank: pat@cranklegalgroup.com
Peter Dube: peter.dube@wyo.gov
Representative, Albert Sommers: Albert.Sommers@wyoleg.gov
Representative, Jamie Flitner: Jamie.Flitner@WYOLEG.GOV
Joe Shaffer: jschaffer@lccc.wy.edu
Senator, Ogden Driskill: Ogden.Driskill@wyoleg.gov
Senator, Larry Hicks: Larry.Hicks@wyoleg.gov
Sy Gilliland: sns@huntwyo.com
Tony Lehner: tvlehner@yahoo.com
Adam Tetan: 5atbuffalo@gmail.com
Tod Larson: tod.larson@wyo.gov
 If you can take the time to participate via Zoom in August, I would greatly appreciate your support for this important matter.  The zoom link will be available on the Wyoming Wildlife Task Force website at https://sites.google.com/wyo.gov/wyomingwildlifetaskforce