Wyoming Officials Pump the Brakes on Unpopular Changes to Landowner Hunting Tags

With their finger seemingly on the pulse of the state’s hunting community, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is bailing on a few potential changes they were eyeing surrounding their Landowner Hunting Tag program.

The program, which allows eligible landowners to apply for special hunting tags for specific species such as elk, deer, antelope and turkeys, is used as a compensation tool for those that provide suitable habitat for these species and manage their lands as such. It’s been a part of Wyoming’s Game and Fish Department’s management plan since 1949, but has since come under fire for some recently proposed changes.

Among those changes included boosting acres owned to qualify for landowner tags to quadruple from 160 acres of land to 640 acres of land.  Additionally, the number of ‘animal-use’ days that are a requirement for landowner tag eligibility would increase from 2,000 to 3,000 and landowner tag holders would have to possess what they consider to be a ‘significant interest’ in the property of at least 20% ownership in order to qualify.

With many Wyoming landowners suddenly finding themselves cut out from the program, their outcry was heard. Last month officials announced that they were backing off some of the new proposed regs surrounding the program ahead of next week’s Game and Fish Commission’s meeting. 

“The new draft recommends no change in the minimum size (160 contiguous acres of land) of a qualifying parcel from the current Chapter 44 regulation,” according to a June 16 memo to the Game and Fish Commission. 

The memo goes on to show that roughly 70% of the 380 comments the department received opposed the proposed changes while only 9% of respondents indicated support.

As of right now, Wyoming's Landowner Tag program allows for direct family members to use the tags on awarded properties. One part of the proposal that does look like it will squeak through is a provision that would expand eligible family members to include step-parents, step-grandparents, step-siblings and step-children.

The blowback follows a proposal introduced earlier this year by Republican Senator Laura Pearson that would have given landowners the ability to sell their landowner tags on the open market, where these coveted tags can often fetch big money. While there are some western states that allow these types of sales, Pearson’s Senate File 118 was ultimately withdrawn after facing fierce opposition from the hunting community.

Despite pulling her bill, the idea of transferring landowner tags is still one that is continually floated around the Wyoming legislature. 

As next week’s meeting in Casper approaches, many who remain in opposition to such changes (and others) are making plans to be in appearance to ensure their voices remain to be heard and that sale provision stays out of the state legislature.