WGOA Press Release:
“I’ll never forget the first time I heard a wolf howl. It was September 26, 1998 at 8:26 in the morning. I had just bugled and in response, came what I now know all too well…the howl of a wolf. Since that day, wolves have caused one of our hunting camps to be abandoned and another is only running at twenty-five percent capacity. Our bull elk harvest has gone from over 80 percent to less than 50 percent-even with fewer hunters. My neighbor outfitters are no different. I see them with fewer hunters and fewer weeks of hunting too. One week we have elk in our country then the next week we don’t. It has hit me and my family hard. We have counted on providing back country elk hunts to our guests for the last 25 years but now we are not sure where we’re headed. I do know this-Wyoming will always have wolves and we should be given the chance to manage them. It is time to delist the wolf.” BJ Hill, Jackson Hole outfitter
Wyoming outfitters employ 1,400 people, pay $6 million in local and state taxes, contribute $100 million to our economy and support wildlife management. Before wolf introduction in 1995, some family owned and operated hunting camp businesses were worth an average $500,000. Nowadays, many of these wolf impacted camps are worthless and families forced to look for other work. Those hard working, taxpaying families face financial ruin from uncontrolled wolf populations. It is shameful.
The people of Wyoming own the indigenous wildlife resources but federally transplanted Canadian wolves are decimating our wildlife birthright at an alarming rate-especially elk. Wyoming’s hunting, agriculture and tourist economies are in peril and our lives have been terribly disrupted by wolves. Hunters and ranchers have been unfairly punished by wolves and they have borne a disproportionate burden of the wolf experiment. Hunters have quit hunting traditional elk areas in northwest Wyoming because of wolf predation and they are moving to other areas around the state causing a domino effect. This increases hunter density and diminishes the quality of hunting in these areas. The time to stop the destruction caused by wolves is long past and the federal government must return control of state resources to Wyoming where it rightfully belongs.
Every month, wolves kill 700 Wyoming elk-not to mention numerous cattle, sheep, mules, horses and dogs! Ironically, the federal government won’t allow us to control those wolves. If we don’t have the right to protect ourselves and our property from wolves, then we have no rights. A government that outlaws the inherent right of self defense and the right to protect our property is a government that has over stepped its authority. The people of Wyoming must be granted permanent control of the wolf.
