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2004 Action Alert: House Bill 111 and 155

Stand Up for Sensible Wolf Management
Ask your Representative to vote no on HB 111, and amend HB 155

Nearly 10 years after wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone, Wyoming's lawmakers and chief executive are still struggling with the scientific and political challenges of managing wolves. Bush Administration officials rejected the wolf management plan Wyoming Game & Fish Commissioners drew up under direction from the 2003 Legislature, which classified wolves as trophy game in the wilderness areas adjoining Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks, but as predators, subject to killing on sight, everywhere else in the state. Now lawmakers face a choice: to defend that action or to join Idaho and Montana in at least minimally protecting this misunderstood animal.

QUICK TAKES: HOW YOU CAN HELP IN ONE TO FIVE MINUTES
--> HB 111 would "clean up" language in the 2003 wolf management law which federal officials found inadequately protective of the wolf due to shoot-on-sight predator status in most of the state. Passing this bill would likely tie the state up in unpromising litigation for years, doing nothing to address landowners' problems with wolf depredation. This bill has strong legislative support, and your input now is urgent to halt its momentum. Please urge your representative to vote 'no.' Call the Voter Hotline now at (866) 996-VOTE. You do not need to know your district number.

--> HB 155 would move toward management of the wolf as a trophy game animal statewide with regulated hunting. However, the bill as written includes troubling provisions removing existing criminal penalties for wolf poaching, setting an extremely low $5 license fee, and allowing a "no new pack establishment" policy outside the northwestern corner of Wyoming. Still, it is the only legislation still alive that could move us toward sensible, state-run scientific management of the wolf, and could be amended to better protect wolves without sacrificing safeguards for landowners. Please urge your representative to support HB 155 and amendments to remove provisions undermining wolf protections. Please also urge Speaker Fred Parady (fparady@house.wyoming.com) and Majority Leader Randall Luthi (rluthi@house.wyoming.com) to bring it up for debate before Friday's deadline. Legislator districts and e-mail addresses are available at: http://legisweb.state.wy.us

THE BILLS

House Bill 111: Wolf management (Sponsor: Joint Interim Travel, Recreation & Wildlife Committee)
After the Legislature passed its 2003 act classifying wolves as predators outside the national parks and adjoining wilderness areas, the Wyoming Game & Fish Commission approved a wolf management plan based on the law. However, the law and the plan do not match up perfectly, and the Joint Interim Travel, Recreation & Wildlife Committee drafted legislation to conform the law to the final plan. HB 111 is the outcome of that Interim study and was largely complete before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service surprised the state by rejecting the plan and delaying the process of removing Endangered Species Act protections for the wolf. The sticking point was the plan's lack of controls over taking of wolves in most of the state, including many parts of the Greater Yellowstone area.

HB 111 does nothing to address deficiencies in the plan and now serves mainly as a way to defy the federal government. Litigation would likely drag on for years while the wolf population grows and disperses, further inflaming anti-wolf and anti-environmental sentiment that cannot help but entangle our wildlife and natural resource management in political controversy.
Unfortunately, HB 111 has strong backing from House leaders and the rank-and-file members, and the governor has voiced a desire to pursue litigation. The full House of Representatives passed the bill for introduction Feb. 11 by a 56-3 vote and was the House Travel Committee approved it 6-3 on Feb. 16.

Stopping this bill now would force the Legislature to own up to our responsibilities under United States laws protecting endangered species, and to take control of wolf management with the dual goals of protecting wolves and people. Please call the Voter Hotline at (866) 996-VOTE and urge your state representative to vote no on HB 111. You do not need to know your district number.

House Bill 155: Wolf management-4 (Sponsors: Rep. Mike Baker and Sen. Bruce Burns)
The more preferable, but still imperfect, legislative option is HB 155, which accepts the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conditions that the state commits to 15 wolf packs statewide and classifies the animal as trophy game, with hunting licenses to regulate their taking. USFWS Director Steve Williams visited Cheyenne twice in recent weeks to explore legislative compromise options that would achieve delisting on terms that Wyoming politicians could accept, but still deemed adequately protective of the wolf. These compromises, disappointingly, eliminate any of the criminal penalties for poaching wolves that are currently written into laws governing other trophy game animals. It also allows the state to manage for no new packs to be established anywhere else in Wyoming outside the northwestern corner of the state.
HB 155 passed introduction in the House 51-8 on Feb. 12 and, in something of a surprise, passed the House Travel Committee Feb. 16 on a 6-3 vote. A few committee members said they may vote against the bill on the floor but supported it in committee to allow for debate on the House floor.

This bill is the best vehicle to expedite delisting of the gray wolf in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. However, it would have to be seriously amended in order to be deserving of conservationists' support. The bill's lack of criminal penalties for illegal taking of wolves (alone among trophy game animals) would encourage less-than-honest harvest, reduce accountability for those who would flout Wyoming's wildlife laws, and undercut the Game & Fish Department's progress in combating poaching. We ask that illegal taking of a wolf be made a similar-degree misdemeanor as other trophy game animals.

The $5 license fee is also problematic. Current estimates say wolf management will cost more than $600,000 per year. Increasing license fees to the originally proposed $15 for a resident tag, and $150 for a non-resident tag, would help fund the state's extensive management and monitoring obligations at a much higher level and shift some of this burden off of traditional Game & Fish funding sources.

These debates over the bill and possible amendments deserve to be aired in the full House, especially since lawmakers were presented with last year's bill as a done deal and have never been given a clear choice on the direction of state wolf management. Unfortunately, House leaders have not committed to bringing HB 155 up for discussion, as they are expected to for HB 111.

Please urge your representative to support HB 155 and amendments to remove provisions undermining wolf protections. Please also urge Speaker Fred Parady (fparady@house.wyoming.com) and Majority Leader Randall Luthi (rluthi@house.wyoming.com) to bring it up for debate before Friday's deadline. Legislator districts and e-mail addresses are available at: http://legisweb.state.wy.us

Contact Your Legislature

To obtain committee memberships, schedules, live audio broadcasts, etc.:
Visit the Legislature's Web site at http://legisweb.state.wy.us

To recommend an up-or-down vote on a bill:
1-866-996-VOTE (In Cheyenne, 777-VOTE)

To leave a message for your lawmaker:
Senate - (307) 777-7711
House - (307) 777-7852
Hitching Post Inn (most legislators' hotel) - (307) 638-3301

To e-mail legislators:
Addresses available at http://legisweb.state.wy.us/email/email.htm

For up-to-date bill status:
1-800-342-9570 (in-state) during the day or updated nightly online at http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2004/billsInfo.htm

U.S. Mail (during the session)
The Hon. (Your Legislator's Name)
State Capitol
Cheyenne, WY 82002

For further information, contact:
Jason Marsden, Wyoming Conservation Voters - jason@wyovoters.org
Patricia Dowd, Wyoming Chapter of the Sierra Club - patricia.dowd@sierraclub.org
Michele Barlow, Wyoming Outdoor Council - mbarlow@lariat.org

Thank you for your interest in conserving Wyoming's wildlife and resources!