HB 213: Game and Fish – Wolf Management
2007 General Session

Sponsor: Rep. Pat Childers (R-H50, Cody); co-sponsor Sen. Bruce Burns (R-S21, Sheridan)

HB 213 was drafted, as was SF 135 in the Senate, to act essentially as a placeholder in case the state and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service arrived at some compromise on Wyoming’s wolf management plan during this legislative session. Because the details of any agreement between the parties were still pending as the 2007 legislature began, it was expected that either bill would almost certainly change significantly before final passage, and this is just what happened.

As introduced, HB 213 would have authorized the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to use what the bill referred to as “aggressive” management techniques for gray wolves in Wyoming. Such techniques would include liberal hunting seasons and limits, aerial hunting and hazing, and waiver of license fees for landowners. The bill contained an appropriation of $2.4 million from the general fund to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to manage gray wolves through June 2008.

The House passed HB 213 with assorted amendments, and then the Senate passed a substitute bill that was quite different from the original bill. The substitute HB 213, which ultimately passed the Senate and was accepted by the House, recognized that there would be an area outside the national parks and wilderness areas where wolves would be designated and managed as trophy game animals, and that outside that area wolves would be designated and managed as predators. The substitute HB 213 gave authority to the Governor to negotiate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for one year (until the end of February 2008) over where the exact boundaries between the two management designations would lie. The bill gave the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission authority to aggressively manage wolves if it was determined that wolves were having an unacceptable impact on big game populations, as long as at least 15 breeding pairs of wolves exist in northwestern Wyoming (at least eight in the national parks and at least seven in the national forests surrounding the parks, within the trophy game management area).

The Senate passed the substitute bill, 26-3 (1 excused), and the House accepted the Senate version of the bill, 33-26 (1 excused). The votes listed below are the Senate third reading and House concurrence votes. A YES vote means the legislator wanted to give the governor a year to negotiate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the exact boundary for a trophy management area for wolves. A NO vote means the legislator did not support this approach.

LINK TO ENROLLED ACT HEA0123 (ENROLLED VERSION OF HB 213)