GREEN RIVER--After Wyoming State Senator Mark Harris (D-Green River)
announced today he would sponsor legislation in the 1999 General Session
that declares Wyoming's wildlife a public trust, Laramie hunter and
conservationist Robert Hoskins announced the formation of the Wildlife
Initiative & Legal Defense Political Action Committee (WILDPAC) to
support Harris' legislation.
who retired from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department as southwest
Wyoming Regional Wildlife Supervisor in 1995. Laramie environmental
engineer Rick Moore serves as WILDPAC's treasurer.
sponsoring this legislation," Hoskins said.
for the benefit of all the state's citizens, the Wyoming Game and Fish
Commission's long-standing determination to give private landowners the
right to designate recipients of big-game hunting licenses to hunt on
their properties, as part of the so-called Private Lands/Public Wildlife
incentives program, has forced us to look to statute to shore up
wildlife's public trust status," he said. "Landowner licenses are
nothing more than set-aside licenses for qualifying landowners'
commercial benefit."
landowner licenses is to give landowners directly, and big-game
outfitters indirectly, private property rights in hunting licenses and
eventually wildlife," he added. "That explicitly damages the public
interest in wildlife. It would turn most of Wyoming into a game ranch."
legislation makes unambiguously clear to the Commission that it doesn't
have that authority. Privatizing wildlife, in any form, in any program,
for any purpose, directly or indirectly, contradicts the long accepted
principle that wildlife is held in trust for the benefit of the people,
not special commercial interests," he concluded.
about the need for Senator Harris' bill, "The Wyoming Game and Fish
Commission Authority Reform Act," to become law.
support," he said. "Without this legislation, we fear that the
Commission, and those commercial interests who support the privatization
of Wyoming's wildlife, will continue to whittle away at the legal
protections wildlife and public hunting have had for over half a century.
Landowner licenses will be back. We want to be ready."
legislation. "We will make this a central issue in the coming election
campaign."
state government to conserve wildlife for present and future generations
and ensure public access to wildlife. You can consider it a state right
as well as a state obligation. It's akin to the fiduciary duty of a
trustee to beneficiaries."
legislation in other states," he said. "Privatization is a serious
threat to wildlife and hunting throughout the West."
limit the Commission. "We see this bill as actually increasing the
authority of the Commission to act in the public interest," Hoskins
noted. "That's why the bill also provides individual commissioners
protection against arbitrary removal from office by the governor and
gives the Commission the authority to appoint the Game and Fish
Department Director."
Wyoming's wildlife as a public trust, according to scientifically-based
regulations. The legislation specifically prohibits the Commission from
taking any action to establish vested private property rights in wildlife
or hunting licenses, or to authorize set-aside licenses for private
landowners or outfitters.
for allocation of governors and commissioners complimentary hunting
licenses, if more organizations ask for licenses than the law allows.
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