GARDINER, Mont. — The 2023 Yellowstone Wolf Summit, which took place from June 21 to 23, featured a talk from the nonprofit organization Wildlife for All that called out the need for state wildlife management to be more democratic.
Wildlife For All, a national campaign launched in 2021 to transform state wildlife management, aims to expand who makes decisions about wildlife in all 50 states. Its staff, Advisory Committee and Board of Directors is made up of scientists, lawyers, policy-makers and conservationists.
In Wyoming, the leaders of wildlife management oftentimes represent an exclusive and appointed minority of state residents.
As an example, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, which is responsible for the policies of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department that manages Wyoming’s wildlife, is made up of seven members appointed by the Governor for six-year terms with Senate confirmation. While no more than five members can be of the same party, there is currently only one woman and no non-white representation. A majority of the members have personal ties to ranching and farming.
Wildlife For All calls out wildlife management for its lack of consideration of non-white agendas like Traditional Ecological Knowledge, which the 2022-2023 Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance’s Teton County Human-Wildlife Coexistence Monitoring Report also emphasizes should be considered in wildlife management plans.
WyoFile has previously written about how the vast majority of Americans are disenfranchised from the traditional wildlife management framework because of financial dependencies between management and special interest groups like livestock owners.
Envisioned reform includes establishment of new sources of funding for wildlife that are not tied to license sales or the sale of guns and ammunition, abolishment of wildlife commissions, revision of authorities related to wildlife management and replacement of the current wildlife management paradigm based on the historic perspective of wild animals as “resources.”
Despite the pushback, Governor Gordon and Game and Fish have opened public comment periods on a number of decisions including sage-grouse habitat and predator mortality limits.
