Page 23 - Wyoming's Grizzly Harvest - The Story the State Wants to Bury with the Bears

Wyoming’s Grizzly Harvest grizzlies in that same area for their heads and hides. The first three months of wolf management by Wyoming provides an insight into what awaits the Great Bear. WGFD assumed responsibility for the wolf from FWS on September 30, 2012. Under that delisting rule, Wyoming was required to retain a minimum population of a hundred wolves and ten breeding pairs, and on the day they took control WGFD claimed that 310 wolves fell under their jurisdiction. The next day they set about attaining the baseline. The hunt, WGFD said, was “to reduce livestock damage and excessive predation on ungulate herds.” Ranchers and outfitters, those benefactors who must be assuaged without fail, were. It was also “to provide recreational hunting opportunity to Wyoming sportsmen,” the next on WGFD’s list of priorities, and so no doubt families across Wyoming sat down and said grace over the hearty wolf steaks on their plates and commented on how much it tasted like chicken. “It is inappropriate to use the Endangered Species Act to say we don’t like the hunting of wolves or we don’t like the hunting of another species,” Governor Mead chided his critics, setting the stage for trophy hunting his “another species,” a.k.a. the grizzly bear. “This is not what the Act is designed for.” The Governor couldn’t or didn’t care to see 23