Wolf Crossing

By JARED MILLER
Star-Tribune capital bureau Friday, May 25, 2007

……….The Wyoming Wool Growers Association leveled the harshest rebuke of the plan, saying in a statement that it is “extremely disappointed” by Freudenthal’s willingness to “acquiesce and capitulate to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

The group lambasted the administration for “abandoning” the owners of a half-million acres of land in northwest Wyoming. As part of the plan, the state would manage wolves in the northwest region as trophy game, and as predators elsewhere.

“In its rush to assume ownership and control of these verminous predators, both the Wyoming Legislature and the governor have turned their backs on many of Wyoming’s taxpaying citizens,” the group said, adding that it will now look to Freudenthal and the Legislature to compensate livestock and landowners who suffer losses to wolves.

Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said he’s “not thrilled” with the new plan. He expressed concern about the classification of wolves as trophy game on private land, especially ranches in Park County near Yellowstone National Park.

“But depending on what types of regulatory scheme the Game and Fish puts in place, that may or may not have a major impact on our landowners up there,” he said.

Jack Turnell, a rancher who runs cattle inside the proposed trophy game area on the Pitchfork Ranch near Meeteetse, said any proposal that doesn’t allow him to kill wolves is “worthless to me.”

Turnell said he has already endured heavy losses this spring to grizzly bears and wolves, and the predation needs to slow down soon.

“Irregardless of what they’ve agreed on, if there’s a pack of wolves in our cattle, we need to be able to remove them. That’s the bottom line,” Turnell said. “I’m not advocating they destroy all the wolves, but they’ve already got three times as many as they wanted.”………

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