Last month, the Rock Springs Bureau of Land Management field office released the long-awaited draft RMP. This draft lays out 4 alternative plans on how the Rock Springs field office will manage 3.6 million acres of public land for the next 10 years.  BHA staff and the Wyoming Chapter Leadership are working with partners to review the 1,000-page draft to assure the habitat that is so vital to our members and the wildlife of Wyoming is being managed in an effective manner to conserve this ...

This letter to the editor was originally published in Cowboy State Daily on Feb. 27, 2023. Dear Editor: Last hunting season, a story ran in the Cowboy State Daily of a bull elk wasting away on private land because the landowner would not let the hunter who shot this elk onto his land to harvest. Not trusting the hunter, the private landowner refused entry – as was his right – and the hunter was told to “save his tag” for another bull. Like many who read the story, I was both heartbroken and ...

A 2022 survey of Wyoming BHA members shows there is strong support for improving public land access opportunities in the state as well as for respecting private property rights. Read more below.  Wyoming hunters and anglers strongly support public and private access rights and overwhelmingly cite access as the biggest barrier while hunting and fishing. Wyoming BHA members are likely to have extensive hunting experience in the state, with 67% having hunted for 10 years or more. Nearly 30% of ...

Wyoming has long worked to balance private property rights with the right to hunt. Under current Wyoming law, it is illegal to enter private property to hunt, fish, trap, or collect antlers: W.S. 23-3-305(b) states, in part, “No person shall enter upon the private property of any person to hunt, fish, collect antlers or horns, or trap without the permission of the owner or person in charge of the property.” This is known as the hunter trespass statute, and it provides Game Wardens with the ...