Dear editor:

Re: Jan 20 article on mule deer conservation cost lots of bucks, which claims, once again, that loss of habitat is the major issue.

I am a North Fork native of 76 years. I’ve have lived it, seen it, been there and listened to the B.S.

Yes, there are more homes. No, the acres of the National Forest, BLM and state land have not decreased. We have wildlife living among homes, as they have for decades, but also on beautiful public lands, full of great scenery, and huge amounts of feed, from native forage and grasses. Yet there is very little game of our ungulate species. We are nearing a wildlife desert.

Yet one can’t talk to anyone in the department about the real cause. Because they are educated [not correctly] know it all’s who project that those of us who have the long-term knowledge of this area no nothing and should have no say. They project themselves as environmentalist taught lies in “dumb school, with no common sense”.

Never once, in 31 years have I seen in print any numbers of the multiple tens of thousands of our deer, elk, moose, sheep, most eaten as they live, some killed and eaten, by the Canadian gray wolf introduced to our area, documented to carry 50 diseases and violating the Wyoming Game and Fish’s own policy on nonnative invasive species — an illegal act that is conveniently overlooked.

Grizzlies, lions and coyotes are, likewise, wholesale killing off our game. Grizzlies, too, are out of control, as is the department, which over-sells permits, outfitters virtually camping on migration trails, all for money and politics. 

“Public” meetings are only to spread the lie that the department cares about what we see, think and have and do experience. But just a forum to spread the lie about how well they “manage” wildlife. The major diet in Yellowstone National Park in the summer, for the estimated 130 wolves, are deer, but they will prey on elk, moose and bison. They have bellies to fill. That is why there is very little game to be seen in the park now.

The red-shirt disease is the culprit outside of YNP, green-shirt inside, with wrong headed environmentalist thinking that since they used to be here, they should be again.

Well, folks, there were hundreds of millions of bison and other game and few people then, which is what some of the extremists want to happen.

By abandoning the North American Model of Wildlife Management Conservation, wolves and grizzlies, especially, not managed, but promoted to the detriment of other wildlife, is anti-wildlife. This needs to be faced head-on. Correct the problem. Our hunting opportunities are near gone, despite hunters dollars funding the department that is overseeing the drastic decline of our wildlife here. The “wildlife management” is, in truth, destroying the ecosystem.

Randy Selby

Wapiti