Clear, 22° F
Dear Editor:
I’ve read articles from and about the Game and Fish and their new complex being built in Cody.
Not one article by Brian Nesvik or any other Game and Fish employee has ever …
This item is available in full to subscribers.
The Powell Tribune has expanded its online content. To continue reading, you will need to either log in to your subscriber account, or purchase a subscription.
If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free web account by clicking here.
If you already have a web account, but need to reset it, you can do so by clicking here.
If you would like to purchase a subscription click here.
Please log in to continue |
|
Dear Editor:
I’ve read articles from and about the Game and Fish and their new complex being built in Cody.
Not one article by Brian Nesvik or any other Game and Fish employee has ever mentioned how this “win-win” building will address the poor big game populations in the Basin, nor their intent on ever addressing the issue.
Quite frankly, the new complex will not put more game in the field, nor will the Game and Fish address this.
One cannot claim to be a game manager when the game is disappearing year after year with nothing concrete being done about it. Nesvik has stated, “but we still have hunting.” He and the rest could care less.
Yes, we can hunt, but the opportunities for finding and harvesting are dismally low. But as long as they practice socialistic people control, they claim to be game managers. They must take their cues from politicians in D.C.
It’s as plain as day that the department employees need to find a new line of work as they are failing spectacularly at game management; it is beyond their ability.
Unless something is done, hunting of any quality will be gone forever in the near future in the Basin.
Quite obviously this is the intent as handed down by Brian Nesvik and an expensive new “complex” won’t put game in the field.
Randy Selby
Wapiti
What Mr. Selby points out is just the "Tip of the Iceberg", and the disastrous consequences are moving ahead at warp speed both inside and outside of Yellowstone. As far as the Wyoming Game and Fish, (WG&F) they are responsible for the trajectory of the impact in Big Horn Basin and Northwest Wyoming in particular, which is a direct result of the decision that the WG&F made in 1952. That decision was to reopen all the drainage of the North Fork of the Shoshone River on the north side of the river, west of the Grinnell Creek drainage to hunting. What this decision allowed was the hunting of all Big Game species, with an immediate and long term disruption of the historical fall and winter migration of Elk that migrated out of Yellowstone over the watershed boundary between Yellowstone National Park and the Shoshone National Forest, in addition the decision or non-decision to keep hunting up to the watershed boundary between Yellowstone National Park and the Sunlight Creek and Crandall Creek drainages. This situation is and was exacerbated by the Montana Fish and Game not having a buffer between the watershed boundary in Montana and their active hunting areas which forced the Elk to fall back inside Yellowstone where they were protected and not shot at and when the fall and early winter snows came instead of driving them further into the National Forests to their historical winter feed ranges, the snow storms forced them back down the drainages inside of Yellowstone causing a caring capacity issue and the Park Services solution was a mass elimination of elk in the northern range of Yellowstone in the late 1950's 1958/1959 to the horrification and national outrage of Sportsmen and the General Public. This then led to the Park Service introducing wolves to Yellowstone, later aided by the Wyoming Game and Fish. This introduction of non-native wolves has brought the number of elk in the Northern range of Yellowstone down from 20.000 plus elk down to under 3,000 in Northern Herd, eliminated most all of the Moose, curtailed the number of deer, greatly reduced the number of Big Horn Sheep and destroyed Yellowstone's antelope population. This situtation has come home to roost in the western and north western part of the Big Horn Basin and all of the area in Wyoming that borders Yellowstone National Park and the Big Game Herds therein. The current reduction of hunting opportunities and even total elimination of hunting is not going to stop this downward spiral of our Big Game Herds and their sustainability with the current predation rate by these apex carnivorous, the Wolves, the Bears both Black and Grizzly, the Mountain Lion, and the Coyote.