Non-resident hunting as we know it wasn't around when the concept was created.
Neither were laser rangefinders and bows with eighty percent let off. The durability of the NA model absolutely depends on its ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
My two pennies...I've spent a significant chunk of my life advocating for wild things professionally. I'm a better advocate for public land, elk, mule deer, pronghorn, etc because a friend and colleague took me elk hunting on public lands and exposed me to a world that I assumed simply did not exist for me. Ever since, I've had a dog in the hunt and frankly, when then-Chairman Barrasso was rounding up support for wildlife crossings in a highway bill, his staff didn't give a damn where I was from if I could help explain migration corridors to fellow flatlanders.
My father, retired from forty years of service to various state and federal agencies as a wildlife biologist, had plans to go to Wyoming with me "sometime" in the next couple years. We thought about this year, but are contemplating burning CO deer points instead. May have to reconsider now I guess, because he won't spend that much coin on an antelope tag. Not because he can't afford it, even though he's on a fixed income now. But just doesn't want to shoot one that bad. Some may wonder about his motives if he's not willing to spend money on a tag he can afford, but a career putting more critters on the landscape kinda speaks to that and then some in my mind.
Finally, the folks that sign my bi-monthly thank you notes for services rendered have very few members in the Rockies and if I didn't have such a strong interest, it'd be real easy for us to let the "westerners" deal with a lot of issues from sage grouse to mitigation to migration corridors. So, thanks to that one trip, I can bring a lot more voices to bear with one email. It's not about me, but you never know when that one person is going to be on someone's board, or on a legislator's staff, or whatever. I was just a southern kid that never dreamed about much of anything except the muddy water I grew up with. No, I wasn't ever gonna stop advocating for wildlife or public lands. But then a buddy put me between a bull elk and a call. From the moment that sumbitch bugled in my face, everything was different. It just was. The fewer people that experience that, the fewer that'll be changed by it. That's all.
I don't know the answer. There are fewer animals in Wyoming than there are people who would like to hunt them. The state absolutely has to look out for its residents first. Like Randy, I think this will focus a lot more attention on the ban of NRs in Wilderness, but not sure that will amount to much. Once these kinda rules are made they're awfully hard to undo. Ask us east coasters about Sunday hunting...