Wyoming wilderness guide rule poll

  • Thread starter Deleted member 20812
  • Start date

How do you feel about Wyoming’s law requiring NR hunters to have a guide in designated wilderness?

  • It is necessary to protect pilgrims from woofs and griz

    Votes: 12 4.7%
  • It’s a BS subsidy for outfitters

    Votes: 247 96.1%

  • Total voters
    257
Pretty confident it has very little to do with protecting hunters in Wyoming or Alaska and a lot more to do with the outfitters being in tight with the lawmakers. Anyone can correct me if I’m wrong but the logic behind this thinking is I know a group of guys who climbed Denali DIY but I cannot hunt sheep,goats, or moose in Alaska without a guide or next of kin. This was serious stuff so much that they were roped together in case one fell in crevaces the others could pull them out.
 
If it was to protect greenhorns and pilgrims, it would apply to hikers in some form as well.

Heck, I enter the WY wilderness to fish, bird watch, hike, run an ultramarathon, camp, whittle, rock climb, geocache, star gaze, tree hug, take pictures, set my Fantasy Football line up for the week's games, hop for days on a pogostick to set a Guinness World Record, be one with those that walk along the treetops, read a good book, etc. I just am not allowed to return to my vehicle at the trailhead to get my weapon to then walk back into that same wilderness to hunt.

There was a thinning of the outfitter herd in 2008-12 and expect the thinning will be more severe this Recession since costs for outfitters keep going up with the minimum wage law change, liability insurance, land leases and taking care of horses and tack. I suppose the big cattle operations can run outfitting as a side gig but the outfitters that have to make a year of living revenues from start of pronghorn to late season hunts will be challenged. Just finding competent labor that knows how to guide and is willing to work long-term for not much more than 2x minimum wage and likely no health coverage or other benefits has to be tough. The best outfitted hunts will still sell during a deep Recession so sheep, goat, moose, 350+ class elk and 180+ class mule deer. The rest of the hunts will see demand fall off which in turn hurts an outfitter needing to have 20 or more hunts lined up each autumn. Hunters walk away from deposits during a downturn. There were some good deals in AK in 2009 and 2010.

Anyway, the Wilderness Rule is crappy though so is $150 point only fees for hunts that take decades to have more than 1% chance to draw.
 
Haha I'm glad i'm not the 1 that voted pro pilgrim.......I think they should do the same thing in the ul units.........😉🤣
 
Pretty confident it has very little to do with protecting hunters in Wyoming or Alaska and a lot more to do with the outfitters being in tight with the lawmakers. Anyone can correct me if I’m wrong but the logic behind this thinking is I know a group of guys who climbed Denali DIY but I cannot hunt sheep,goats, or moose in Alaska without a guide or next of kin. This was serious stuff so much that they were roped together in case one fell in crevaces the others could pull them out.
You can hunt moose without a guide. Not goats or sheep.
 
For the few that do support it, I would like them to show their work.

I don't think it is at all obvious that nonresidents, who plan all year and dedicate long chunks of time to individual hunts, are any less capable than locals, and if we could somehow aggregate and review the data comparing nonresidents to residents, and normalize that data by hunter hours, that we would see that nonresidents get in trouble in the backcountry at greater rates than the locals.

Even if it were true I wouldn't find the law to be just, but their argument seems void of data.
 
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