WORLAND – The wolf depredation compensation bill sponsored by Representatives Nathan Winters, R- Thermopolis, Jim Allen, R-Lander, David Northrup, R- Powell, Ruth Petroff, R- Jackson, Albert Sommers, R – Pinedale and Senator Dave Kinskey, R- Sheridan passed through both the House and the Senate and was signed by Governor Matt Mead on Friday. It will become effective July 1, 2016.

The program, which will compensate landowners whose property is damaged by grey wolves in areas of the state where grey wolves are classified as a predatory animal, didn’t receive as much money as was asked but will give the state necessary data to see if more money is needed.

Winters said, “It did come out with a smaller appropriation than what we asked for but that’s ok because what it’s going to allow us to do is essentially stand it up as a pilot program this year. It will help during those summer predation periods, I had a rancher tell me, outside of Meeteetse, that when he sees most of his wolf predation, because that’s what this is designed to handle, wolf predation, is during those summer months when his cattle are up higher and closer to those areas where there is more wolf predation specifically. I think that this is going to be very beneficial and it will allow us to take a look at it and the next year when we come back for our general session will be able to have the data from the last half of this year so that we can see whether we should get more funding or not. It came out with $60,000 and that number was based on some information that we received from the Game and Fish Commission. Now this program is going to be stood up under the Department of Agriculture, it has to be because of the federal legislation, the case that’s going on back in Washington D.C., but we did get some data, some very rough data from Game and Fish as to how much predation was claimed up until late 2014 when the court case in Washington, D.C., brought our Wyoming Wolf Plan to a halt.”

Winters also stated, “Representative (Mike) Greear was a tremendous help in the finances of this bill, showing us how to work this bill. I think that he deserves appreciation for that.”

The original bill sought an allocation of $200,000.