Some trespassing hunters are becoming so brazen, Wyoming ranchers fear having guns pulled on them, a legislator said.
“These trespassers are getting very aggressive, and some are getting violent,” Rep. Bill Allemand, R-Midwest, told the Wyoming House Agriculture, State and Public Land and Water Resources Committee on Thursday.
“If something isn’t done to curb this trespassing problem, I fear there will be shootouts and blood on the prairie,” Allemand said while testifying to the committee in favor of House Bill 109, which he sponsored.
“I know of two cases in the last two years where the landowner thought there was going to be a pistol pulled on them,” he said during discussion about the bill.
HB 109 – which proposed taking away trespassers’ hunting, fishing and trapping privileges for two years – died in the committee, for lack of a motion on whether to forward it to the House Floor.
Ongoing Problem
Allemand said he brought the bill because of growing frustration and fear among landowners in his House district.
Although it’s only a fraction of hunters who don’t seem to care about property lines, offenders seem to be getting off scot-free, he said.
“These trespassers don’t go to court, because no one’s pushing them to go to court,” he said.
In addition to threats of violence, ranchers have complained about trespassers cutting their fences and locks on their gates, and leaving trash scattered on their property, he said.
Allemand added that the worst trespassers seem to mostly be Wyoming residents.
“Very few out-of-state people are causing this problem. It’s mostly local people,” he said.
Existing Laws Work
Others argued that Wyoming’s existing statutes for hunting-related trespass are adequate.
Those include a $450 bond forfeiture, to avoid going to court on a first offense. If a case goes to court and the suspect is found guilty, penalties can include a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail.
Judges also have the discretion to suspend a trespasser’s hunting, fishing and trapping privileges for up to three years. And that loss of privileges would extend to other states, under the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact.
HB would have made a two-year loss of privileges mandatory upon first offense, or, under a suggested amendment, upon second offense.
The Limits Of GPS
There was also discussion about how GPS technology can keep hunters out of trouble. A smartphone app called OnX is popular with hunters.
However, not everybody has a cell phone with that technology, committee member Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie said.
Wyoming’s Title 6 criminal trespass statute requires prior knowledge and deliberate intent on the trespasser’s part, she said.
However, the Title 23 hunting, fishing and trapping trespass statute doesn’t require intent, she added.
It’s hunters’ responsibility to know exactly where they are in relation to private property, so claiming trespass was purely accidental won’t get them off the hook, Provenza said.
Proposing a loss of privileges for a first offense was too heavy-handed, she argued.
“So our hunters, who have a (Wyoming) Constitutional right to hunt, who are trying their best and think they are following the law are found that they stepped on private land now don’t get to hunt for two years,” Provenza said.
Rep. Bob Davis, R-Baggs, said that smartphone GPS isn’t always reliable in Wyoming’s backcountry.
“There’s two sides of the state, east and west. We don’t have cell coverage so great in the west,” he said.
Allemand said that OnX and similar programs are usually satellite-based, and don’t require cell service.
“If you can see the sky, you can probably usually get a satellite,” he said.
Wardens Need Discretion
HB 109 would have taken away game wardens’ ability to decide things on a case-by-case basis, Wyoming Game and Fish Department Wildlife Division Chief Dan Smith said.
“I think that (the bill) takes a lot of discretion away from the courts, it takes a lot of discretion away from the game warden,” he said.
Allemand said that in most cases when people trespass by accident, ranchers will ask them to leave, without calling a game warden.
Smith agreed that landowners are generally forgiving toward honest mistakes.
But under HB 109, an upset landowner could potentially ruin a youngster’s next two hunting and fishing seasons, just because that “14-year-old” crossed a property line without realizing it, he said.
“In some cases, maybe that landowner is just tired of people doing that (trespassing), and that poor 14-year-old is the one ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Smith said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
