A video taken Saturday in the Wapiti area appears to show a group of unidentified hunters rolling up to deer in a pickup near U.S. 14/16/20, using the pickup’s hood as a rifle rest, and shooting near residences.
All three actions could be violations of hunting regulations.
The video was shared with Cowboy State Daily by a person who wished to remain anonymous.
The videographer said Wyoming Game and Fish Department told them the hunters have the landowner’s permission to hunt. But the videographer said the hunters were still shooting too close to houses and a busy highway.
A request for more information sent to Game and Fish wasn’t answered by publication time.
‘It Is Disgusting'
Noted Wyoming outdoorsman Paul Ulrich said he thinks the video depicts unethical behavior.
Shooting off the hood is likely illegal, and the hunters apparently tried to use the truck “as a shield” to conceal themselves from the deer, said Ulrich, a founding member of the hunting ethics group Wyoming Sportsmanship.
“It is disgusting. We need to double down on educating hunters and the general public and highlighting this sort of bad behavior,” Ulrich said. “I’m incredibly grateful to the individual who recorded this video. If you see something, say something.”
In the video, a gray pickup can be seen moving slowly across a field, with at least one structure in the background, and a house that looks to be in the truck's general direction of travel.
A man wearing a hunter’s fluorescent orange cap is holding the front passenger-side door open. As the pickup rolls to a stop, he emerges with a rifle, places it across the hood of the pickup, and fires two shots.
After the first shot, several deer jump up and start running and milling about.
The man then walks forward of the pickup and braces his rifle on what could have been a fence post to take a third shot.
It’s unclear what his target was or whether any of the shots hit an animal.
Who Would Handle What?
In the sort of scenario depicted in the video, Game and Fish might handle allegations of hunting-regulation violations, including hunting big game with or from a vehicle’s hood.
Allegations of reckless endangerment involving a firearm would be handled by the local sheriff’s office.
Park County Sheriff’s Office records don’t show any weapons-related complaints filed in October, sheriff’s spokesman Monte McClain told Cowboy State Daily.
It’s also difficult to assess whether a violation could be determined from the video, which he watched, McClain said in an email.
“Unfortunately, the video doesn’t show enough of the direction they would have been shooting in. Under Wyoming state statute, they can shoot on private property as long as they have a SAFE backstop. If they shoot in an unsafe manner, we can address that.”
What’s Up With The Truck?
Retired federal game warden Tim Eicher of Cody watched the video and said that the most clearly depicted possible violation is a hunter using the truck’s hood as a rifle rest.
“Shooting off a vehicle is the same as shooting from a vehicle. You don’t have to be hanging a rifle out the window. ‘From’ is from,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
That’s according to the Wyoming statute forbidding the use of vehicles to hunt big game, he said.
However, he noted that it isn’t 100% clear whether the hunter was shooting at deer or something else. It is legal in Wyoming to use a vehicle to hunt predatory animals such as coyotes.
“We do see all the deer running around (in the video). But we don’t know if there was a coyote out there, and maybe they were protecting the deer from the coyote, Eicher said.
Retired Game and Fish warden H.R. Longobardi told Cowboy State Daily the video seems to show that the hunter “got excited” and should have been “a little more careful” about shooting at the deer.
“They did get out of the truck to shoot, which is good,” he added.
However, “it is illegal to use a motor vehicle to hunt big game. A case could probably be made for that when they crept up, got out, and shot again,” Longobardi said.
‘People Need To Use Their Heads’
Famed outdoors writer Jim Zumbo lives in the Wapiti area and said hunters are sometimes drawn to the area because many deer and elk hang out.
But the animals are almost always on private property.
“Some of those fields are leased, and some hunters can shoot there, but shooting near buildings is a no-no,” he said.
He said he wasn’t familiar with the incident depicted in the video. But having hunted big game all over the country, Zumbo said shooting safety is a constant concern.
“People just need to use their heads when they’re shooting,” he said.
The area where the video was taken isn’t far from where state Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, was implicated in an alleged case of reckless shooting during a 2022 elk hunt.
The charges against her were later dropped.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
