by Mike Koshmrl, WyoFile

Rep. Harriet Hageman wants to stop future administrations from reinstating a 25-year-old policy that prevents roadbuilding on 59 million acres of the national forest, including 3.3 million acres of federal land in Wyoming. 

A rescission of the Clinton-era 2001 Roadless Rule is already underway. In June 2025, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced her intention to repeal the “roadless” class of land that’s found on nine national forests in Wyoming. 

Subsequently, Rollins solicited public comment on that plan, which, based on the responses, is extraordinarily unpopular. More than 99% of the 200,000-plus people and groups who responded opposed the proposed rescission, according to a Center for Western Priorities analysis. 

A Hageman-led bill, House Resolution 7695, would codify the Trump administration’s undoing of the Roadless Rule in law and also prevent it from reappearing. The legislation states that any future secretary of agriculture “may not take any action to propose, finalize, implement, administer, or enforce any rule substantially similar to the rule.” 

On Thursday, Wyoming’s lone representative touted the bill at a congressional hearing, saying that it undoes an “environmental catastrophe.” 

“The Roadless Rule has been devastating to the Interior West,” Hageman testified to the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources’ Federal Lands Subcommittee. “The Roadless Rule has been devastating to Wyoming.” 

As an attorney a quarter century ago, Hageman was a staunch opponent of the Roadless Rule and litigated against it on behalf of Wyoming.

Hageman pointed out to her fellow members of Congress on Thursday that nine of the 10 “most catastrophic” national forest wildfires have occurred since the rule’s 2001 implementation. 

U.S. Forest Service Associate Chief Chris French testified that his agency supports the administration’s proposed rescission, along with Hageman’s legislation and he offered to provide “technical assistance” to help pass the bill.  

“The Forest Service is currently in the process of analyzing the more than 220,000 comments we received,” French told the subcommittee, “and anticipates issuing a final rule and draft environmental impact statement for public comment in the coming months.” 

Several Democrats who sit on the Subcommittee on Federal Lands expressed concern about Hageman’s bill. 

Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, who in 2025 attempted to codify keeping the Roadless Rule, argued that roadbuilding can lead to more wildfires. 

“The Forest Service’s own assessment found that building roads in these areas would actually increase the risk of fire,” Salinas said, “and another analysis shows that 85% of wildfires are human-caused.” 

A newly created logging road cuts into the Black Hills National Forest’s Bearlodge Ranger District in May 2026. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)

Earlier, Hageman called the claim that eliminating the Roadless Rule would create more wildfires “absolutely wrong.” 

“The science and the facts and the history demonstrate, without question, that you are absolutely wrong,” Hageman said. 

But French, the Forest Service associate chief, acknowledged that it’s a “longstanding fact” that “most” wildfire ignitions are human-caused and “most are going to be associated with where humans go, including roads.” 

The equation, however, is not that straightforward, French said. Other research has found that wildfire severity is greater in “untreated” roadless areas, he said.

“You have to look at the whole scenario,” French said. “I think that’s why it’s often polarized. There are different facts you can pull out to support an opinion.” 

National hunting and angling groups have strongly opposed the elimination of the Roadless Rule, which has helped ensure that non-wilderness backcountry remains a part of national forests across the country. 

The idea of eliminating the rule also hasn’t gone over well with Wyoming conservation groups. 

Gabby Yates, public lands program manager at the Wyoming Outdoor Council, pointed out the unpopularity of Hageman’s plan.  

“By sidestepping the already scant public process that the administration is using to rescind the rule, H.R. 7695 adds insult to injury and ignores hundreds of thousands of Americans who are currently opposing the rescission,” Yates wrote in a statement. 

The rescission, however, has been favored by many Western state Republican political leaders hoping to stimulate withering timber mills and a logging industry that’s been in the doldrums for decades. Many governors and congressional members have gone on record supporting the elimination of the Roadless Rule, including Gov. Mark Gordon and Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis.   

Hageman, who in 2022 soundly defeated Liz Cheney with an endorsement from President Donald Trump, is running for a U.S. Senate seat that’s opening up due to Lummis’ retirement. 

In the Republican primary, she’ll face Sam Mead, a rancher and whiskey distiller who’s the nephew of former Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and great-grandson of late Wyoming U.S. Sen. and Gov. Cliff Hansen. 

Mead, 36, is a political newcomer running on a pro-public lands platform. He did not respond to WyoFile’s inquiry on Thursday before this story was published.

This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

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WYOMING, Mich. — Wyoming Police arrested a suspect in connection with a May 12 shooting at the Ramblewood Apartments that left two people injured, police said in a news release.

Daniel Pellot, 35, was taken into custody without incident Friday, according to Wyoming Police.

He is currently lodged at the Kent County Correctional Facility and has not yet been arraigned.

The shooting occurred around 7 a.m. when authorities discovered a woman with a gunshot wound and transported her to the hospital. She was critically injured but has since stabilized.

Through the investigation, police also determined a male victim suffered minor injuries.

Police have not said what led up to the shooting.

Police identified Pellot as a suspect May 18, when they asked for help from the public in locating him.

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by Mike Koshmrl, WyoFile

CASPER—Sparse snow cover made killing predators more challenging and “dynamic” this past winter in Fremont County, Rob Crofts recalled.

Even if tracking and spotting wildlife was trickier, contracted trappers and hunters incentivized by a bounty program still managed to kill roughly 1,000 coyotes, the Fremont County Predator Board chairman reported before pausing to ask the Wyoming Animal Damage Management Board a question. 

“What would that be like if we did not do predator control?” Crofts asked rhetorically.

He also pointed to the agriculture and livestock producers who benefit from that “control” — a sanitized way to describe what typically involves killing. Fremont County houses 987 farmers and ranchers who exceed $10,000 in sales, he said. He recapped the coyote and predator-control activity in his 4.9-million-acre county while pitching the Wyoming Animal Damage Management Board last week for more funding to do it all again. 

Plainclothed federal government employees who carry out the lethal actions — running traplines to catch wolves and shooting coyotes from the air — sat nearby listening to the pitch in the Agricultural Resource and Learning Center building at the Natrona County fairgrounds. 

Fremont County’s predator board applied for $387,000 for the coming fiscal year. Government trappers will have to make do with significantly less. Statewide, there is more demand for predator-focused dollars than money available, and by the time the statewide board signed off on its budget for 2026-27, the panel had knocked down Fremont County’s allocation to $290,000 — a nearly $97,000 haircut. 

Almost all other county predator boards in Wyoming are in a similar position, and will have to get by with less funding than requested. There was a roughly $466,000 gap between county predator board requests and available funds. As a result, only three county boards are receiving their applied-for allocations. (Crook, $179,100, Sheridan, $188,700 and Weston, $100,000) 

Sizable cuts to requested funds also hit the Johnson County Predator Board, which was granted $380,000, some 16% less than the $450,000 requested. Natrona County, meanwhile, was allocated $322,000 in funding — 11% less than the amount it applied for. 

Growing investment

The shortfalls come at a time when Wyoming taxpayers are putting more and more money into efforts to kill animals the agriculture and livestock industries and county predator boards have deemed a nuisance. This coming fiscal year, it’s a nearly $4.8 million expense

The Wyoming Legislature allocates funds for the Animal Damage Management Board, created in 1999, on a two-year basis during the budget session.

In 2022, when state lawmakers set a COVID-shrunken two-year budget, the board was allocated some $5.8 million from Wyoming’s general fund. The expense grew to $8.4 million by 2024, and early this year, the Legislature signed off on a budget that gave Predator Management Coordinator Jerry Johnson nearly $9.8 million to distribute to the county boards over the next two years. 

“They did take into account fuel costs and inflationary costs,” Johnson told WyoFile. 

In Wyoming’s 2026-27 budget, lawmakers stipulated that $1.6 million of the funding be appropriated for “special projects prioritized for preventing listing” of a species under the Endangered Species Act.

In practice, that resulted in a sage grouse-specific line item for each county predator board. That species, which depends on the declining sagebrush biome, is facing sustained population decline.   

Johnson and the Animal Damage Management Board broke up $800,000 in sage grouse-dedicated funds for the coming fiscal year, prioritizing counties that had the largest chunks of “core” habitat. Most county boards were granted $38,000, while Carbon, Natrona, Sweetwater and Fremont counties each received $65,750. Goshen County, on the eastern plains and holding few to no sage grouse, was awarded $5,000. 

Not all counties receive money from the statewide board. 

Teton County stands alone in not having a predator board, even though statutorily it’s technically supposed to possess one, Johnson said. 

“They just choose to coexist, I guess,” he said. “They just don’t hire trappers.” 

For counties to be eligible for state board funds, livestock producers in county districts must pay a $1 per-head predator fee when they sell. There’s about $1.2 million in proceeds across Wyoming, revenue that’s retained by county predator boards.  

The Platte, Laramie and Sublette county boards don’t charge the full fee nor receive state board funding. Sublette County may start, however. Kristy Wardell, the county board treasurer, briefed the state board on efforts to convince local producers to pay the $1 per-head predator fee — she’s distributing a questionnaire to gauge interest. 

A federal trapper told the state board that Sublette County could keep his staff busy if there were funds for a “full-time” program. 

“That’s a very adverse landscape,” said Brady Smith, a district supervisor with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services. “Full suite of predators. You’re dealing with both the [wolf] trophy and predator zone.”

Bang for the buck?

County predator boards report their activities in an annual report submitted to the governor and three legislative committees. 

Reporting requirements aren’t standardized, however, and some county boards provide much more information than others. 

Big Horn County’s predator board is among those that delves into the specifics. In 2025, the board employed two Wildlife Service trappers, and they responded to $5,062 in reported livestock damage and another $6,900 in verified livestock damage. 

Federal trappers working in the westslope Bighorn Range county targeted six species over the course of the fiscal year. 

They reported killing 483 coyotes, including six dens of pups. Another 30 red foxes and six fox kit dens were eliminated. So were five ravens, including a nest, 206 raccoons and an untold number of nonnative European starlings on four different feedlots. 

Other counties were sparse on details in the annual report. 

The Lincoln County Predator Board, which has been investigated for Airborne Hunting Act violations, provided no overall accounting of the wildlife its civilian trappers killed using the state funding. 

Woolgrower Jon Child, the county board’s chairman, used the report to detail a request for an additional $20,000. (Although Child wrote that he was asking for $20,000 more, state records show that he only asked for $10,000 more.)

“One other thing we would like to mention is that our equipment is wearing out and is not dependable,” Child wrote. 

At last week’s meeting, the Animal Damage Management Board awarded Child and the Lincoln County Predator Board almost all of the requested funding. The county board received $295,000, just $3,500 less than what Child asked for. 

Johnson, Wyoming’s predator management coordinator, proposes county funding levels to the statewide board. He explained his recommendation. 

“Lincoln County’s always been fairly lean,” Johnson told the board. “I dropped him just a little bit.” 

The Lincoln County Predator Board was in line to get the additional funding to help Child pay for a new snowmachine, he explained. 

The Animal Damage Management Board made no changes to the county allocations that Johnson recommended. Last week, the board also set its budget for special projects. The nearly $268,000 in funds for those, which are often research-related, come out of a separate pot. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission contributes $200,000, and the remainder comes from the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. 

Although project dollars are routed through the Animal Damage Management Board, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department prioritizes the projects and recommends funding levels. Cuts, out of necessity, were steeper: There were 16 projects totalling nearly $440,000 in requested funding, but only about 60% of that sum was available.

Some board members took issue with some of the projects. Sharon O’Toole, representing the cattle industry, took issue with a joint Game and Fish-University of Wyoming research project that seeks to develop coyote abundance estimates to improve understanding of why the canines key in on subadult deer in some mule deer herds more than others.

“I would like to eliminate it altogether,” O’Toole said. “I don’t know, in the end, if anybody would learn anything that the trappers don’t already know.” 

Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce, who co-chairs the state board, stood behind the project, her agency’s second-highest priority. She spoke to the research’s “indirect” benefits.

“[We’re] gaining that understanding of the factors out on the landscape that may lead to more coyote predation in one area versus the other,” Bruce said. “If we can get to the heart of that, then we can start to manipulate things in a way that makes an impact long-lasting.” 

The Animal Damage Management Board agreed to give the coyote abundance project $40,000, about half of the $77,000 that proponents requested.

This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

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