Wyoming
Wyoming Rancher Worries More Elk Tags Will Make Herds Hide From Hunters
At first glance, it might seem that an abundance of elk is a good problem for Wyoming hunters and outfitters to have.
But things get complicated when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of elk tag allocations, providing hunting access and balancing the allure of high-dollar trophy bull hunts with the need for average Janes and Joes who just want to shoot a cow elk to fill their freezers.
The current quandaries are encapsulated in Elk Hunt Area 123, situated southeast of Gillette in Campbell and Weston counties.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission on Tuesday voted to increase the number of Type 6, reduced-price cow elk tags there. The commission also voted to issue 150 Type 1 bull elk tags for the 2025 hunting season.
Hunters can also use Type 8 cow elk tags in Area 123. Hunters can buy as many Type 8 tags as they want, to kill cow elk on private property.
‘Those Elk Are Going To Leave’
Kyle Wendtland has hunted elk for many years in Area 123 and was the environmental manager for three coal mines in the region.
He also works closely with Shane Farella, the owner and manager of the Keeline Ranch in Campbell and Weston Counties. Some of his property is at the southern end of Hunt Area 123.
The ranch is a haven for elk, including some huge trophy bulls.
Wendtland and Farella told Cowboy State Daily they worry that if Game and Fish puts too much pressure on elk in Area 123, it could ruin things for public land hunters there.
“If you saturate that limited amount of public land with hunters, those elk are going to leave, and they’re not going to come back,” Wendtland said.
A Small Area With A Big Punch
As Wyoming elk hunt areas go, Area 123 is small. (Elk Hunt Area 7, mostly in Albany County, is the size of some small countries.)
Hunt Area 123 is estimated to hold about 1,200 to 1,500 elk.
It’s been a hidden gem, where there’s typically been a high rate of satisfaction for local, public land hunters, Farella said.
And tucked away on private property such as his, there’s opportunity to bag gigantic trophy bull elk, he said.
Well-heeled hunters have paid north of $30,000 for Game and Fish Commissioners’ elk tags and chosen to hunt bulls on his property, he said.
Commissioners’ and Governor’s hunting tags are limited items, auctioned off each year, with the funds going back into the Game and Fish budget.
Commissioners’ tags are good only in whichever hunt area the purchaser chooses. Governor’s tags are good throughout the entire state.
Bull tags are issued in Hunt Area 123 once every three years, and Farella said the quality of bull elk on his property has attracted commissioners’ tag holders a few times.
At one time in the past, “we went to once every other year for bull tags, and the bull size and quality fell,” Farella said.
During bull seasons, he’ll outfit groups of three to five hunters on his property, looking for the best of the best when it comes to trophy bulls.
“We typically don’t kill bulls under the 350-class,” he said.
He was referring to the official trophy measurement system authorized by the Boone and Crockett Club (B&C). It involves compiling measurements of the length and girth at several points along an animal’s antlers.
A total score of 350 inches, B&C, is impressive for an elk. Scores of 400 or more are outright monsters, and rare in Wyoming.
But Farella said some 400-class bull elk have been killed in Hunt Area 123.
Don’t Want A Repeat Of Southeast Wyoming
In parts of Wyoming, elk herds ballooning well beyond the Game and Fish’s target populations has become a serious problem.
Ranchers have grown weary of elk gobbling up forage on their pastures, raiding haystacks, tearing up fences and otherwise causing trouble.
However, some hunters complain that landowners aren’t granting them enough access to go shoot the elk and trim down their numbers.
When it comes to big game numbers in Wyoming and the West, elk herds out outpacing other species.
Mule deer continue to struggle, and Wyoming’s vaunted Sublette antelope herd isstill reeling from catastrophic winterkill losses in 2022 to 2023.
But elk numbers are booming. So much so, that game managers fret that hunters can’t kill elk fast enough in parts of Wyoming.
In Hunt Area 123, Game and Fish is trying to avoid the sort of elk population booms that have hit hunt areas 6 and 7 in southeast Wyoming.
“We’re trying to be aggressive. We’re trying to get this (Elk Hunt Area 123) herd managed,” Game and Fish Sheridan area regional wildlife manager Dustin Shorma told the commission on Tuesday.
We’ll See How It Goes
Farella said he doesn’t mind an abundance of elk on his property.
And so far, enough of the elk cross from his property and on to public land to keep local cow elk hunters satisfied, he said.
He’s concerned that if Game and Fish allows too much hunting pressure on Area 123, it could ruin opportunities on public land and tempt more hunters to trespass on his property and other ranches.
And if elk get pushed too hard by too many hunters, they might take refuge on reclaimed coal mine properties in the area, he added.
If the elk camp out and eat too much of the reclaimed forage, it could hamper mining companies’ ability to be released from federal reclamation bonds, Farella stated in a letter to the Game and Fish Commission.
“These regulatory requirements include not only vegetation production, but also diversity index requirements, and sagebrush density requirements. In the event these lands receive intensive or excessive grazing by wildlife, it could negatively impact the ability for these lands and the coal operators to obtain final bond release,” he wrote to the commissioners.
Wendtland and Farella said they’ve tried to warn Game and Fish against putting too much pressure on Hunt Area 123.
But with the commission’s decision on Tuesday, a busier hunting season this fall seems inevitable.
It will be a matter of seeing how it plays out, Wendtland said.
“They’re going to go forward with this this year, and I think they will be willing to sit down with Mr. Farella after a year’s time,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Two men were detained in Wyoming in connection with a fatal shooting at a downtown Salt Lake hotel that killed one man.
Carlos Chee, 23, and Chino Aguilar, 21, were both wanted for first-degree felony murder after the victim, identified as Christian Lee, 32, was found dead in a room at the Springhill Suites near 600 South and 300 West.
According to warrants issued for their arrest, Chee and Aguilar met with Lee and another woman at the hotel to sell marijuana. During the alleged drug deal, Aguilar allegedly shot and killed Lee after he tried to grab at his gun.
MORE | Shootings
Investigators said they found Lee dead in the room upon arrival, as well as a single shell casing on the floor and a small amount of marijuana on the television stand.
The woman told investigators she had met Chee on a dating app and that he agreed to come to the hotel to sell her marijuana. She had been hanging out with him in the room, which Lee rented for her to use, when Lee asked them to leave. Lee was then shot and killed following a brief confrontation.
Chee and Aguilar allegedly fled the scene in a 2013 Toyota Camry with a Texas license plate that was later found outside of Rock Springs, Wyoming just a few hours later.
The two men were taken into custody and detained at the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office.
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ROCK SPRINGS, Wyoming (KUTV) — A man was hospitalized with critical injuries after he was reportedly shot by a deputy responding to reports of a disturbance.
Deputies with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office and officers with the Rock Springs Police Department responded to the Sweetwater Heights apartment complex in the 2100 block of Century Boulevard just after 4 a.m. on Monday to investigate reports of a disturbance involving an armed individual.
Information that dispatch received indicated that the individual had shot himself. When officials arrived, they found the individual on the balcony of an upstairs apartment “who appeared to have a gunshot wound consistent with the initial report,” a press release states.
MORE | Officer-Involved Shooting
During the encounter, a deputy discharged their weapon and struck the individual.
Emergency medical personnel rendered aid, and the individual was transported to an area hospital in critical condition.
No law enforcement officers or members of the public were injured during the incident.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation will conduct an independent investigation.
The deputy who fired their weapon was placed on administrative leave per standard protocol.
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by Maggie Mullen, WyoFile
Albert Sommers, former Wyoming Speaker of the House, announced Thursday he will attempt to reclaim a seat he formerly held for more than a decade in the statehouse.
“Leadership matters,” Sommers, a lifelong cattle rancher, wrote in a press release. “Right now, the Wyoming House is too often focused on division instead of solutions. We need steady, effective leadership that solves problems—not rhetoric and political theater.”
Voters in 2013 first elected Sommers to House District 20, which encompasses Sublette County and an eastern section of Lincoln County. As a lawmaker, Sommers largely focused on health care, education and water issues. Over six terms, he rose through the ranks, serving in leadership positions and chairing committees focused on education funding and broadband.
In his announcement, Sommers highlighted his legislative work to establish funding for rural hospitals, prioritize “responsible property tax relief,” as well as the creation of the Wyoming Colorado River Advisory Committee within the State Engineer’s Office, “to ensure our water users have a voice in critical decisions affecting the Green River Valley,” he wrote.
As speaker, Sommers was a frequent target of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus as well as the DC-based State Freedom Caucus Network, even getting the attention of Fox News and other national, conservative news outlets. They often accused Sommers of not being conservative enough, and criticized him for keeping bills in “the drawer,” which has long been code for the unilateral power a speaker has to kill legislation by holding it back. (The practice of holding bills has been used to a much higher degree under Freedom Caucus leadership.)
In 2023, Sommers used the speaker’s powers to kill bills related to a school voucher program, banning instruction on gender and sexual orientation from some classrooms and criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors. At the time, Sommers defended his decision to hold back “bills that are unconstitutional, not well vetted, duplicate bills or debates, and bills that negate local control, restrict the rights of people or risk costly litigation financed by the people of Wyoming.”
He reiterated that philosophy and defended his record in his Thursday campaign announcement.
“I am a common-sense conservative who believes in getting things done. I support our core industries—oil and gas, ranching, and tourism—and I will continue to fight for the people and natural resources of Sublette County and LaBarge. I am pro-gun, pro-life, pro-family, and pro-education,” Sommers wrote. “I also take seriously my oath to uphold the U.S. and Wyoming Constitutions, which means I didn’t support bills that violated those constitutions. I read bills carefully and I voted accordingly.”
Following his term as speaker, Sommers stepped away from the House to run for Senate District 14 in 2024. He lost in the primary election to political newcomer Laura Pearson, a Freedom Caucus-endorsed Republican from Kemmerer, who also won in the general election. Her Senate win coincided with the Freedom Caucus winning control of the House.
“That race didn’t go my way, and I respected the outcome,” Sommers said in a Thursday press release. But “the direction of the Wyoming House,” since then, he said, has “raised serious concerns.”
Sommers pointed to the Freedom Caucus and its budget proposal, which, despite a funding surplus, included major cuts and funding denials. Ahead of the session, the caucus said its sights were set on shrinking spending and limiting the growth of government.
In his Thursday press release, Sommers criticized “decisions that cut food assistance for vulnerable children, reduced business opportunities, slashed funding to the University of Wyoming, eliminated resources for cheatgrass control, denied raises for state employees, and removed positions critical to protecting Wyoming’s water rights.”
Most of those proposals did not make it into the final budget bill.
Sommers also pointed to a controversy that dominated the 2026 session after a Teton County conservative activist handed out campaign checks to lawmakers on the House floor. Lawmakers in both chambers unanimously voted to ban such behavior before a House Special Investigative Committee found that the exchange did not violate the Wyoming Constitution nor did it amount to legislative misconduct. A Laramie County Sheriff’s Office criminal investigation is still underway.
But “controversies like ‘Checkgate’ undermined public trust, and decorum in the House deteriorated,” Sommers said.
“Transparency and accessibility will remain central to how I serve,” Sommers said. “As I’ve done before, I will provide regular updates on legislation, seek your input, and clearly explain my votes.”
Incumbent bows out
Rep. Mike Schmid, R-La Barge, currently represents House District 20, but announced Thursday morning that he would not seek reelection.
“It has truly been an honor to serve as your State Representative for House District 20. When I first ran, I had hoped to serve up to three terms and continue building on what I learned during my first term,” Schmid wrote in a Facebook post. “But life can change your priorities. Over the past year, my family has gone through some difficult times. My wife is dealing with serious health issues, and the death of my brother, Jim, just a few short weeks ago have made it clear to me where I need to spend my time.”
In March, Bill Winney, a perennial candidate and former nuclear submarine commander, announced he would run for House District 20.
The official candidate filing period opens May 14.
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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