Wyoming Supreme Court rejects ranch grizzly damage claim

The Wyoming Supreme Court has rejected Thermopolis area rancher Josh Longwell’s claim that the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission owes him $288,527 for calves killed by grizzly bears.
The court on April 28 upheld a district court decision that also rejected Longwell’s claim and that found an arbitration panel ruled “on a matter not submitted to them” in awarding the rancher more than Game and Fish regulations and Wyoming law allowed.
Longwell sought $349,730 for calf losses during the 2018 grazing season, challenging the Game and Fish formula that only pays ranchers up to 3.5 times the value of calves confirmed killed by trophy game. The 3.5 multiplier recognizes that some cattle lost to bears are never found and Game and Fish used that formula to award him $61,202.
The arbitration panel used no multiplier and said Game and Fish should pay Longwell $266,685 for all his calf losses. That included 20 confirmed calf kills and 294 more that Longwell said were missing. That arbitration decision was far more than allowed by the 3.5 multiplier outlined in regulations.
“We are sympathetic to Mr. Longwell’s plight,” the court’s decision reads. “However, … Mr. Longwell’s remedy lies with the [Game and Fish] Commission or the [L]egislature, not this Court.”
Those bodies could change statute or regulation to allow the Game and Fish Commission to pay more, the court suggested. 
In 2020 Longwell tried to argue before the arbitration panel that the three-person committee need not be bound by the existing regulations that allow payment only for confirmed kills plus a multiplier.
“We disagree,” justices Kate Fox, Keith Kautz, Lynne Boomgaarden, Kari Gray and John Fenn wrote.
The role of an arbitration panel “is to reach a decision within the confines of the law, and not to just reach any decision that seems attractive to them …” the Supreme Court decision reads.
Last month Longwell was in front of the Game and Fish Commission again, appealing for more compensation than department investigators proposed for losses in 2021.
“The system is broken,” Longwell told commissioners, in April before they sided with their staff and against his claim, including for kills by mountain lions. He has argued that trophy game damage includes weight loss in stock, and the expense of searching for missing animals, among other things, although laws and regulations limit compensation to “direct losses.”
“The laws and rules and regulations are set up where they don’t cover all the costs,” Longwell told commissioners last month.
Longwell has protested state and federal management of grizzly bears, which remain on the federal list of threatened species and are largely protected — especially from hunting. Wyoming wants to be able to hunt grizzlies and has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to change their threatened status.
Game and Fish in coordination with federal officials have trapped and moved, or removed, some grizzlies from the Owl Creek drainage in Hot Springs County where Longwell grazes stock.
Some Game and Fish commissioners agreed that the multiplier needs to be investigated and field personnel should be given more flexibility when verifying kills and losses.
Through 2004 Game and Fish first set a multiplier for confirmed grizzly losses in an open range at 1.67, based on research. More documentation from ranchers grazing public lands in the Upper Green River drainage led the agency to increase that to 3.5 under certain conditions.
Longwell has repeatedly filed damage claims and challenged Game and Fish awards since 2018. None of the challenges has seen significant success, although some awards have been slightly modified.
April’s decision was the first time any of Longwell’s challenges has reached Wyoming’s Supreme Court.
 
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.