Rancher asks commissioners to get involved in private property issue

Hot Springs County rancher Josh Longwell presented to the Hot Springs County Commissioners his concerns about grizzly bears killing his sheep on his private property. Longwell started off explaining that his ranch was bought in the mid 90s and he said, “At that point, there was not one grizzly bear, not one wolf on that ranch. So to clear this up, we were here first, they weren’t here first.” He said it was a false narrative that they were here first.

Longwell continued and said his biggest issue is private property. Longwell asked, “Do we have private property rights? What do those look like? What is this county willing to do to stand up for private property owners and private livestock when it comes to depredation?”

Longwell said the first grizzly bear that was really noted in the country was in 2000. The first damage claim that his ranch had was in 2012. Longwell said he has tried “every avenue to try to get some relief on this deal.” He added, “The Game and Fish Commission said, 10 years, give us some time. We’re going to get management. They’ve spent 40 years and over 100 million dollars and still do not have management of the grizzly bear.” 

Longwell then displayed a large stack of affidavits that show the Game and Fish have come to his ranch and verified a kill on his property. He added, “You’ve got maybe a handful of these over the last four or five years, maybe got a lion killed, something like that. There’s almost three quarters of a million dollars of livestock right here. That’s what they think it’s worth.”

After flipping through the stack of affidavits, Longwell produced a study that has been published in the University of Nebraska, Oregon, Oregon State who all did studies on depredation. There was one study done by the University of Wyoming in 2017 that has been published in about four different publications. Longwell said, “It’s counting non-lethal costs of predators in Wyoming… It says ‘current compensation ratios for documented livestock kills range from one to one to seven to one, depending on the predator, species, and livestock age. However, compensation ratios of 18-1 up to 24-1 for each confirmed depredation have been suggested to more accurately account for total loss. The Wyoming Game and Fish uses the 1-1 to 3.5-1. Seven to one is on a wolf.’”

For dealing with wolves, Longwell said that when they are allowed to kill wolves, the depredation went away. He said, “We rarely see any wolf depredation because we’re allowed to kill those wolves at any point in any time, just like a coyote. So the wolf depredation has gone since I think it’s 14 or 15. They took them off the list.”

But the main predator Longwell and his staff face is the loss of their property due to grizzly bears killing his stock on a daily basis. Longwell spent some time giving multiple examples of grizzly bears coming onto his private property and killing his steer and sheep. 

One particular example is dealing with the Game and Fish people who came onto his private property outside the designated management area and trapped only one bear. Longwell said the Game and Fish “think they did me a favor by taking that one out when they knew there were three more bears in there in one drainage.”

The issues Longwell faces are not only the loss of his property to grizzly bears but also the safety of his staff. Longwell explained how a grizzly bear charged some BLM agents and that there were some of his shepherds out in the field and in danger. The shepherds are working to keep his sheep on his private property. If they cross out into the wrong area, Longwell is trespassed. But the grizzly bears end up scattering the sheep, making the shepherds’ job challenging. Longwell said, “So it’s a safety issue for my two herders that we’re dealing with. A human safety issue as far as an employee and a safe workplace. They’re scattering my sheep across BLM, which threatens my permits again, which took me 20 years to get back. I spent two years of my life working year in and year out with the government to get those permits back, have got them back and work well with them now.” 

Longwell described the difficulties of trapping grizzly bears. He said that when a mother bear has two cubs, they do not go into the barrel of the trap. The mother bear will kill many sheep and leave some of the bodies for the cubs to eat from. Some of the time, there is not much left over from the killing. This lack of a body can disqualify them to verify a kill from the Game and Fish, even though there is a large pool of blood remaining. Longwell will not be compensated unless there is a carcass with holes in it. 

Longwell said about Game and Fish, “They’re trying to manage grizzly bears on their private property without permission. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution states that we have the right to protect our private property without due compensation from the feds, so, what I’m asking you and I don’t like I don’t expect any answers here today. I just want to make sure everybody’s on the same page and realize what’s going on right here in Hot Springs County. It’s a real issue for some of us, like this is a real issue.”

Chairman Tom Ryan asked, “Do you have any suggestions for the commissioners?”

Longwell proposed that the sheriff and the three county commissioners “stand up and say ‘not in my county.’” He then continued and said, “There’s a clause in the Wyoming Game and Fish statute, which states you can get a kill permit when there is excessive damage. So I called and asked for the kill permit. They won’t give it to me. So partly they’ve got to go to the feds. A lady in Missoula, Montana, makes that decision. Why in the hell are we letting anybody from Missoula, Montana, make a decision on what’s going on in Hot Springs County? So at what point do we get to where the commissioners or the sheriff says, in my county, in this circumstance, we will not tolerate this kind of damage?”

Chairman Ryan replied that he doesn’t disagree and that he believes the other two commissioners are on board as well, but he doesn’t know what that avenue looks like.

Longwell asked, “Can we look into whether we can put pressure on whether it’s legislators, whether it’s the governor?” He then described how no one is actually managing the bear issue and that he has shepherds and sheep out in the fields in danger of four known bears.

Longwell then described how other counties and cities across the United States buck federal law all the time as sanctuary status.

Sheriff Jerimie Kraushaar was present and Chairman Ryan asked him to comment. Kraushaar said that Game and Fish “just threw their hands in the air” because they claim grizzly bears are a federal issue.

There was then much discussion with the commissioners and Longwell about the economics issue and the potential of Longwell being backed into a corner with his circumstances on his private property.

Longwell added, “We don’t want anybody to tell us what we can or can’t do on our private property. But for them to come in and manage bears on it and not take them out in a situation especially like this, and I’ll be honest, any private property in Hot Springs County, you do whatever you want on your public lands, that’s the people’s. I get that. We’re good with that. But when they get on my private property and start taking my livestock, like I consider this stealing, this is stealing.” Longwell displayed the large stack of affidavits again of confirmed kills of his property. He said, “Guys, if you took two of these, two of those, right there, that’s a felony. If you stole that much livestock, that’s a felony and you’d be in prison. That whole thing right there is what the government is stealing from me. And I’m fed up. I mean, it’s we’re going on for ten years now and no answers from anybody.”

Commissioner Jack Baird then said, “I have been saying this for years... All we have to do is to tell the feds to get out of the state.” Baird said “we’re going to manage stuff in Wyoming for Wyoming, and we don’t care about the federal lawsuits.” 

Chairman Ryan then asked County Attorney Jill Logan about the possibility of issuing a kill permit for grizzly bears when it is on private property, causing damage and they need to protect their employees’ lives. Longwell suggested that the commissioners put it out to the public about this possibility and see what happens.