WY one shot pronghorn hunt...circling the drain

[mtnprst]

Setting aside the Wyo Commissioner tags and only looking at the Governor Tags (5 each of goat, bison, sheep, elk, deer) - the Wyo statutes give these to the governor.

The tradition is to work exclusively through a single-purpose nonprofit, the Wyoming Wildlife Foundation.

This nonprofit has two employees and works with "partner" non profits to auction off the tags (Wild Sheep Foundation, for example, for the Sheep Tags - which in 2018 averaged $100,000/each).

The Wyoming Wildlife Foundation and the "partner" nonprofit each take a 10% cut from the tag sale price, and the remaining money is pooled and then distributed by a committee of mucky mucks called the Wyoming Governor's Big Game License Coalition, who takes wildlife-focused applications and then distributes the funds.

The WY G&F Department completes with the University of Wyoming, nonprofits, and other researchers for this money.

The money is significant - From 2012 to 2018, the sale auction of Wyoming Governor Tag generated $4.7 million. Of this total, 80%, or approximately $3.8 million went to the Wyoming Governor’s Big Game License Coalition (WGBGLC) to fund various Wyoming-based wildlife conservation projects. This means, nearly $1 of wildlife money million went to nonprofits just in sales commissions.

In the last couple years yet another nonprofit, the Wyldife Fund, was created ... and this private nonprofit has become somewhat of an arm of the G&F department. I can't get Resident Hunter Preference for Leftover Tags on the G&F Commission Agenda, but seemingly every meeting they get an Wyldlife Fund update from the organiztations exec. director. This nonprofit is also now several receiving full or partial Commissioner tag donations.

Most recently I saw the Wyldlife Fund was selling advertising in the Wyoming Hunt Planner. I asked the exec. director for the financial arrangement the fund had with the G&F Department ... it is getting a cut of each ad sold. He would divulge, so I filed a public information request with the G&F Department.

Each G&F Commissioner gets 8 Commissioner tags, which at the upper end of $20K for an elk tag = $1,120,000 of tag-generated income going to private nonprofits years.

The Governor's tags generate approx $1 mill/year, and with the 20% cut for the nonprofits, we're looking at another $200,000 going to nonprofits.

So, around $1.32 million give or take a couple hundred thousand in wildlife money going to unaccountable nonprofits, each year, in Wyoming.

The FTE for a G&F Warden or Biologist is approx $70,000. $1.32 mill / $70K = 18.

The G&F could set up an in-house staff of 3 to manage all these tag actions, keep the money in-house, and field 15 additional wardens and/or biologists state wide - at the current market rates for these tags ...which will only keep going up.

 

[Sytes]

Each G&F Commissioner gets 8 Commissioner tags, which at the upper end of $20K for an elk tag = $1,120,000 of tag-generated income going to private nonprofits years.

The Governor's tags generate approx $1 mill/year, and with the 20% cut for the nonprofits, we're looking at another $200,000 going to nonprofits.

So, around $1.32 million give or take a couple hundred thousand in wildlife money going to unaccountable nonprofits, each year, in Wyoming.

The FTE for a G&F Warden or Biologist is approx $70,000. $1.32 mill / $70K = 18.

The G&F could set up an in-house staff of 3 to manage all these tag actions, keep the money in-house, and field 15 additional wardens and/or biologists state wide - at the current market rates for these tags ...which will only keep going up.

Quid pro quo... Hmmm. MT, WY, ID, UT, etc...

 

[BuzzH]

Setting aside the Wyo Commissioner tags and only looking at the Governor Tags (5 each of goat, bison, sheep, elk, deer) - the Wyo statutes give these to the governor.

The tradition is to work exclusively through a single-purpose nonprofit, the Wyoming Wildlife Foundation.

This nonprofit has two employees and works with "partner" non profits to auction off the tags (Wild Sheep Foundation, for example, for the Sheep Tags - which in 2018 averaged $100,000/each).

The Wyoming Wildlife Foundation and the "partner" nonprofit each take a 10% cut from the tag sale price, and the remaining money is pooled and then distributed by a committee of mucky mucks called the Wyoming Governor's Big Game License Coalition, who takes wildlife-focused applications and then distributes the funds.

The WY G&F Department completes with the University of Wyoming, nonprofits, and other researchers for this money.

The money is significant - From 2012 to 2018, the sale auction of Wyoming Governor Tag generated $4.7 million. Of this total, 80%, or approximately $3.8 million went to the Wyoming Governor’s Big Game License Coalition (WGBGLC) to fund various Wyoming-based wildlife conservation projects. This means, nearly $1 of wildlife money million went to nonprofits just in sales commissions.

In the last couple years yet another nonprofit, the Wyldife Fund, was created ... and this private nonprofit has become somewhat of an arm of the G&F department. I can't get Resident Hunter Preference for Leftover Tags on the G&F Commission Agenda, but seemingly every meeting they get an Wyldlife Fund update from the organiztations exec. director. This nonprofit is also now several receiving full or partial Commissioner tag donations.

Most recently I saw the Wyldlife Fund was selling advertising in the Wyoming Hunt Planner. I asked the exec. director for the financial arrangement the fund had with the G&F Department ... it is getting a cut of each ad sold. He would divulge, so I filed a public information request with the G&F Department.

Each G&F Commissioner gets 8 Commissioner tags, which at the upper end of $20K for an elk tag = $1,120,000 of tag-generated income going to private nonprofits years.

The Governor's tags generate approx $1 mill/year, and with the 20% cut for the nonprofits, we're looking at another $200,000 going to nonprofits.

So, around $1.32 million give or take a couple hundred thousand in wildlife money going to unaccountable nonprofits, each year, in Wyoming.

The FTE for a G&F Warden or Biologist is approx $70,000. $1.32 mill / $70K = 18.

The G&F could set up an in-house staff of 3 to manage all these tag actions, keep the money in-house, and field 15 additional wardens and/or biologists state wide - at the current market rates for these tags ...which will only keep going up.

I'm going to clarify a few things about this post in regard to the Governors tags because of a couple reasons:

1. Its important to be honest and truthful
2. Because I served on the WGBLC for several years on the moose committee.

First off, the Governors tags are issued via statute and its a total of 25 tags, specifically 5 each of moose, sheep, deer, elk, and bison (bison was added via legislation passed by Bob Wharff when I was on the committee).

The way it worked then, is Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation (under the umbrella of the Wyoming Community Foundation (which was ran by Craig Showalter/Tony Woodel at the time) was administering the tags as well as keeping up on the projects/funding for said projects.

The split on the money then was 10% went to Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation for the "administration" of the Governors tags. Another 10% went to the primary seller of the tags (which were the N. American moose foundation, Mule deer Foundation, Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation, and RMEF).

Of the remaining 80%, another 10% went to an "all wildlife" committee for non-game project funding.

It was different for Bison, the primary sellers got to keep 30% and the rest went into the all wildlife committee since very few actual bison related projects existed.

***Important to note this arrangement was all under and MOU signed by the Governor (Mead at the time, and the WGBLC).

In fairness to everyone involved with the species specific committee's, everyone funded projects that were meaningful and helped wildlife a ton. The people on those committees were completely above board and I'm sure still are. I'm also 100% sure they continue to fund a lot of great work, needed work for sure.

However, during the last couple years of Mead's term...he broke the MOU. The first breach was taking one of the Governors elk tags and giving it to a fire fighter organization. I wasn't a a happy camper at all, and I told then WGBLC Chair, Ryan Amundson, as well as the rest of the committee that it was crap the MOU was breached. In my world, my word is my word, and further if the MOU's don't hold water, then why have them. I was pissed...and Ryan told me that it was just a "one off" and that "he had talked to the Governor and it wouldn't happen again". I held my tongue and left it at that. Then, the following year, I get wind before the May WGBLC meeting, that Mead had given away a sheep tag to Water for Wildlife, again a breach of the MOU. I'd had enough...I put it on several bulletin boards as IMO, the use of public assets need to be transparent. I liked a lot of what Mead did, but breaking the public trust, and the MOU he signed...I had to say something.

So, I made the decision to resign in objection to the breach of the MOU and wrote the letter. I will say, that my one mistake was NOT following my gut instinct and resigning over the elk tag. But, this was more than I could take. Before I could submit my resignation letter, Rob Anderson, who was the moose committee chair asked me to resign because he felt my telling the truth on several hunting related boards wasn't appropriate and could be damaging to the WGBLC. Well, its funny how that kind of stuff get's twisted, as if I broke the MOU and gave away a sheep and elk tag away to groups other than the primary sellers. But, I already had the resignation letter drafted and sent it off to Rob, apparently in his world, transparency, MOU's, and integrity don't mean chit...but they do in mine.

About that same time, the Wyoming Women's Pronghorn hunt was taking their case to the Legislature to get their tag allocation. They were getting support from the Wyoming Community Foundation via Craig Showalter and Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation and Tony Woodell. I was opposed to ANY new set asides and during the session and at a sportsmen's reception, I got into a pretty heated debate with Showalter. What it came down to for him is that, in his mind, wildlife was to be exploited for money and he was pissed that I wouldn't support the Women's Pronghorn hunt tag allocation.

I was never a fan of the Wyoming Community Foundation handling the governors tag and always felt that the 10% was excessive.

In a meeting I had with Commissioner Crank, we talked about what Craig had told me about his view of wildlife being a way to generate income. We also talked about what had went on with the WGBLC. It was shortly after that, Commissioner Crank was grilling Woodel about what exactly the Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation was doing for the significant amount of money they were taking from the Gov. tags, during a commission meeting. Shortly after, Crank and Schmidt started the Wyldlife Foundation, one of the tasks of which, is administering the WGBLC. Tony isn't working for Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation any longer and I'm assuming because they aren't taking 10% off the top of the Governors tags. I thinks its way more appropriate to have the new Wyldlife Foundation handle the Governors tags.

But, the couple positives of all this is that the Wyoming Women Pronghorn hunt seeking out legislation to get their tags, shined a big spotlight on the one shot hunt. Another positive is that it really allowed me to see the true colors of the brain trust at the Wyoming Community Foundation/Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation...which led to positive change.

Long story, but in short, these types of tags do cause shenanigans and the only way to address it is for tight accounting, over-sight, transparency, and making sure Sportsmen are allowed access to the books.

My 20 dollars worth...

 

[mtnprst]

Whoa .... much more inside baseball than I have access to ... and it only reinforces my issues with private organizations receiving funding from a state owned resource (wildlife).

One issue with the Commissioner Tags is the nonprofits receiving the tags are supposed to report back to the G&F Department with a full accounting of how the money was spent. This doesn't happen and there's no follow up by the department or concern/care by the Commissioners. So, if a nonprofit asks for a tag to complete a specific wildlife project, then receives the tag, sells it, gets the money, but then for some reason the project is never completed - they still get to keep the money.

I can't recall the accountability requirements from the WBGLC, but my guess would be that it isn't tight, and money distributed is followed through to ensure it is spent on the project it was given for.

Then there's the simple fact that the WDG&F must compete with nonprofits, UW, etc. to get projects funded with wildlife money.

I memory serves, Gov. Gordon has taken one of his Bison Tags and raffled it away to a Wyoming Resident at Cheyenne Frontier Days the last couple years ... which would seem to be another violation of the MOU described by Buzz, above ... though at least a resident hunter is getting it.

The one advantage the Governor Tags have over the Commissioner Tags is voters can at least hold him accountable at the ballot box. Not so with the Commissioners giving tags to fund baseball uniforms, church groups, music festivals, high salaries, and the outfitters of course .....

 

[warmer]

Long story, but in short, these types of tags do cause shenanigans and the only way to address it is for tight accounting, over-sight, transparency, and making sure Sportsmen are allowed access to the books.

This has got to be the most true statement ever written about raffle/auction/Gov/Commission/special interest tags ever written. SD has the same problem(at least I do) of finding out where all the money goes.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Seems like the two most common opinions are A. Some auction tags are good, with the right set of circumstances and B. Do away with all of them.

IMO the main problem with having any auction tags is the geese are always there, looking to get fat. Political donations, businesses getting special contracts, raiding a public resource to line pockets, shortcuts to high value tags, etc. It’s inherently shady business, and as long as there large sums of money in play, it will eventually become corrupted. “Nonprofit” is a nice-sounding term that describes a lot of organizations who just want a piece of the pie in terms of political capital, salaries, fees, influence, power, and control. It does not matter how much accountability is built into structuring arrangements for these tags - it is just begging to be abused, and the loser is the everyday citizen who is minimally aware of his/her tax dollars and public trust resource advancing the fortunes of a select few members of the social-political elites.

Furthermore, once these tags establish a history, it’s very hard to get rid of them after they become corrupted. Governors, legislators, commissioners, agency heads, nonprofit executive directors - they all owe powerful people favors or resources. That’s why no one will vote away One Shot.

 

[Hunting Wife]

I'm going to clarify a few things about this post in regard to the Governors tags because of a couple reasons:

1. Its important to be honest and truthful
2. Because I served on the WGBLC for several years on the moose committee.

First off, the Governors tags are issued via statute and its a total of 25 tags, specifically 5 each of moose, sheep, deer, elk, and bison (bison was added via legislation passed by Bob Wharff when I was on the committee).

The way it worked then, is Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation (under the umbrella of the Wyoming Community Foundation (which was ran by Craig Showalter/Tony Woodel at the time) was administering the tags as well as keeping up on the projects/funding for said projects.

The split on the money then was 10% went to Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation for the "administration" of the Governors tags. Another 10% went to the primary seller of the tags (which were the N. American moose foundation, Mule deer Foundation, Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation, and RMEF).

Of the remaining 80%, another 10% went to an "all wildlife" committee for non-game project funding.

It was different for Bison, the primary sellers got to keep 30% and the rest went into the all wildlife committee since very few actual bison related projects existed.

***Important to note this arrangement was all under and MOU signed by the Governor (Mead at the time, and the WGBLC).

In fairness to everyone involved with the species specific committee's, everyone funded projects that were meaningful and helped wildlife a ton. The people on those committees were completely above board and I'm sure still are. I'm also 100% sure they continue to fund a lot of great work, needed work for sure.

However, during the last couple years of Mead's term...he broke the MOU. The first breach was taking one of the Governors elk tags and giving it to a fire fighter organization. I wasn't a a happy camper at all, and I told then WGBLC Chair, Ryan Amundson, as well as the rest of the committee that it was crap the MOU was breached. In my world, my word is my word, and further if the MOU's don't hold water, then why have them. I was pissed...and Ryan told me that it was just a "one off" and that "he had talked to the Governor and it wouldn't happen again". I held my tongue and left it at that. Then, the following year, I get wind before the May WGBLC meeting, that Mead had given away a sheep tag to Water for Wildlife, again a breach of the MOU. I'd had enough...I put it on several bulletin boards as IMO, the use of public assets need to be transparent. I liked a lot of what Mead did, but breaking the public trust, and the MOU he signed...I had to say something.

So, I made the decision to resign in objection to the breach of the MOU and wrote the letter. I will say, that my one mistake was NOT following my gut instinct and resigning over the elk tag. But, this was more than I could take. Before I could submit my resignation letter, Rob Anderson, who was the moose committee chair asked me to resign because he felt my telling the truth on several hunting related boards wasn't appropriate and could be damaging to the WGBLC. Well, its funny how that kind of stuff get's twisted, as if I broke the MOU and gave away a sheep and elk tag away to groups other than the primary sellers. But, I already had the resignation letter drafted and sent it off to Rob, apparently in his world, transparency, MOU's, and integrity don't mean chit...but they do in mine.

About that same time, the Wyoming Women's Pronghorn hunt was taking their case to the Legislature to get their tag allocation. They were getting support from the Wyoming Community Foundation via Craig Showalter and Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation and Tony Woodell. I was opposed to ANY new set asides and during the session and at a sportsmen's reception, I got into a pretty heated debate with Showalter. What it came down to for him is that, in his mind, wildlife was to be exploited for money and he was pissed that I wouldn't support the Women's Pronghorn hunt tag allocation.

I was never a fan of the Wyoming Community Foundation handling the governors tag and always felt that the 10% was excessive.

In a meeting I had with Commissioner Crank, we talked about what Craig had told me about his view of wildlife being a way to generate income. We also talked about what had went on with the WGBLC. It was shortly after that, Commissioner Crank was grilling Woodel about what exactly the Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation was doing for the significant amount of money they were taking from the Gov. tags, during a commission meeting. Shortly after, Crank and Schmidt started the Wyldlife Foundation, one of the tasks of which, is administering the WGBLC. Tony isn't working for Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation any longer and I'm assuming because they aren't taking 10% off the top of the Governors tags. I thinks its way more appropriate to have the new Wyldlife Foundation handle the Governors tags.

But, the couple positives of all this is that the Wyoming Women Pronghorn hunt seeking out legislation to get their tags, shined a big spotlight on the one shot hunt. Another positive is that it really allowed me to see the true colors of the brain trust at the Wyoming Community Foundation/Wyoming Wildlife the Foundation...which led to positive change.

Long story, but in short, these types of tags do cause shenanigans and the only way to address it is for tight accounting, over-sight, transparency, and making sure Sportsmen are allowed access to the books.

My 20 dollars worth...

For anyone who wonders why some of us are so adamant about no special set asides just on principle, this is the perfect synopsis of why. Thanks for writing up an excellent case study.

 

[greatwhitebuffalo]

Is there anything currently being voiced to stop (or even just deter) this in the future?

 

[Beanland_fan]

Could someone tell us non-residents what the legal issues are with the WYldlife Fund? That organization appears to be a good one so I have donated to it. Thanks!