Watching Wyoming is like watching Utah in the late 90's.
"Market price". Sounds great when your a grey hair setting the market.
Problem is, eventually that "market" wants return on investment. And not a tag. They will want better.
In Utah we call that CWMU, and "conservation tags". It's where "the market" is set, by guys who don't sweat $100k diesel trucks and $100k trailers.
And once "the market" gets it's sway, as will happen in Wyoming, because, no matter what Buzz thinks, MONEY TALKS, Wyoming becomes Utah.
What that means is, you lose a generation of kids that actually can't play in "the market". But the dirty secret, is you lose average folks, both NR and R. While the NR market skyrockets, the R market doesn't stay stagnant. Once the agencies get a taste of "the market", they aren't going back.
Gone, are the days when a Utah kid could run up to Evanston, grab a 6 pack, and enjoy an antelope hunt.
Now, that same kid can't swing it, so he finds other avenues.
Those avenues don't involve hunting. So they don't involve the politics of hunting either. Why should they care about corner crossing? Wolves? Grizzlies. F Wyoming.(same thing folks have said about Utah for awhile)
So who actually wins? The big money. The environmental wackjobs.
It's unbelievably short sighted and stupid, and frankly inexcusable for Wyoming to sit on the Utah border, watch what was done here, watch the fallout from it, then do the same stupid **** thinking the outcome will be different. It's arrogant, egotistical, and blind to believe politics are different because you have a cowboy on your plates. Money talks. Always.
Utah used to get flooded by Cali plates, hunting otc deer tags. We stopped that, priced those average dudes out. They quit. But the deep pocket dudes stayed. Utah's avg dude lost as the deep pockets now just buy what they want, including legislators, Boards, etc. And now avg Utah hunter is paying the price. We reap what we sow.
Wyoming owes me nothing. I can't swing $1200 antelope tags for the family, so I'm out of that. And yeah, I stop in Evanston to fill up. I hit the cowboy liquor store, and generally grab taco time at the Chevron. But that's not a big miss for Wyoming. The miss, is the guy that can swing that $$. He eats in Jackson Hole. He golfs in Jackson Hole. And, his politics are there too.
I wish we in Utah would have had an example to see where it goes, because YES, we would have fought like hell.
What's Wyoming excuse?