The recently passed Big Beautiful Bill includes plans to compensate ranchers for cattle killed by predators. The head of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association said this could take some pressure off the state's reimbursement program.
Funded by hunting licenses, The Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s damage claims program paid out just over $1 million in fiscal year 2024 for cattle lost to grizzly bears, wolves and other large carnivores.
When a rancher reports a calf lost to a grizzly, Game and Fish visits the site to verify the dead livestock. The department uses a formula with multipliers that vary based on the location and type of carnivore to figure out reimbursement rates.
Game and Fish’s program also reimburses losses of honeybee hives and cultivated crops in some circumstances.
The federal program says it’ll pay 100% of the market value of the livestock impacted.
But Jim Magagna with Wyoming Stock Growers said there are still a lot of unknowns.
“ What hopefully it can do, and this is just wishful thinking at this point, is that by providing more federal compensation, we would still maintain the same payments, but we would get some benefit to the Game and Fish because they wouldn't be charged with coming up with a hundred percent of the funding,” he said.
Magagna pointed out the feds haven’t specified whether or not the federal payment would be in addition to the state’s. Also, when it would apply to wolves in Wyoming, where they’re managed as predators in some parts of the state.
