The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is putting together a new taskforce to tackle wildlife issues that are important to the public. The Wyoming Wildlife Taskforce will comprise of about 15 people and will mostly be made up of members of the public. Seats will be reserved for the President of the Game and Fish Commission, Peter Dube, and the Director of Game and Fish, Brian Nesvik. The state senate and house have also been invited to have two people each on the taskforce.
The taskforce will decide on what specific policies they choose to cover, but they will focus on issues of public policy.
"These issues we're talking about are issues that could end up as recommendations to either legislature or the Commission," said Nesvik. "And so some of them are governed and the authority to make changes to the policy is at rest with the legislature, and some of them, that authority rests with the commission. So there's an opportunity here to address both of those."
The idea behind the taskforce is to allow a deep dive into issues that are particularly important to the public, especially ones that have been worked on before with no clear conclusions.
"It's really ripe to have those people that are affected come together, study the issues hard, and come up with a set of recommendations. And I think bottom line, having a separate group does, it provides some real focus," said Nesvik.
According to Nesvik, they're looking for a diverse group of stakeholders from across the state to serve on the taskforce, but they also hope for a lot of public input during meetings. Being a member will require a time commitment of at least one meeting per month for the next year. It's set to expire after 12 months.
"It's important to bite off a manageable chunk of these very complex challenges to deal with. To stay very focused on those. It gives everybody a goal and a time period, and it doesn't allow for this to continue on and on and on for years. It gives everybody a time certain that the work will conclude, and some recommendations will come out," said Nesvik. "I think forcing this thing to conclude at some point will force some decisions and it will disallow some of these things from being kicked down the road."
Those interested in being a part of the Wyoming Wildlife Taskforce will need to submit a letter of interest by December 10. More information can be found on the Game and Fish website.
Have a question about this story? Contact the reporter, Ivy Engel, atiengel@uwyo.edu.
