Wyo Ranchers Endangered, Not Grizzlies, Says Legal Foundation

From the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

“Elite and out-of-touch environmental activists are arguing, from their high-rise, downtown office buildings, that they have more of a right to litigate the status of the recovered grizzly bear population in the West than real Westerners who live and work in the area,” said Cody Wisniewski, Mountain States Legal Foundation’s lead attorney on the case.

Wyoming farmers and ranchers are battling in court over their livelihood. They say the bears are over populating and hunting their livestock.

Recently they asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to review a decision to return the Yellowstone-area grizzly to the Endangered and Threatened Species List.

Charles C. Price, a fourth-generation cattle rancher in the Green River Valley of Wyoming, says his family has suffered devastating cattle losses due to the ever-expanded grizzly population.

Wyoming sheep rancher Mary A. Thoman and her daughters’ ranch is also endangered because of the bear problem.

“The decades of experience and losses that the Thomans and the Prices have suffered should not be cast aside in favor of special interest groups that will never have to put up with grizzly bears in their backyard,” said Wisniewski.

MSLF represents the Thoman and Price family ranches along with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation in this case.

I've put out word to see if we can get some of the folks mentioned in this article on Wake Up Wyoming, so you can hear their stories.