16 U.S.C. § 673c: Conservation of elk in Wyoming

Summary

Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and the National Park Service must work together, using technical data and joint field studies, to create a program to keep elk permanently conserved in Grand Teton National Park. They must send that plan to the Secretary of the Interior and the Governor of Wyoming for joint approval. At least once a year, between February 1 and April 1, the two agencies must submit their recommended plan for the coming year. The plan starts when both the Secretary and the Governor approve it, and then each agency must issue the orders or rules it needs to carry out its part. If the approved plan requires reducing elk numbers, it can include a controlled, managed reduction by qualified, experienced hunters who are licensed by Wyoming and are deputized by the Secretary of the Interior as rangers. Each deputized hunter may kill only one elk and may remove that elk’s carcass from the park. After the Commission sends a list of qualified licensed hunters, the Secretary must issue deputation orders without charge on or before July 1 for the number of hunters the plan calls for. The Secretary’s authority for this method applies only to park lands east of the Snake River and to park lands west of Jackson Lake and the Snake River that lie north of the park’s present north boundary, and does not apply to the Jackson Hole Wildlife Park.

Title 16, §673c

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(a)Creation of program; licensed hunters deputized as rangers

The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and the National Park Service shall devise, from technical information and other pertinent data assembled or produced by necessary field studies or investigations conducted jointly by the technical and administrative personnel of the agencies involved, and recommend to the Secretary of the Interior and the Governor of Wyoming for their joint approval, a program to insure the permanent conservation of the elk within the Grand Teton National Park established by this Act. Such program shall include the controlled reduction of elk in such park, by hunters licensed by the State of Wyoming and deputized as rangers by the Secretary of the Interior, when it is found necessary for the purpose of proper management and protection of the elk.

(b)Recommendations by Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, and National Park Service; controlled reduction; deputation of hunters; removal of carcasses

At least once a year between February 1 and April 1, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and the National Park Service shall submit to the Secretary of the Interior and to the Governor of Wyoming, for their joint approval, their joint recommendations for the management, protection, and control of the elk for that year. The yearly plan recommended by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and the National Park Service shall become effective when approved by the Secretary of the Interior and the Governor of Wyoming, and thereupon the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and the Secretary of the Interior shall issue separately, but simultaneously such appropriate orders and regulations as are necessary to carry out those portions of the approved plan that fall within their respective jurisdictions. Such orders and regulations, to be issued by the Secretary of the Interior and the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, shall include provision for controlled and managed reduction by qualified and experienced hunters licensed by the State of Wyoming and deputized as rangers by the Secretary of the Interior, if and when a reduction in the number of elk by this method within the Grand Teton National Park established by this Act is required as a part of the approved plan for the year, provided that one elk only may be killed by each such licensed and deputized ranger. Such orders and regulations of the Secretary of the Interior for controlled reduction shall apply only to the lands within the Park which lie east of the Snake River and those lands west of Jackson Lake and the Snake River which lie north of the present north boundaries of Grand Teton National Park, but shall not be applicable to lands within the Jackson Hole Wildlife Park. After the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and the National Park Service shall have recommended to the Secretary of the Interior and the Governor of Wyoming in any specified year a plan, which has received the joint approval of the Secretary of the Interior and the Governor of Wyoming, calling for the controlled and managed reduction by the method prescribed herein of the number of elk within the Grand Teton National Park established by this Act, and after the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission shall have transmitted to the Secretary of the Interior a list of persons who have elk hunting licenses issued by the State of Wyoming and who are qualified and experienced hunters, on or before July 1 of that year the Secretary of the Interior, without charge, shall cause to be issued orders deputizing the persons whose names appear on such list, in the number specified by the plan, as rangers for the purpose of entering the park and assisting in the controlled reduction plan. Each such qualified hunter, deputized as a ranger, participating in the controlled reduction plan shall be permitted to remove from the park the carcass of the elk he has killed as a part of the plan.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

This Act, referred to in text, is act Sept. 14, 1950, ch. 950, 64 Stat. 849, which enacted this section, sections 406d–1 to 406d–5, 431a, 451a, 482m, and 673b of this title and provisions set out as notes under section 406d–1 of this title. section 1 of the Act was partially repealed and restated as section 104907 and 320301 of Title 54, National Park Service and Related Programs, by Pub. L. 113–287, §§ 3, 7, Dec. 19, 2014, 128 Stat. 3094, 3272. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see Tables.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Repeal of Inconsistent LawsRepeal of laws inconsistent with act Sept. 14, 1950, see note set out under section 406d–1 of this title.

§673c Conservation of Elk in Wyoming