WYOMING 

THEY KILL EVERYTHING THEY SEE 
Hunters get into hot water over legal elk hunt that was a fiasco


David Strege
Tue, October 5, 2021


Out-of-state hunters in Wyoming did nothing against the law, but their ethics were called into question over an elk hunt in Jackson Hole that turned into a fiasco. Knowing what they know now, they’d never have done what they did in the first place.

Bob Geringer, 79, of Minnesota was hunting on Sept. 26 with two friends in an area unfamiliar to them along the Snake River when they spotted elk on a mid-river island, as reported by the Jackson Hole News and Guide.

The hunters, properly licensed as non-residents, legally shot three cow elk and a calf around 9 a.m. on the island, which is about 1½ miles north of Emily’s Pond.

“It turned out to be a…nightmare,” Geringer told Jackson Hole News and Guide. “We didn’t realize the river was quite the way it was, and it happened fast.”

What they didn’t realize was that the river was running faster than they thought and that it was located in an area used by dog walkers, joggers, and families and friends as a place to stroll near the river.

The hunters hadn’t thought about how they’d retrieve the carcasses and realized they’d be risking their lives if they tried to ford the river.

Meanwhile, people started showing up on the scene with one getting into a heated confrontation and others calling the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to report what they thought was suspicion illegal activity.

Jackson Hole resident Brad Nielson came upon the scene around 3 p.m. and was incensed. He told the hunters shooting the elk on the island was not fair to the animals.

“It’s an ethical question,” Nielson, a hunter, told News and Guide. “That’s not fair chase, cornering them on an island and mowing them down.

“I told them they’d set back years of effort to create goodwill between the non-hunting community and hunters.”

Game warden Jon Stephens met up with Geringer and the other two hunters Sunday evening to plan how to retrieve the elk.

“I chewed on them a little bit for the eyesore that they created,” Stephens told the News and Guide.

He then got help, procuring a canoe and wheelbarrow to use for extracting the meat. The first attempt resulted in a canoe capsizing and being washed away unmanned downstream.

The Jackson Hole News and Guide explained further:

Stephens could see that the makeshift meat recovery plan was futile, and he instructed the hunters to gut out the animals and then to get back across the river before nightfall. On Monday afternoon the Minnesotans returned, this time with the assistance of a local resident they commissioned to float out their elk meat with a raft. That operation went smoothly, the warden reported, and by 6 p.m. — some 33 hours after their gunfire — the Minnesotans’ meat was being rafted downstream toward the Wilson boat ramp.

Jane Frisch, who walks the levee nearly every day, voiced concern about mixing hunting with other uses in that area of the Snake River.

“There were young families playing in the river that day,” she told News and Guide. “On a Sunday afternoon there’s a lot of people out there, and a lot of people of all ages.” She added that the visual was “really upsetting” to a lot of people who passed by.

It would be surprising if Game and Fish didn’t readdress regulations for that area.

“If it’s a walking trail, why is it open for public hunting?” an apologetic Geringer told News and Guide.

Not everybody that happend upon the scene was displeased, however.

“You can’t imagine how many people congratulated us and were happy for us,” Geringer told News and Guide. “It’s just that the timing was wrong. If we had to do it again, there’s no way in the world any of us would have done that. It just happened.”

Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Brian Nesvik wouldn’t comment on the incident without hearing the details but agree with his warden that just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

“Hunter ethics are very important,” Nesvik told News and Guide. “We do have laws that are based on ethics and fair chase, but you can’t regulate all of it. You’ve got to hope that hunters will do the right thing and be respectful of both the wildlife they’re hunting as well as the rest of the public.”

Photos courtesy of Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Wikipedia Commons.