WY trespassing. Legislation
General Topic
Interesting choice of words which would apply to corner crossing.
“ For purposes of this subsection "travel through or return across" requires physically touching or driving on the surface of the private property.”
It almost seems like their intent is to remove the restriction of airspace. No way!
What a waste of time. This is already the law. The person(s) who wrote this needs to go back to cleaning hotel rooms.
7mm maybe it’s just a reminder after the corner hopping court case.
I’m sure there’s a new word in there somewhere. It doesn’t mention for the purpose of scouting. Lol
They should absolutely remove the loophole of airspace.
ought oh, this will trigger the resident expert.
This would do it at the state level. Not sure this wording would stand up to court challenges, but will be interesting to see what happens if it passes. The big landowners who will challenge this have deep pockets and will (should) take it to the USSC.
It also defines a difference between simple criminal trespass vs. hunting or fishing on private property, as in CO. The latter is a more serious offense in CO (loss of hunting and fishing privileges in 48 states for a year) vs just a small fine for simple trespass. It would enable the WG&F to impose a similar, harsher penalty. That may be the backdoor intent of this bill. As worded it would take corner crossing out of the WG&F bailiwick and put it solely on local LE to decide whether to enforce, as in CO.
@jaq, that’s why I always say if you’re going to go find corners with OnX, do it without a bow or fishing pole, bring your dog and wear spandex.
This is actually a cleverly-worded bill in it's simplicity. Covers a lot of ground in a couple sentences.
7mm08, this is not already the law.
This proposed law would make it a wildlife infraction if you trespass on your way to hunt somewhere else where the hunting is permissible even though you don't hunt while/where performing the actual trespass.
Currently, it is only a wildlife infraction if you hunt while trespassing. It's a big difference. With the new law you will not just get a trespass citation for traveling across someones land without permission, you will also get a hunting infraction with all the possible ramifications of that (possible loss of hunting privileges in all the compact states).
Looks like you need to fly your bow in with a drone, then hike in and hunt. If you kill something you gotta pay a helicopter to get it out
Cazador’s link says effective July 1st of of 2023.
Glunts link is from February of 2022.
So where does this legislation stand?
No committee meetings scheduled and no floor time scheduled.
IF this bill is passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor, it will go into effect 1 Jul 2023. This bill was received for introduction on 28 Dec 2022. The reason nothing has been scheduled is because the legislature has yet to convene. The 2023 general legislative session begins 10 Jan 2023. Use Cazador’s link to check the status of any proposed legislation.
Purpose of this bill is to allow GW to write trespass tickets now, make it a game violation. It is not meant to address corner crossing per say.
So...this does a lot of things, and not many of them good.
Anybody who thinks the WY legislature is going to pass anything to screw ranchers/landowners in order to make it easier for nonresidents to hunt landlocked government land is having a wild wet dream.
They won't even change the stupid wilderness law to allow us to hunt "our" National Forest. No way they are going to screw their big campaign donors.
WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! I'll be damned! Who would have thought?
Ditto Jaquomo!!!!!! Let’s just get real.
Sure reads like you have to touch the surface of the property. It doesn't sound that complicated to me.
Give it a shot and let us know how it works out for you!
Most are waiting on the courts to make a ruling one way or another before going forth with legislation, our elected officials that is, concerning corner crossing. Jaq is right about getting something passed making it legal. Corner crossing does happen frequently up here, not every LO objects to it done respectfully.
Landowners could put it two 40’ utility poles as their corner posts. That would make it tougher to hop the corner
2 corners of that post would be on my land!
See Glunt's link above. The Rep. Barry Cargo, who introduced this bill, has publicly stated it has nothing to do with the corner-crossing issue. It's intended to create uniform enforcement of trespassing laws thru-out the state. If anything, it will result in more trespassing violations being issued in certain areas where they currently aren't. Cargo even said he would change the language in the bill to make it clear is wasn't about corner crossing, if necessary.
Sorry, ahawkeye, but your "I told you so" moment hasn't arrived yet.
Matt
Title 23 Game violation for trespass requires "intent to hunt" private. Drive down a road on BLM, get to pvt and case weapons, drive thru private, then back on blm uncase weapons does not show intent to hunt private. This is a "cleaned up Bill" from a Bill introduced last year I believe, that was killed because of confusing language.
I’m not saying that I think that it’s entirely egalitarian to allow a big landowner to prevent access to “publicly held” land, but I think if I were of a mind to attempt a corner/crossing, I would be much less a fan of cellular-enabled trail-cams than a lot of people here seem to be.
I guess Border Security doesn’t sound so good when you’re on the wrong side of the imaginary line in question.
But yeah, this could seriously up the Ante if it knocks a guy out of 48 states. I suppose some will figure that’s a non- issue when they only get drawn every couple years anyway. Just go hunt a high-fence operation on the Off years while you build up points….
Sheesh.
High fence! I think I’d rather just shop at a grocery store.
That makes me wonder, though… If you get your license, suspended for a year due to a Hunting in fraction, do you automatically forfeit all of your preference points in all of those states?
Seems like it would have especially high value with regard to providing a disincentive to trespass.
It has nothing to do with your preference points to my knowledge. I doubt it even keeps you from buying a license so you can apply (in states that require) for points. Unfortunately.
