The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is making a change to open the Whiskey Basin and Inberg/Roy Wildlife Habitat Management Areas along with areas of Spence and Moriarity Wildlife Management Area at 8 a.m. instead of midnight on May 16 each year. The reason is for human safety and to preserve the habitat resource.

Each year these Game and Fish Commission-owned lands and many others around the state are closed during the winter to human presence and/or motorized travel to minimize disturbance to wintering deer, elk and other wildlife. Many of these lands open on May 16; what has change is the opening time for the Dubois area lands. Delaying the opening of these lands outside of Dubois should alleviate recent concerns over public safety and resource damage. By changing the opening time, we will likely still have many people lined up to get through the gates, but in the daylight everyone can see where they are going.

We also hope this will reduce the number of off-road and resource damage violations we document each year.  Many of these go unsolved, but with everyone starting out during daylight hours, Game and Fish and the public will be better able to spot and report these types of violations.

Anyone witnessing a wildlife violation may call the Stop Poaching Hotline: 1-877-WGFD-TIP. Violations may also be reported at regional offices, by sending a text to TIP411 with WGFD as the first word of the message, or online at https://wgfd.wyo.gov/law-enforcement/stop-poaching.