When a task force of lawmakers and appointed citizens decided last summer where best to locate a state-funded destination shooting facility, they chose a picturesque 3-square-mile tract of state land nestled into the Absaroka Range foothills. Their rationale, in part, was that the site evoked wild Wyoming.

Rolling hills blanketed in sagebrush, the location is home to elk, mule deer, pronghorn and sage grouse, among other species. It boasts spectacular views of high peaks leading to the Yellowstone plateau and, off to the east, the Bighorn Basin. Bisected by Sulphur Creek, the site feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere despite being just an 8-mile drive from Cody.

Those same attributes concerned Wyoming’s wildlife managers, according to an agency review of the proposal acquired by WyoFile through a Wyoming Public Records Act request.

Seven days before the 12-member task force voted 8-4 in favor of the location, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department issued a memo that effectively recommended the complex go elsewhere. Specifically, Habitat Protection Supervisor Will Schultz asked that it be moved outside of “core” sage grouse habitat and “crucial” range for struggling mule deer, which exhibited “high use” of the site throughout the year according to GPS collar data. Pronghorn and elk also used the 2,036-acre property, which is slated for development into a world-class shooting operation, and is expected to draw gun enthusiasts from far and wide.

“Ground-disturbing activities and extensive human presence can result in the disturbance or displacement of wintering big game and loss of habitat, potentially impacting the viability of local populations,” stated the July 15, 2024 letter signed by Schultz.

One week later, the state agency’s concerns surfaced as the task force voted.

“Is this cleared for that wildlife aspect?” Republican Rep. Pepper Ottman of Riverton asked her fellow members. “It looks to me as though that is still a concern. What would that look like, to alleviate that concern? I’m not sure. That is of grave concern.”

Nobody attempted to answer the questions.

‘Of grave concern’

Ottman, who’s no longer on the task force, voted with the minority for the runner-up site, near Gillette. She told WyoFile in an interview that she asked about the wildlife concerns because she wanted to get ahead of them — and wants the Wyoming State Shooting Complex to be successful.

“I’m going to support the decisions that were made,” Ottman said.

No one other than Ottman, including the agency itself, raised Game and Fish’s wildlife concerns with the Cody site to the task force. Nor did the state agency’s review of the alternative Campbell County site, which detailed far fewer concerns with wildlife, make much of an appearance in the debate. Publicly, there has been little to no discussion about requests to avoid the crucial mule deer range and the Oregon Basin sage grouse core area, or of any other wildlife-friendly guidance that’s been issued for the Park County shooting complex site, where construction crews could break ground as soon as July.

Powell resident Greg Mayton, who spent 14 years working for Wyoming Game and Fish, said that the wildlife concerns were minimized because of a “top-down push” that has kept the agency’s Cody Region personnel muzzled.

“It wouldn’t look good,” Mayton said, “if Game and Fish was against this site.”

WyoFile’s attempts to talk with regional personnel were not successful — an in-person inquiry at the Cody office in early May prompted a phone call from the agency’s Cheyenne headquarters.

An avid hunter, Mayton is among the few Park County residents who’ve spoken out against the shooting complex. The former aquatic invasive species biologist has spent ample time hunting elk and mule deer and looking for shed antlers on the selected state land, which abuts a much larger expanse of Bureau of Land Management property west of Highway 120 between Cody and Meeteetse. He feels local residents have to unfairly subsidize a commercial enterprise they might not want in the first place.

“We have to pay for it three times,” Mayton said. “Through county money I’m paying to build the road, through Game and Fish dollars, and then through all the state tax dollars.”

Wildlife managers were more forward about their concerns earlier in the Park County site-selection process, according to Andy Quick, a former Cody town councilor.

“They were going to pur-