Case Title: Parker Land and Cattle Co. v. Wyoming Game and Fish Com'n

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1993-01-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
Parker Land and Cattle Co. v. Wyoming Game and Fish Com'n1993 WY 10845 P.2d 1040Case Number: 91-147Decided: 01/22/1993Supreme Court of Wyoming

PARKER 
LAND AND CATTLE 
COMPANY,

Appellant (Petitioner),

 
 

v.

 

WYOMING GAME AND FISH 
COMMISSION,

Appellee 
(Respondent).

 

Appeal from 
District 
Court 
of 
Laramie 
County, Edward L. Grant, 
J.

 

Stanley K. Hathaway, 
Brent R. Kunz and Rebecca Hellbaum of Hathaway, Speight, Kunz, Trautwein & 
Barrett, Cheyenne, for appellant.

 

Joseph B. Meyer, Atty. 
Gen., Mary B. Guthrie, Ron Arnold, Sr. Asst. Attys. Gen., 
Cheyenne, for appellee.

 

William Perry Pendley and 
Todd S. Welch of Mountain States Legal Foundation, 
Denver, amici curiae of Mountain States Legal 
Foundation and Wyoming Stock Growers 
Ass'n.

 

Before MACY, C.J., and 
THOMAS, CARDINE, URBIGKIT * and GOLDEN, JJ.

 

*Chief Justice at time of 
oral argument. 

 

GOLDEN, Justice.

 

[¶1]      This case 
presents a substantial evidence question and a narrow question of first 
impression: Whether the legislature in enacting Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901 (July 
1986)1, which permits a landowner to 
present a claim to the State Game and Fish Department (Department) for property 
damages caused by game animals, waived the state's sovereign immunity from a 
landowner's claim for damages for the loss of cattle allegedly caused by the 
disease of brucellosis transmitted to the cattle by state-owned elk or 
bison.

 

[¶2]      Appellant Parker 
Land and Cattle Company (Parker) seeks review of an order of appellee Wyoming 
Game and Fish Commission (Commission) which denied Parker's damages claim under 
Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901. After a contested case administrative hearing, the 
Commission held that a brucellosis contagion is not compensable under the 
statute in question and that Parker's claim was not supported by substantial 
evidence. Parker sought review of that agency decision from the district court. 
That court, invoking Wyo.R.App.P. 12.09, certified the matter here for appellate 
review.

 

[¶3]      For the reasons 
that follow, we hold that Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901 is unambiguous and does not 
apply to Parker's claim for livestock damages allegedly caused by brucellosis 
contagion transmitted by state-owned elk or bison. Consequently, Parker's claim 
is not legally cognizable and, therefore, not compensable under the provisions 
of Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901. In addition, we hold that substantial evidence exists 
to support the Commission's conclusion that Parker failed to prove with 
reasonable certainty that bison or elk were the source of brucellosis in its 
cattle herd.

 

[¶4]      We affirm the 
order of the Commission.

 

FACTS

 

[¶5]      The State of 
Wyoming has for many years 
declared that "all wildlife in Wyoming is the property of the 
state." Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-103. The 
state's express policy is "to provide an adequate and flexible system for 
control, propagation, management, protection and regulation of all 
Wyoming wildlife." 
Id. To carry out this 
policy, the legislature has established a game and fish commission and a game 
and fish department which is under the direction and supervision of the 
Commission. See generally, Wyo. Stat. §§ 23-1-201, 301, 302, and 401 
(1991).

 

[¶6]      Parker is the 
owner and operator of a cow-calf cattle ranch near Dubois, 
Fremont 
County, Wyoming. Parker claims its 
cattle commingle in its grazing area with elk throughout the grazing season from 
May to November each year. Parker also claims that its cattle may have come in 
contact with bison which were seen in the grazing area in 1988.

 

[¶7]      In 1988, some of 
Parker's cattle herd became infected with brucellosis, an infectious 
reproductive disease from bacteria of the genus brucella. It is transmitted 
orally by ingestion of the bacteria from contaminated placentas or other birth 
products of female animals. Its major manifestations are abortions or retained 
placentas in females and orchitis in males.

 

[¶8]      In early 1989, 
brucellosis infection in the Parker herd was confirmed. Upon orders of the 
United States Department of Agriculture and the Wyoming State Veterinarian, the 
Parker herd was quarantined and later depopulated.

 

[¶9]      Parker calculated 
its total damages at $1,136,106, the constituent elements being $149,560 for 
feed, transportation and other expenses caused by quarantine; $181,008 for loss 
of market value of cattle sold because of quarantine; and $805,538 for future 
loss of income because of capital loss of breeding herd.

 

[¶10]   Believing that the most probable 
source of the brucellosis infection was State of Wyoming wildlife, specifically, 
elk or bison, Parker timely filed its claim for damages with the Game and Fish 
Department under the provisions of Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901. An administrative 
hearing, in the form of a contested case trial, was held before a hearing 
officer. Following the hearing, the hearing officer issued findings of fact and 
conclusions of law recommending that the Commission deny Parker's damage claim 
on two grounds: 1) that brucellosis transmitted from wildlife is not a 
compensable injury under the provisions of Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901, and 2) that 
Parker has not shown to a reasonable degree of probability which potential 
source was in fact the source of brucellosis in the Parker herd.

 

[¶11]   The Commission heard oral argument 
from the parties' counsel and then issued its order denying Parker's claim, 
adopting the hearing officer's findings of fact and conclusions of law. A copy 
of the Commission's order is attached as appendix I. Parker filed a petition 
for review of the Commission's decision with the district court. That court, 
under Wyo.R.App.P. 12.09, certified the petition to this court. Parker raises 
these issues:

 

1. Did Appellant prove by 
a preponderance of the evidence, be it direct and/or circumstantial, that its 
cattle were infected with the disease of brucellosis by big or trophy game 
animals and that Appellant was damaged thereby?

2. Is the damage suffered 
by Appellant, or any portion thereof, compensable under W.S. § 23-1-901, and has 
the Appellee waived the right of governmental immunity?

3. Were the Findings of 
Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Decision of the Game and Fish Commission 
arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or, otherwise, not in accordance 
with law?

 

DISCUSSION

 

[¶12]   We will answer Parker's second 
issue first. This issue presents a question of statutory interpretation and, 
therefore, is a question of law. "Our standard of review for any conclusion of 
law is straightforward. If the conclusion of law is in accordance with law, it 
is affirmed, [Dep't. of Rev. & Tax. v. Casper Legion Baseball Club, Inc., 
767 P.2d 608 (Wyo. 1989)]; if it is not, it is to be corrected, [Rocky Mountain 
Oil & Gas Ass'n v. State Bd. of Equalization, 749 P.2d 221 (Wyo. 1987)]." 
Employment Sec. Comm'n of Wyoming v. Western Gas 
Processors, Ltd., 786 P.2d 866, 871 (Wyo. 1990).

 

I

 

[¶13]   At the outset of our exercise in 
statutory interpretation, we find it useful to warm up by reviewing this court's 
general method of statutory interpretation. Throughout this court's one hundred 
year history - from the first years of statehood generally identified with 
Justice Charles N. Potter (1895-1927) through the middle era strongly identified 
with Justice Fred H. Blume (1921-1962) and through the post-Blume period to the 
present (1962-1993) - the court has faithfully adhered to certain immutable 
principles which frame that method. As Justice Potter explained:

 

[T]he intent [of the 
lawgiver] is the vital part, and the essence of the law * * * *. Such intent, 
however, is that which is embodied and expressed in the statute * * * * under 
consideration.

Rasmussen v. Baker, 7 
Wyo. 
117, 128, 50 P. 819 
    , 821 
(1897). Accord, Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Wyoming State Bd. of Equalization, 813 P.2d 214, 219 (Wyo. 1991); Morrison-Knudson Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization, 58 
Wyo. 500, 512, 135 P.2d 927, 931 (1943). "[T]he initial step in arriving at a 
correct interpretation * * * *  is an inquiry respecting the ordinary and 
obvious meaning of the words employed according to their arrangement and 
connection." Rasmussen, 7 Wyo. at 133, 50 P.  at 823; accord Radalj v. Union 
Savings & Loan Ass'n, 59 Wyo. 140, 176-77, 138 P.2d 984, 996 (1943); and 
Phillips v. Duro-Last Roofing, Inc., 806 P.2d 834, 837 (Wyo. 1991). A statute 
"must be construed as a whole in order to ascertain its intent and general 
purpose and also the meaning of each part." Ross v. Trustees of University of 
Wyoming, 31 Wyo. 464, 489, 228 P. 642, 
651 (1924); accord City of Laramie v. Facer, 814 P.2d 268, 
270 (Wyo. 1991). "[W]e give effect 
to every word, clause and sentence and construe all components of a statute in 
pari materia." Facer, 814 P.2d  at 270; accord, State ex rel. Albany County Weed 
& Pest Dist. v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 592 P.2d 1154, 1157 (Wyo. 1979). 
Thus, our court has always understood and appreciated that statutory 
interpretation is a judicial process that emphasizes the functional relation 
between the parts and the whole. One of the more eloquent expressions of this 
truth was written by Judge Learned Hand:

 

Words are not pebbles in 
alien juxtaposition; they have only a communal existence; and not only does the 
meaning of each interpenetrate the other, but all in their aggregate take their 
purport from the setting in which they are used * * * *.

Nat'l Relations Labor Bd. 
v. Federbush Co., 121 F.2d 954, 957 (2d Cir. 1941).

 

[¶14]   As we engage in this particular 
judicial process, we must heed this warning:

 

It is always an unsafe 
way of construing a statute * * * * to divide it, by a process of etymological 
dissection, into separate words, and then apply to each, thus separated from its 
context, some particular definition.

Int'l Trust Co. v. Am. 
Loan & Trust Co., 62 Minn. 501, 65 N.W. 78, 79 (1895) (as quoted in Frank E. 
Horack, Jr., The Disintegration of Statutory Construction, 24 Ind.L.J. 335, 338 
(1949)). As explained in that law review article,

[n]one of us speak in 
single words; our symbolizing involves collective word use and we intend to 
convey meaning by the aggregate of our symbols interpreted in the surroundings 
of their use. Interpretation based upon individual words leads inevitably to the 
perversion of meaning.

Horack, supra, at 
338.

 

[¶15]   As we read the text of a statute 
keeping in mind the functional relation between the parts and the whole, we know 
that statutory language may be either unambiguous or ambiguous. A "statute is 
unambiguous if its wording is such that reasonable persons are able to agree as 
to its meaning with consistence and predictability." Allied-Signal, 813 P.2d  at 
220. "[A] statute is ambiguous only if it is found to be vague or uncertain and 
subject to varying interpretations." Id. at 219-20. "[W]hether an 
ambiguity exists in a statute is a matter of law to be determined by the court." 
Id.

 

[¶16]   On numerous occasions the court 
has, over its long history, consistently followed a general rule that if the 
statutory language is unambiguous, the court may not resort to application of 
rules of construction. See, e.g., Rasmussen, 7 
Wyo. at 128, 50 P.  at 821 
("If the language employed is plain and unambiguous, there is no room left for 
construction. 9*9 9*9 9*9 Courts are not at liberty to depart from that meaning 
which is plainly declared."); Gale v. Sch. Dist. No. 4, 49 Wyo. 384, 54 P.2d 811 
(1936); Druley v. Houdesheldt, 75 Wyo. 155, 294 P.2d 351 (1956); and Zmijewski 
v. Wright, 809 P.2d 280, 282 (Wyo. 1991) ("If the language of a statute 
communicates a plain meaning to this court, that meaning will be applied.")2

 

[¶17]   On occasion, however, despite the 
court's having found a statute in question to be plain and unambiguous, the 
court has departed from the general rule and has resorted to extrinsic aids of 
interpretation to confirm the plain meaning. See, e.g., Belle Fourche Pipeline 
Co. v. State, 766 P.2d 537, 544-49 (Wyo. 1988); McArtor v. State, 699 P.2d 288, 
290 (Wyo. 1985); Albany County Weed & Pest, 592 P.2d at 1157-58; Town of 
Clearmont v. State Highway Comm'n, 357 P.2d 470, 476 (Wyo. 1960) (Blume, C.J.); 
Gale, 49 Wyo. at 393-94, 54 P.2d at 813-14; Rasmussen, 7 Wyo. at 136-48, 50 P. 
at 823-28; and Cf., Sanches v. Sanches, 626 P.2d 61, 62-63 (Wyo. 1981) 
(resorting to the statute's legislative history to address an apparent 
ambiguity, the court discovered an inadvertent error in the transcribing of the 
enrolled act; upon correcting the statute, the court found the statute to be 
unambiguous). 

 

[¶18]   With respect to legislative history 
as an extrinsic aid to statutory interpretation, this court has frequently 
remarked that such history "is nearly totally unavailable for understanding the 
actions of the Wyoming State Legislature." Moncrief v. 
Harvey, 816 P.2d 97, 111 
(Wyo. 1991) (Urbigkit, J., 
dissenting). See also Pisano v. Shillinger, 835 P.2d 1136, 1139 (Wyo. 1992); 
State v. Denhardt, 760 P.2d 988, 990 (Wyo. 1988); and State v. Stovall, 648 P.2d 543, 546 (Wyo. 1982) (Brown, J., "Because of the sparse legislative history kept 
in this state, peering into the past, even the very recent past, becomes as 
difficult as predicting the future.").3

 

[¶19]   When the court determines that a 
statute is ambiguous, the court "will resort to general principles of statutory 
construction in the effort to ascertain legislative intent." Story v. State, 755 P.2d 228, 231 (Wyo. 1988), cert. denied, ___ 
U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 106, 112 L. Ed. 2d 76 (1990). We believe that

in ascertaining the 
legislative intent in enacting a statute * * * * the court * * * * must look to 
the mischief the act was intended to cure, the historical setting surrounding 
its enactment, the public policy of the state, the conditions of the law and all 
other prior and contemporaneous facts and circumstances that would enable the 
court intelligently to determine the intention of the lawmaking 
body.

Carter v. Thompson Realty 
Co., 58 Wyo. 279, 291, 131 P.2d 297, 
299 (1942); see also, State ex rel. Motor Vehicle Div. v. Holtz, 674 P.2d 732, 
736 (Wyo. 1983). "Knowledge of the 
settled principles of statutory interpretation must be imputed to the 
legislature." In re Dragoni, 53 Wyo. 143, 153, 79 P.2d 465, 
467 (1938) (overruled on other grounds). This court presumes that the 
legislature enacts statutes "with full knowledge of the existing condition of 
the law and with reference to it. They are therefore to be construed in 
connection and in harmony with the existing law, and as part of a general and 
uniform system of jurisprudence 9*9 9*9 9*9." Civic Ass'n of Wyoming v. Railway 
Motor Fuels, 57 Wyo. 
213, 238, 116 P.2d 236, 245 (1941); accord, L.U. Sheep Co. v. Bd. of County 
Comm'rs, 790 P.2d 663 (Wyo. 
1990).

 

[¶20]   In the case of certain types of 
statutes relating to a particular subject matter, we have employed rules of 
construction tailored to the specific statute type. For example, "It is 
generally held that statutes authorizing suit against the state are to be 
strictly construed, since they are in derogation of the state's sovereignty." 
Harrison v. Wyoming Liquor Comm'n, 63 Wyo. 13, 24-25, 177 P.2d 397, 399 (1947); 
accord Retail Clerks Local 187 v. Univ. of Wyoming, 531 P.2d 884, 886 (Wyo. 1975). Thus, we require in this particular area of the law 
that evidence of legislative intent be both unequivocal and textual. Retail 
Clerks Local 187, 531 P.2d  at 886 ("We find no words of clear or direct consent 
to suit against the state contained in these statutes, and consent must be 
clearly shown").4 Similarly, in the area of tax imposition we 
have required both unequivocal and textual evidence of legislative intent. 
Wyoming 
Mining Ass'n v. State, 748 P.2d 718, 721 (Wyo. 
1988); Kelsey v. Taft, 72 Wyo. 
210, 219-20, 263 P.2d 135, 137-38 
(1953). And, recently, we held that evidence of legislative intent to preclude 
judicial review of an administrative decision must be both unequivocal and 
textual. Pisano, 835 P.2d  at 1138.

 

[¶21]   Another rule of statutory 
interpretation we have occasionally invoked is that, in construing an ambiguous 
statute, the administration of which is charged to a particular executive branch 
agency, we will give deference to that agency's interpretation unless it is 
clearly erroneous. See, e.g., State ex rel. Wyoming Worker's Compensation Div. 
v. Mahoney, 798 P.2d 836, 838 (Wyo. 
1990) ("some weight"); Wyoming Mining, 748 P.2d  at 722 ("great deference"); 
Stratman v. Admiral Beverage Corp., 760 P.2d 974, 986 (Wyo. 1988) ("some deference").

 

[¶22]   Against this backdrop of "legisprudence 
(the jurisprudence of legislation),"5 a useful 
outline of this court's method of statutory interpretation emerges. We read the 
text of the statute and pay attention to its internal structure and the 
functional relation between the parts and the whole. We make the determination 
as to meaning, that is, whether the statute's meaning is subject to varying 
interpretations. If we determine that the meaning is not subject to varying 
interpretations, that may end the exercise, although we may resort to extrinsic 
aids of interpretation, such as legislative history if available and rules of 
construction, to confirm the determination. On the other hand, if we determine 
that the meaning is subject to varying interpretations, we must resort to 
available extrinsic aids. If an ambiguous statute has been construed by an 
agency charged with administering it, we will accord deference to, but are not 
bound by, that construction. After all, the final construction of an ambiguous 
statute is a question for the court.

 

II

 

[¶23]   On at least three past occasions this 
court has considered appeals arising from proceedings in which Wyo. Stat. § 
23-1-901 or one of its antecedents was involved. See Matter of Wyoming 
Game and Fish Comm'n v. Smith, 773 P.2d 941 (Wyo. 
1989); Cross v. State, 370 P.2d 371, 93 A.L.R.2d 1357 (Wyo. 
1962); and Van Horn v. Wyoming 
Game and Fish Comm'n, 54 Wyo. 
346, 92 P.2d 560 (1939). On 
none of those past occasions, however, was this court called upon to construe 
the meaning of the statute. This, then, is our first opportunity to do that. 
Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901 reads:

 

Owner of damaged property to report damage; claims for 
damages; time for filing; determination; appeal; arbitration.

(a) 
Any landowner, lessee or agent whose property is being damaged by any of the big 
or trophy game animals or game birds of this state shall, not later than fifteen 
(15) days after the damage is discovered by the owner of the property or the 
representative of the owner, report the damage to the nearest game warden, 
damage control warden, supervisor or commission member.

(b) 
Any landowner, lessee or agent claiming damages from the state for injury or 
destruction of property by big or trophy game animals or game birds of this 
state shall present a verified claim for the damages to the Wyoming game and 
fish department not later than sixty (60) days after the damage or last item of 
damage is discovered. The claim shall specify the damage and amount claimed. As 
used in this subsection, "verified claim" means a claim which the claimant has 
signed and sworn to be accurate before a person authorized to administer 
oaths.

(c) 
The department shall consider the claims based upon a description of the 
livestock damaged or killed by a trophy game animal, the damaged land, growing 
cultivated crops, stored crops, seed crops, improvements and extraordinary 
damage to grass. Claims shall be investigated by the department and rejected or 
allowed within ninety (90) days after submission, and paid in the amount 
determined to be due. In the event the department fails to act within ninety 
(90) days, the claim, including interest based on local bank preferred rates, 
shall be deemed to have been allowed. No award shall be allowed to any landowner 
who has not permitted hunting on his property during authorized hunting seasons. 
Any person failing to comply with any provision of this section is barred from 
making any claim against the department for damages. Any claimant aggrieved by 
the decision of the department may appeal to the commission within thirty (30) 
days after receipt of the decision of the department as provided by rules of 
practice and procedure promulgated by the commission. The commission shall 
review the department decision at its next meeting following receipt of notice 
of request for review. The commission shall review the investigative report of 
the department, and it may approve, modify or reverse the decision of the 
department.

 (d) Within ninety (90) days after receiving 
notice of the decision of the commission, the claimant may in writing to the 
department call for arbitration. Within fifteen (15) days after the department 
receives the call for arbitration, the claimant and the department shall each 
appoint a disinterested arbitrator who is an elector residing in the county 
where the damage occurred and notify each other of the appointment. Within 
twenty (20) days after their appointment, the two (2) arbitrators shall appoint 
a third arbitrator possessing the same qualifications. If the third arbitrator 
is not appointed within the time prescribed, the judge of the district court of 
the county or the court commissioner in the absence of the judge shall appoint 
the third arbitrator upon the application of either arbitrator.

(e) 
At least twenty (20) days before the hearing, the board of arbitrators shall 
provide the claimant and department notice of the time and place in the county 
when and where the parties will be heard and the claim investigated and decided 
by the board. A written copy of the decision shall be promptly served upon each 
party. Within ten (10) days after receipt of the decision, either party may 
apply to the board for modification of the decision under W.S. 1-36-111. Either 
party may apply to the district court for vacation of a decision under W.S. 
1-36-114(a) or correction or modification of a decision under W.S. 1-36-115 
within thirty (30) days after receipt of the decision or within twenty (20) days 
after action by the board on an application for modification under W.S. 
1-36-111.

(f) 
If no applications under subsection (e) of this section are made after receipt 
of the decision, the commission shall promptly pay the amount, if any, including 
interest based on local bank preferred rates, awarded by the board. Within 
thirty (30) days after the award is final, the board's reasonable service and 
expense charges shall be paid by:

(i) 
The claimant if the award is no greater than the amount originally authorized by 
the commission;

(ii) 
Otherwise, the commission.

 

[¶24]   The terms "big game animals" and 
"trophy game animals" as used in subsections (a), (b), and (c) of the statute 
carry the definitions given them in Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-101. See Wyo. Stat. §§ 
23-1-102(a)(xiii) and 23-1-101(a)(i) and (xii). Thus, the term "big game 
animals" means "antelope, bighorn sheep, deer, elk, moose or mountain goat." 
Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-101(a)(i). And, the term "trophy game animals" means "black bear, 
grizzly bear or mountain lion." Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-101(a)(xii). From our plain 
reading of these statutory provisions, we immediately see that bison is neither 
a big game animal nor a trophy game animal. We conclude, therefore, that a 
livestock damage claim arising from property damage caused by a bison is not 
covered by the statutory language. Consequently, to the extent that Parker's 
claim rests on any evidence that its livestock damage was caused by bison, that 
claim is not legally cognizable under Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901.

 

[¶25.]  Since the terms "big game animals" and 
"trophy game animals" appear in the main subsections designated (a)-(c) of the 
statute, the parties agree that we must focus our attention on those particular 
subsections to resolve the precise question of statutory interpretation before 
us. That precise question is, quite simply, whether Parker's damage claim for 
livestock loss allegedly caused by brucellosis contagion transmitted to its 
livestock by state-owned elk falls within the confines of the statutory 
language.

 

[¶26]   Parker does not expressly claim that 
the statute is ambiguous. Although Parker concedes, as it must, that the statute 
does not expressly "refer to animal damage caused by a disease such as 
brucellosis," Parker contends that both subsections (a) and (b) "plainly 
authorize payment when property is damaged by big or trophy game animals 9*9 9*9 
9*9." Working from that perspective, Parker asserts that § 23-1-901 applies to 
the circumstances of this case by noting that livestock is "property" within the 
meaning of the statute and by alleging that its "property" was damaged by an 
elk, a "big game animal," through the contagion of brucellosis. Parker notes 
that § 23-1-901 does not expressly except disease-caused damage from the 
compensation scheme and reasons that injury or destruction of livestock by 
transmission of disease is no different from injury or destruction of livestock 
by combative predatory actions of game animals for which compensation has 
historically been awarded.

 

[¶27]   The Mountain States Legal Foundation 
and the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (amici) filed an amicus brief in 
support of Parker's position. Amici expressly assert the statute is unambiguous. 
They declare that had the Commission applied the first principle of statutory 
construction, namely, the plain meaning of the statutory language, the 
Commission's analysis would have been complete. In addition to embracing 
Parker's main argument, amici address the statute's failure to expressly mention 
disease-caused property damage. They note that the statute "does not enumerate 
any type of damage that it does cover." Unfortunately omitting any reference to 
the record, amici observes that for years the Commission has paid claims for 
"damage from the goring of livestock or the trampling of crops," and that 
neither "goring" nor "trampling" is a type of damage enumerated in the statute. 
Thus, they reason, if the Commission rests denial of Parker's disease-based 
claim on the statute's failure to specify disease as a type of damage that is 
compensable, then the Commission must also deny all claims for any type of 
damage, such as that caused by the commonly known tooth and claw predatory 
actions of game animals as well as the crop trampling actions of game animals, 
because the statute fails to specify the types of damage that are compensable. 
Since that construction renders the statute a nullity, and we must presume the 
legislature does not pass futile laws, they conclude that the Commission's 
contention must be rejected.

 

[¶28]   In passing, we note that the record 
contains Parker exhibit 24, which is a partial listing of some of the property 
damage claims presented to and acted upon by the Commission and Department for 
the period 1943 to 1990. The subject matter of the claims ranges from damage to 
or destruction of hay, pasture, seed, raspberry bushes, trees, a fence, a storm 
door, and a metal shed caused by elk, deer, antelope, moose, sage chicken and 
turkeys to horses injured by moose, sheep killed by mountain lion, a cow injured 
by a mountain sheep, a sheep gored by an elk, and cattle killed by an elk. The 
livestock were injured or killed by the physical combative predatory actions of 
the game animals involved. The products of the soil were victims of the foraging 
actions of the game animals or birds involved. The improvements were damaged by 
the game animals' physical actions. In this regard, we note that the statute 
uses such language as "whose property is being damaged" [subsection (a)], 
"injury or destruction of property" [subsection (b)], and "shall consider the 
claims based upon a description of livestock damaged or killed 9*9 9*9 9*9, the 
damaged land, growing cultivated crops, stored crops, seed crops, improvements 
and extraordinary damage to grass" [subsection (c)]. This language connotes 
property damage caused by an animal's natural physical activities of foraging, 
trampling, and fighting. In this regard, we also note that in title 23, entitled 
Game and Fish, there are companion statutes concerning authority to kill animals 
or birds "doing substantial damage to property" [Wyo. Stat. § 
23-1-302(a)(viii)], to kill beaver if their usual activity "would be dangerous 
to livestock" [Wyo. Stat. § 23-3-114] and to kill "[a]ny bear, mountain lion, 
bobcat, weasel, badger, gray, red, and fox squirrels or muskrat doing damage to 
private property." [Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-3-115]. The language of these companion statutes also connotes 
property damage caused by an animal's natural physical activities.

 

[¶29]   Responding to the arguments advanced by 
Parker and amici, the Commission takes a simple, straightforward position. We 
are reminded that the subsections of the statute must not be read in isolation. 
Rather, they must be read in pari materia and harmoniously to form a congruous 
whole. Unless the provisions are read in that manner, the Commission asserts, 
then the claims description requirement of subsection (c) is rendered 
meaningless. The Commission cautions that each subsection must be read in light 
of the other subsections and given a meaning so as not to render any subsection 
superfluous.

 

[¶30]   Viewing the statute as unambiguous, the 
Commission sees § 23-1-901(c) as "a limitation on damages which may be paid both 
as to the property damage and the kind of damage." In the Commission's view, 
subsection (c) unambiguously provides compensation for livestock loss only if a 
trophy game animal caused that loss. Because the text of the statute does not 
expressly mention disease or brucellosis, the landowner's claim predicated on 
disease-caused livestock loss is not compensable, according to the Commission. 
Further, the Commission asserts that a brucellosis-caused livestock loss is 
legally cognizable only under the provisions of Wyo. Stat. § 11-19-106 (1989), 
which relates specifically to diseased livestock.6 

 

[¶31]   Having carefully read the statute and 
considered the competing arguments, we hold that the statute is unambiguous, 
that the Commission's construction is correct, and Parker's claim does not fall 
within the statute's provisions. In reading the statute, we combed its face for 
evidence of the intent with which the pertinent words were used and we weighed 
those words in the light of the structural context of the statute's three 
subsections which are the primary focus of attention. In subsection (a), the 
legislature has established, in obviously general language, a landowner's 
reporting requirement. Thus, within fifteen days of having discovered the 
property damage caused by big or trophy game animals or game birds, the 
landowner must report the damage to one of the designated officials. Contrary to 
Parker's assertion, this subsection contains no language "plainly authorizing 
payment" for property damage caused by both big and trophy game animals. The 
only purpose served by this subsection is the establishment of a prompt 
reporting requirement. Since the reporting requirement is common to those 
property damage occurrences encompassed by the statute, as are more specifically 
identified later in subsection (c), it was only natural that the statute's 
draftsman would use a word of broad meaning, "property," in subsection (a). The 
context of the reporting requirement is general; therefore, a general word is 
appropriate. The framing of a generalized reporting requirement was the 
draftsman's only goal in subsection (a).

 

[¶32]   Similarly, in subsection (b), the 
legislature has established, once again in obviously general language, a 
landowner's claim-filing requirement. Thus, within sixty days after the 
landowner's discovery of the property damage, the landowner must present a 
verified claim specifying the damage and amount claimed. Contrary to Parker's 
assertion, this subsection also contains no language "plainly authorizing 
payment" for property damage caused by both big and trophy game animals. The 
only purpose served by this subsection is the establishment of a claim-filing 
requirement. Like the reporting requirement of subsection (a), the claim-filing 
requirement of subsection (b) is common to those property damage occurrences 
encompassed by the statute, as are more specifically identified later in 
subsection (c). Just as it was only natural for the draftsman to use a word of 
broad meaning, "property," in subsection (a) to achieve his purpose, so too it 
was only natural for him to use the same word in subsection (b) to achieve his 
purpose. The context of the claim-filing requirement is general; therefore, a 
general word is appropriate. The framing of a generalized claim-filing 
requirement was the draftsman's only goal in subsection (b).

 

[¶33]   In subsection (c) of the statute, the 
legislature has established, in obviously precise language, the specific bases 
upon which the Department shall consider and pay the property damage claims 
filed pursuant to subsection (b). The purpose served by this subsection is the 
identification of the specific kinds of property damage caused by big or trophy 
game animals or game birds that the Department is authorized to compensate. It 
is only this third subsection that plainly authorizes payment of the claims 
filed. Because the draftsman's goal here is to identify with specificity the 
kinds of property damage that the state will pay for, he must use words of 
precise, not broad, meaning. The context is specific, not general. The draftsman 
must specify, not generalize. Had the legislature meant to achieve the broad 
coverage suggested by Parker, the draftsman would have generalized in subsection 
(c). He would have simply used general language to the effect that "[t]he 
department shall consider the claims based upon a description of the property 
damaged or destroyed by big or trophy game animals or game birds."

 

[¶34]   A generalization to this effect would 
have tracked consistently with the previous generalizations expressed in 
subsections (a) and (b). That the draftsman eschewed generalization in 
subsection (c) in favor of the specific language expressed there is significant 
for purposes of our determination of the statute's meaning. The legislature 
expressly links a livestock damage claim with only trophy game animal predatory 
activity by tooth and claw. In clear language, the legislature specifies that 
the Department shall consider a landowner's claim "based upon a description of 
the livestock damaged or killed by a trophy game animal * * * *." Glaringly 
absent from this phrase is any mention of big game animals. Our ineluctable 
conclusion is that a landowner's claim based upon a description of the livestock 
damaged or killed by a big game animal, viz., antelope, deer, elk, etc., does 
not lie under this statute. The words "damaged or killed" connote predatory, 
tooth and claw activity, not a disease process. The legislature has not in this 
particular statute waived the state's sovereign immunity from that type of 
property damage claim.

 

III

 

[¶35]   Neither Parker nor amici resorts to the 
use of extrinsic aids to statutory construction, such as historical setting and 
legislative history, in an effort to demonstrate that the statute's plain 
meaning as the Commission reads it is unreasonable, produces an absurd result, 
or is obviously contrary to the legislature's intent. As we mentioned earlier, 
although this court has frequently said it will not resort to the use of 
extrinsic aids to statutory construction if it has first determined the statute 
is unambiguous and carries a plain meaning, this court has, occasionally, 
departed from that practice. In studying those cases in which this court has 
departed from its usual practice, we discern no single principle common to those 
cases which provides a useful indicator of what circumstances must exist for 
this court to make that departure. "[C]ommon sense suggests that inquiry 
benefits from reviewing additional information rather than ignoring it." 
Wisconsin 
Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U.S. 
___, ___ n. 4, 111 S. Ct. 2476, 2485 n. 4, 115 L. Ed. 2d 532, 547 n. 4 (1991). One 
scholar has said, "[t]he judge cannot ensure that his reading does not 
contradict some reasonable legislative reading of the words unless he canvasses 
the possibilities."7

 

[¶36]   Other minds, brighter than ours, have 
wrestled with this problem. Consider Justice Frankfurter's graceful 
statement:

 

I 
should say that the troublesome phase of construction is the determination of 
the extent to which extraneous documentation and external circumstances may be 
allowed to infiltrate the text on the theory that they were part of it, written 
in ink discernible to the judicial eye.

 

Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of 
Statutes, 47 Col.L.Rev. 527, 529 (1947). Seeing statutes as "organisms which 
exist in their environment," Id. at 541, he believed "[i]f the purpose of 
construction is the ascertainment of meaning, nothing that is logically relevant 
should be excluded." Id. For 
the last half-century, the United States Supreme Court has routinely consulted 
legislative history even when its textual analyses have resulted in a 
plain-meaning determination. Patricia M. Wald, The Sizzling Sleeper: The Use of 
Legislative History in Construing Statutes in the 1988-89 Term of the United 
States Supreme Court, 39 Am.Univ.L.Rev. 277, 279-87, 298 (1990); Patricia M. 
Wald, Some Observations on the Use of Legislative History in the 1981 Supreme 
Court Term, 68 Iowa 
L.Rev. 195 (1982-83); William N. Eskridge, Jr., The New Textualism, 37 UCLA 
L.Rev. 621, 626-41 (1990). Perhaps one of the better explanations of why judges 
should not foreclose consideration of extrinsic material is given by Judge 
Patricia M. Wald:

 

One 
needs a sense of context in order to get meaning out of words, in statutes as in 
life * * * *. Every day I am called upon to decide cases on the basis of what 
statutes mean and what they require of citizens or the government itself. When a 
statute comes before me to be interpreted, I want first and foremost to get the 
interpretation right. By that, I mean simply this: I want to advance rather than 
impede or frustrate the will of Congress.

* * 
* *

As 
we conscientiously embark on our duty to ascertain what the words mean in the 
context of the statute's aims and purposes, we are almost inevitably drawn to 
the historical record of what the men and women who proposed and sponsored the 
legislation intended to enact. We feel better when their words confirm our 
reading of the text; we worry more when it contradicts the text. This * * * * 
does mean * * * * that we think again when we face a contradiction between text 
and history, and we should. That, in a nutshell, explains why we still resort to 
legislative history even when we label the meaning of a statutory provision 
"plain" or "clear."

* * 
* *

[T]he job of statutory construction requires an open and 
creative mind - one that can draw upon a variety of different sources, text, 
statutory context, other relevant statutes, and legislative history to 
extrapolate the most appropriate meaning from what are basically only 
words.

Wald, Sizzling Sleeper, supra, at 301-02.

 

[¶37]   In 1979, this court approved of and 
used the method of statutory interpretation that Judge Wald is talking 
about:

 

[W]e 
are convinced that whenever one party claims a right or seeks to impose an 
obligation under the terms of a statute, or group of statutes, it becomes 
necessary for us to read the statute, determine its intent and purpose, and give 
effect to that intention. This cannot be a mechanical process and therefore no 
statute is ever free from meaningful scrutiny by the court considering 
it.

 

Albany 
County 
Weed & Pest, 592 P.2d  at 1157.

 

[¶38]   Refusing to treat statutory 
interpretation as a "mechanical process," although we had determined that the 
statute under consideration was unambiguous, we examined the statute's 
legislative history in order to meaningfully scrutinize the statute so as to 
determine its intent and purpose and give effect to that intention. Our 
examination of that legislative history confirmed our reading of the text. 
Id.

 

[¶39]   Since Parker claims a right or seeks to 
impose an obligation upon the state under the provisions of Wyo. Stat. § 
23-1-901, we shall now employ that method of statutory interpretation which we 
used in Albany County Weed & Pest.8 In our search 
for meaning, we do not forget that, although we are no longer confined to the 
text, we are still confined by it. Frankfurter, at 544. "In the end, language 
and external aids, each accorded the authority deserved in the circumstances, 
must be weighed in the balance of judicial judgment." Id.

 

IV

 

[¶40]   In 1929, the Wyoming 
legislature passed the first law authorizing the filing of claims against the 
state for destruction of property by game animals or game birds. 1929 
Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 85, § 1. A direct antecedent of Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901, the law 
read:

 

Filing of claims for destruction of property by game 
animals and birds. Any 
person, firm or corporation whose property is being damaged by any of the game 
animals or game birds of the state of Wyoming shall, within 10 days time, report 
said damage to the nearest assistant game and fish commissioner or board member 
of the game and fish commission, stating that said animals or birds are 
destroying his or her property.

Provided, further, that any person, firm or corporation 
claiming damage from the state of Wyoming for the injury or destruction of 
property by game animals or game birds of this state shall present a verified 
claim therefor at the office of the state game and fish Commissioner not later 
than 6 months after said damage occurred, particularly specifying the damage and 
the amount claimed.

Any 
person, firm or corporation who shall fail to comply with this act shall be 
barred from making any claim against the state of Wyoming for 
damages caused by any of the game animals or game birds of this 
state.

Wyo. 
Stat. § 49-215 (1931).

 

[¶41]   In order to better understand the 1929 
law's provisions and place the events leading up to and surrounding that law's 
enactment in proper historical perspective, we find it helpful to understand the 
early history of this high wind-swept land that was to become Wyoming Territory 
and later the State of Wyoming. Professor T.A. Larson teaches us that ancient 
man was in this land at least 11,000 years ago.9 Most of those 
people left about 6,000 years ago because the land became a desert.10 When the climate improved about 4,500 years 
ago, known as the Middle Period, the land was populated by a small group of 
foragers "with a marginal mixed economy of wild-vegetable products and 
rodent-size animals."11 With further climatic improvements, about 500 
A.D., in the Late Period, "more people moved in and established a prosperous 
buffalo economy."12 The Great Medicine Wheel, a stone circle 
seventy-five feet in diameter located in the Big 
Horn 
Mountains 
east of present day Lovell, is one of the Late Period's best known relics.13

 

[¶42]   Although no evidence exists that any 
Spanish expedition reached this land, a few Spanish articles dating to the 17th 
century have been discovered in Wyoming.14 This land was visited by a few French traders 
in the 1790's, John Colter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1807-08, and a 
handful of other white men from 1811-13.15 These few 
were followed in the next two decades by fur traders, the famed mountain men, 
who lived off the land, explored, and trapped thousands of beaver.16

 

[¶43]   These early explorers found that the 
land was inhabited by nomadic Indian tribes and abundant wildlife.17 "Wyoming was 
a good land for the nomadic hunting tribes. Game of all kind was plentiful and 
the plains abounded in buffalo on which their very existence depended 9*9 9*9 
9*9. To [the Indian] this land with its abundance of game and fish, its grass 
for his horses was ideal 9*9 9*9 9*9. His way of life depended on his mobility 
to follow game."18 Young Francis Parkman of Boston, who in 1846 
spent time observing the way of life of then friendly Sioux on the Laramie 
plains, was impressed by the vast herds of antelope and buffalo, the latter 
providing immense amounts of meat and being the Indians' staple.19

 

[¶44]   The fur traders/mountain men who came 
to plunder the beaver constituted the first significant white penetration into 
this country. Wyoming 
waters teemed with countless beaver, the skins of which were destined to be worn 
as hats on the heads of countless numbers of people living thousands of miles 
distant from these plains rich in natural resources. Between 1815 and 1830 the 
beaver was ruthlessly hunted, its numbers decimated.20 Temporarily, 
other game remained plentiful. "Mountain men and Indians wintering in the area 
wallowed in abundance."21

 

[¶45]   With the passing of the once prosperous 
beaver trade, the white man's commerce turned to buffalo robes.22  Estimates were made that in 1830 about forty 
million buffalo roamed the Great Plains and 
mountains.23  In the short span of forty years, those 
numbers would plummet to five and a half million.24  In this same time 
period, the white man's introduction of cattle into this land began as a 
trickle. The mountain men brought the first cattle into the area.25  Then in the 1840's and 1850's tens of 
thousands of cattle were driven into and out of the area along the 
Oregon-California-Utah trail.26  At Ft. Laramie, in 
1854, a fellow named Alexander Majors turned his small band of cattle out on the 
range rather than herd them back east and found they were able to survive the 
winter.27 He claimed to have 
started in 1862 the first breeding herd in what would become Wyoming.28  Mormons passing through to Utah and 
some who settled in southwestern Wyoming in 
the late 1850's may have had small breeding herds.29  The small trickle 
grew to a steady stream in the 1860's. The local Cheyenne 
newspapers of that day reported increasing numbers of cattle grazing in the area 
in the late 1860's.30  During the 1840's to 1860's the white 
emigrants traveling through the land along the historic trails wrote about the 
superb game country. Elk, deer, antelope, mountain sheep, buffalo, and bear were 
everywhere. The lakes and streams were alive with fish.31 The Indians 
frequently complained that the white visitors were driving game from the hunting 
grounds. With growing apprehension, they watched the inexorable trespass across 
and into the territory. At the time they had no way of knowing that to the east 
plans were being made for a transcontinental railroad and that a policy of 
manifest destiny would drive western settlement.32  The disturbance of 
their hunting grounds was not the Indians' only grievance. As Professor Larson 
explains:

 

As 
the heavy migration along the Platte 
continued in the 1850's, a new grievance developed among the Indians. The Indian 
agent at Ft. Pierre reported in 1853 "the great loss of so many of their friends 
and relatives by the distressing ravages made by the introduction amongst them 
of the smallpox, measles, and cholera, which they attribute solely to the 
emigrants passing through their county."33

 

[¶46]   As the Civil War ended, white invasion 
into this magnificent natural game preserve intensified. The Union Pacific 
railroad construction was actively under way in 1867-69.34 Thousands of 
men worked on the project.35  The railroad brought towns to the area.36 The senseless slaughter of the buffalo 
continued. "By 1871, the [buffalo] herds had been reduced to about five and a 
half million."37  And the slaughter continued. "Countless 
thousands of hides shipped eastward were the grim harvest of the plains. The 
carcasses, occasionally minus tongues and choice cuts taken by the hunters for 
themselves or for market, were left to rot."38  Other game species 
were also heavily hunted for hides and heads, the antlers of elk and deer and 
the horns of antelope being much desired.

 

[¶47]   When the First Territorial Legislature 
convened in Cheyenne in 
October, 1869, it passed a 233-word "Act for the Protection for Game and Fish in 
the Territory of 
Wyoming."39  An extremely ineffective law, this act 
contained no enforcement provisions concerning the taking of fish and game. It 
also contained no provision that the newly-formed territorial government would 
compensate property owners for damage to their property caused by 
wildlife.

 

[¶48]   The decade of the 1870's would be one 
in which white settlement increased and with it the expansion of the fledgling 
cattle industry. The Indian wars would be fought. Game animals in staggering 
numbers would be killed. "The assessment rolls of Wyoming 
Territory 
listed 8,143 cattle in 1870."40  In the next eight years that number would 
swell enormously. In May, 1877, the surrender of Crazy Horse signaled that "the 
hostile bands were all cleared out of Wyoming and 
Montana."41 In 1878, Governor Hoyt reported to the 
Secretary of the Interior "that the 250,000 to 300,000 cattle in the territory 
left much of the range unoccupied."42  Newspapers in 
Cheyenne and 
Laramie 
frequently reported about hunters near town pursuing the game herds.43  In the hard winters from 1879-81 large 
numbers of deer and antelope were shot by hunters.44 Countless 
thousands more deer hides, antelope hides, and elk hides were shipped 
eastward.45

 

[¶49]   In the 1870's and 1880's, the 
territorial legislatures slowly and haltingly passed laws in feeble efforts to 
provide some semblance of protection for game and fish.46 Despite this 
legislative activity, the law still contained no provision pursuant to which the 
territorial government would compensate property owners for property damage 
caused by wildlife.

 

[¶50]   Although in the late 1860's and early 
1870's the white settlers' cattle grazed the range primarily in southeastern 
Wyoming, 
"[a]s soon as the Indian threat was eliminated, herds were pushed into the 
northeastern part of the territory."47 Penetrated in 
1879, the Big 
Horn 
Basin was 
"quite well stocked by 1884."48  Professor Larson describes the 
numbers:

 

In 
1885, 894,788 cattle were assessed at $15,388,503; in 1886, 899,121 cattle were 
assessed at $14,654,125. 9*9 9*9 9*9 The evidence warrants an estimate of 
1,500,000 cattle in Wyoming 
Territory in 
1885 and 1886. In a few short years, 1878-1885, the Wyoming 
range had filled to overflowing.49

 

[¶51]   Another scholar tells us that in the 
five-year period from 1875-1880, the Wyoming 
cattle industry "had developed from a negligible factor in the territorial 
economy into a rival to the Union Pacific [Railroad] for supremacy as a source 
of commercial livelihood."50

 

[¶52]   Because of the substantial capital 
investments and anticipated profits, the cattle interests were naturally 
concerned about protecting the health of their product. Having witnessed the 
great and largely uncontrolled influx of livestock into the territory and having 
become increasingly alarmed over the spread of contagious diseases such as Texas 
fever, foot and mouth disease, and pleuro-pneumonia, the influential stockmen of 
the 1880's successfully presented and won their case for protective 
legislation.51  In 1882, the Seventh Territorial Legislature 
passed "An Act to Suppress and Prevent the Dissemination of Contagious or 
Infectious Disease Among Domestic Animals." 1882 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 41, §§ 1-14. Under this law, the livestock interests enjoyed a 
number of protections. The legislature authorized the Governor to appoint a 
territorial veterinarian upon the recommendation of the territorial Stock 
Growers' Association and with the advice and consent of the legislature. The 
veterinarian had authority to investigate cases of contagious or infectious 
disease among domestic animals, to inspect domestic animals arriving in the 
territory, to order quarantines, and to order slaughters of diseased and exposed 
domestic animals. Another important facet of the law, for the purposes of this 
court's resolution of the instant appeal, authorized claims against the 
territory arising from the slaughter of domestic animals ordered by the 
territorial veterinarian. Id. § 
10. "The indemnity to be granted shall be two-thirds of the ordinary value of 
the animal as determined by" appraisers appointed for that purpose. 
Id. 
This indemnity right was

 

limited to animals destroyed by reason of the existence or 
suspected existence of some epizootic disease, generally fatal and incurable 
such as rinderpest, hoof and mouth disease, pleuro pneumonia, anthrax or Texas 
fever among bovines, glanders among horses, and anthrax among sheep. For the 
ordinary contagious disease not in their nature fatal such as scab or hoofrot in 
sheep, and epizootic influenzas in horses no [indemnity] shall be paid.52

 

Id.

 

[¶53]   The territory's liability for animals 
destroyed under the law in any two years "is limited by and shall in no case 
exceed the amount especially appropriated for that purpose and for that 
period."53  Finally, the law established the stock 
indemnity fund from which the indemnity payments were to be made.54  The fund was funded by an annual tax 
assessment upon the assessed value of all cattle, sheep, horses, and mules in 
the territory.55  Occasionally, revisions in the law were made. 
See 1886 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 85, §§ 1, 2; Revised Statutes 1887, §§ 4208 and 4212; Revised 
Statutes 1889, § 159. But the substance of the law remained intact.

 

[¶54]   In September, 1889, when the members of 
the constitutional convention convened in Cheyenne, of the forty-nine delegates 
appearing at least fifteen had interests in ranching and livestock operations.56  Of those fifteen stockmen, George W. Baxter, 
Henry G. Hay, and Hubert E. Teschemacher contributed substantially to the 
debates.57  The conclusion is inescapable that the 
appearance of article 19, § 1 of the Wyoming Constitution, directing the 
legislature to enact legislation protecting livestock against various and sundry 
diseases,58 is the product of the political and economic 
influence of the Wyoming stockmen.

 

[¶55]   Today, the provisions of Wyo. Stat. §§ 
11-19-101 through 506, dealing with contagious and infectious diseases among 
livestock, continue the legislative purposes first begun with the territorial 
legislation of 1882 and implement the constitutional directive of Wyo. Const. 
art. 19, § 1. In particular, Wyo. Stat. § 11-19-106 describes a claim procedure 
that closely resembles the one first established by the territorial antecedent. 
The text describing the type of disease which gives rise to the indemnification 
right has been slightly amended by deletion of the reference to the specific 
diseases originally included in the 1882 law. Wyo. 
Stat. § 11-19-106(d). Also, the amount of the indemnity available upon approval 
of a claim has been changed from two-thirds of the destroyed animal's ordinary 
value; the law now provides that "[t]he indemnity granted shall be that amount 
fixed by the state board of equalization each year for assessment of livestock." 
Wyo. 
Stat. § 11-19-106(c). Claims payments are made from appropriated funds. 
Wyo. 
Stat. § 11-19-106(d).

 

[¶56]   From the year of statehood, 1890, the 
next several decades would witness an increasing interest shown in game 
protection and management.59  But much remained to be done "to control the 
rapacious market hunters who were by no means curbed by the legislation itself 
which was hard to enforce under the best of circumstances and still lacked 
effective teeth."60  With the buffalo on the verge of extinction, 
the third state legislature in 1895 passed a law making it a felony to kill a 
buffalo at any time of the year punishable by a prison term of three to ten 
years.61  Progress in other areas was noted. The 
legislature authorized the fish commissioner to act as a state game warden.62  A three-month season during which only males 
could be hunted was established for elk, deer, antelope, mountain sheep, and 
moose.63  A five-year moratorium on beaver was 
imposed.64  The purchase of hides and horns was 
prohibited.65  Other problems persisted. "[F]unds were 
lacking to pay the game wardens."66  Poaching was still prevalent.67

 

[¶57]   In 1899, the legislature created the 
office of State Game Warden.68  Moose season was ordered closed until 1902, 
the beaver season for ten years.69  The number of elk, deer, antelope and mountain 
sheep that could be taken in any one season was limited.70  By the turn of the 
century, machinery was being gradually emplaced to make the game laws more 
effective.71  "[P]rinciples of scientific game and fish 
management were slowly beginning to influence wildlife policy."72

 

[¶58]   Wildlife interests and domestic 
livestock interests shared a common need and a common problem. The need was 
sufficient forage, especially during the harsh winters; the problem, predators. 
In 1903, the state game warden, D.C. Nowlin, reported73 to Governor 
Fenimore Chatterton that coyotes in increasing numbers, perhaps driven into the 
mountainous areas by the steady warfare waged against them on the sheep and 
cattle ranges, were killing young antelope, elk calves, and lambs of mountain 
sheep.74  He noted that mountain lions preyed upon the 
elk, deer, and mountain sheep.75  The competition for sufficient forage between 
domestic livestock and the large wildlife animals is demonstrated by the 
experience of the elk herd in northwestern Wyoming. In 
1905, the legislature created the Teton State Game Preserve.76  The elk herds 
thrived.77  As one scholar explains:

 

Controlled hunting and relatively mild winters had led to a 
great increase in the herds from 1904 to 1908. The state game preserve gave the 
elk a protected summer range and breeding ground. Yet the problem of potential 
winter losses was great.

* * 
* *

The 
great summer ranges of the elk were in and around Jackson Hole. 
Originally most of the elk migrated to winter ranges. * * * * The growth of 
ranching and the depredations of market hunters reduced the migrations 
considerably. Although a few hundred elk continued to make the trek as late as 
1911, the development of the Green River 
area prevented large herds from using the route. The growth of hay and stock 
raising along with extensive fencing gradually curtailed the available ranges. 
With migration routes restricted the elk faced possible starvation. Large losses 
were reported in 1882, 1886 and 1889. The growth of settlement in 
Jackson Hole 
after 1884 made the situation of the great herds even more precarious. From 1909 
to 1910, a severe winter caused the death of thousands of elk from starvation. 
That winter an estimated twenty to thirty thousand elk descended into 
Jackson Hole. 
The hard-pressed ranchers furnished hay and labor to feed the animals and the 
legislature appropriated five thousand dollars to purchase hay for the first 
large-scale winter game feeding program. Winter feeding would become common in 
the future, but it was evident that some provision for winter ranges must be 
made.78

 

[¶59]   To sustain the elk in the winter of 
1911, Congress appropriated $20,000 for hay.79  In 1913 Congress 
appropriated two and a half times that amount to buy lands on which to raise 
winter feeding hay.80  That year, Congress established the National 
Elk Refuge.81

 

[¶60]   The state game warden's reports to the 
Governor from the early 1900's through 1931 revealingly document the problems 
which emanated from the necessary coexistence of domestic livestock and game 
animals on the finite ranges held under public and private ownership. For 
example, in his biennial report of 1913-14, he referred to "damage being done to 
ranchers by the elk which were shipped from Jackson to 
Glendo, 
Wyoming * * 
* * during the spring of 1912 * * * *."82  In his annual report 
for 1915, he observed that once elk are fed and handled

 

they 
become domesticated and we find it impossible to keep them from destroying the 
property of the ranchers * * * * and in time they are sure to become a burden to 
the state * * * *. At present several damage reports are being investigated. 
Much credit is due Mr. Robert Carey, of Careyhurst, 
Wyoming, 
who has given large quantities of hay * * * * in protecting the Careyhurst herd, 
and * * * *  Mr. Carey has never asked the state for one 
cent of damage.83

 

In 
this same report, the state game warden makes this interesting reference to 
bear:

 

The 
much abused Bear is today one of our important game animals, and I cannot 
understand why, in the past, he has been considered predatory. It is true in 
times past, and even today, there are a few cases of Bear killing stock. In such 
districts he should not be protected, but if we give Mr. Bear the proper 
protection in districts where there is no danger of him becoming predatory, our 
state will derive great revenue from eastern sportsmen who have their eyes on 
Wyoming as 
a Bear Hunter's Paradise. I 
recommend that Bear be given fair consideration; not to such an extent, however, 
that they may become a menace to our livestock interests.84

 

[¶61]   In closing his report, he noted, "The 
Game Department is very much handicapped in its work through lack of wardens, 
the present wardens being compelled to patrol too much territory."85  In 1915, the legislature passed a law 
authorizing game wardens to kill any elk found to be damaging personal property. 
1915 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 91, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 3268 (1920). In 1916, the state game warden reported, "I agree that 
there are times when an old grizzly may kill stock * * * * . During the past 
year only two cases have been reported where any loss was substantiated by 
stockmen."86

 

[¶62]   In his biennial report for the years 
1919-1920, the state game warden reported:

 

We 
do not favor the transplanting of elk in the State unless it is in a locality 
where they will not be a source of annoyance in damaging settlers' crops and 
bring expense to the State. It is quite different and there is not the 
justification for complaint from settlers who knowingly went into an elk country 
and settled, as they settled in those parts of the state with their eyes open 
and knowing the condition and what would happen in a severe winter. Yet many of 
them look ahead to these conditions and fence against these animals and protect 
their feed. In the localities where they have already been planted and they are 
damaging and will continue to annoy these settlers they should be in some manner 
removed * * * *.87

 

The 
state game warden then gave an accounting of the twenty-five elk property damage 
claims totaling $16,748 that his department had received.88  The types of damage 
reported included hay eaten and destroyed, crops destroyed and damage to 
fence.89  In 1921, the legislature appropriated $10,000 
"to liquidate claims for damages occasioned by the depredations of game animals 
of this state." 1921 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 170, § 36. It also appropriated $30,000 "for use in connection 
with the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture of the United States 
Government, for the destruction of predatory wild animals." Id. § 
17. Finally, of note, it appropriated $30,000 "to reimburse stockmen for 
livestock slaughtered by order of the State Veterinarian pursuant to law, for 
the years 1919, 1920, 1921 and 1922." Id. § 
19. Since the legislature would not, until 1929, pass a game law providing for 
the game and fish department's entertaining, investigating, and paying property 
damage claims arising from game animal depredations, the legislature annually 
had to pass special appropriations to partially compensate ranchers for the hay, 
crops, and fence damages caused by the roaming game animals. In contrast, the 
legislature's claim law covering diseased livestock dated back to territorial 
days, as we explained earlier.

 

[¶63]   In 1921, the legislature created a game 
and fish commission, the members being the Governor, the Secretary of State, and 
the State Auditor.90  The Governor appointed a game and fish 
commissioner to act as the chief executive officer.91  That officer would 
regularly report to the Governor on the Commission's activities.92  To that post, Governor Carey appointed Bruce 
Nowlin, whose father had served as state game warden from 1901-1910.93

 

[¶64]   In his biennial report for 1921-1922 to 
Governor Robert A. Carey, who as a private citizen in 1915 had not asked the 
state for one cent of damage for the large quantities of hay he gave to protect 
the Careyhurst elk herd, the state game and fish commissioner noted his 
disapproval of the transplanting of elk in areas where the elk might destroy the 
ranchers' feed.94  He also noted that he had paid out nearly all 
of the $10,000 appropriation in "payment of damage claims for hay and feed 
destroyed by elk during the winter of 1919-20."95

 

[¶65]   In his biennial report of 1923-1924 to 
the Governor, the game and fish commissioner reported, among other things, that 
"[t]he funds at my disposal were far from adequate to give each phase of the 
work all that was required."96 He remarked that lack of funds forced him to 
discontinue the services of fourteen deputies.97  He informed the 
Governor that the elk herds had made it through the winters of the last few 
years due to the purchase of hay at a cost of $12,695.23 in 1923 and $6,956.81 
in 1924.98  After reporting on the status of elk, moose, 
antelope, deer, and mountain sheep, he reported on the status of bear which 
numbered from 1,000-1,500.99  In particular, he said, "[t]he bear is a much 
maligned animal and while they will, if started that way, become stock killers, 
for the most part they do not know the taste of flesh. They exist on berries, 
roots, fish, fieldmice and gophers."100 Asserting 
that "[c]onstant warfare is necessary"101 to combat 
predatory animals, he reported that "[c]oyotes constitute the bulk of the 
predatory animals. These increase rapidly and are a constant menace to domestic 
stock, fowl, game birds and game animals."102  Through the combined 
efforts of his agency, the federal government, and livestock interests, this 
warfare was being successfully waged.103

 

[¶66]   In 1925, the legislature passed an 
appropriations bill to compensate twenty-three individuals and one company, in 
amounts ranging from twenty dollars to five hundred dollars, for damage each 
sustained from game animal depredations.104  In 1927, the 
legislature authorized the state game and fish commissioner to kill any game 
animal found damaging personal property.105

 

[¶67]   In his biennial report for 1927-1928, 
the commissioner sounded the familiar themes of shortage of funds106 and property damage caused by game animals. 
Relating to this latter subject, he encouraged consideration of the purchase of 
two ranches in Teton 
County to 
feed the elk herds which would "eliminate damage caused by elk to the ranchers 
in Teton 
County."107  His preference for the establishment of 
permanent feeding grounds was driven by the desire to prevent the elk from 
straying "onto other ranches and [causing] considerable damage to hay, fences 
and pastures."108  He also noted that "winter ranges now used by 
elk are becoming scarce and are grazed very short in the fall by stock."109 Deer and antelope did not escape his scrutiny. 
"Ranchers in some counties in the state are bothered each year by deer and 
antelope."110  He added that, "I am not in favor of planting 
game of any kind in sections of the state where they are liable to cause damage 
to ranchers."111

 

[¶68]   The state game and fish commissioner's 
biennial report for 1927-1928, the ending date of which was December 31, 1928, 
on the eve of the upcoming 1929 legislative session, is important in another 
pertinent respect. For the first time since the requirement of submission of 
reports was established in 1900, the Commissioner referred to the work of Mr. 
O.J. Murie, Associate Biologist, Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture, 
United States.112  Murie had been studying diseases among the 
Teton 
County 
game animals.113 The Commissioner included in his biennial 
report for 1927-28 a copy of Murie's report relating to his disease study. 
Prominently mentioned in Murie's report was the disease of necrotic stomatitis, 
or calf diphtheria, which "appears to have been the chief cause of losses on the 
feed grounds."114 Obviously absent from Murie's report is any 
reference to brucellosis and any reference to concern about the transmission of 
diseases from game animals to domestic livestock. It is not surprising that 
Murie's report did not refer to these matters. We learn from the biennial report 
for 1929-1930, submitted for the period ending December 3, 1930,115 what Murie knew. In Murie's report that was 
included in the 1929-1930 biennial report, he tells us, "[i]t has been generally 
believed that wild animals are rather free from disease. Investigations are now 
revealing a surprising variety of ailments not only among the elk, but also 
other species."116  He added that, "[t]here are indications of 
other diseases [other than necrotic stomatitis] among the elk and with the 
cooperation of the Bureau of Animal Industry these are now being determined. It 
is hoped that in the near future definite conclusions may be reported."117  Murie also mentions that the study of 
parasites, internal and external, was in the earliest stages and must await the 
availability of facilities.118  Observing that the state game and fish 
commission was cooperating and giving encouragement, Murie indicates that at the 
National Elk Refuge he would carry on "experiments 9*9 9*9 9*9 to gain a better 
understanding of the disease and parasite questions."119

 

[¶69]   From the literature submitted as 
exhibits by Parker and the Commission,120 which 
literature relates to the earliest investigations and studies from 1917 and 1930 
through the later studies in the 1970's dealing with game animal diseases, 
including brucellosis, we learn that the state and fund of knowledge of this 
subject matter, although rudimentary in those early years of the 1920's and 
1930's, improved and increased in later years. Although in 1917 it had been 
reported that brucellosis had been detected in a bison in Yellowstone 
National Park, it 
was not until 1930 that Murie detected brucellosis in three elk from the 
National Elk Refuge. Not until 1934, was the Cooperative State-Federal 
Brucellosis Eradication Program initiated. Not until 1939 did the Wyoming State 
Legislature include brucellosis as one of the livestock diseases for which the 
state would compensate livestock owners whose diseased livestock was slaughtered 
as required by law. 1939 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 27, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 46-515 (1945). Today, this provision exists in Wyo. Stat. § 11-19-214 
(1989). We have learned too, that although "[a] relationship between brucellosis 
in cattle and wild animals, primarily ungulates, has often been suspected 9*9 
9*9 9*9 [f]ew studies have attempted to correlate brucellosis in wild species 
and domestic livestock."121  McCorquodale and DiGiacomo reported in 1985 
that "[w]hile there is indirect evidence that domestic livestock may spread the 
infection to wild species (Thimm, 1982), there are no reports that wild species 
are a source of infection for domestic animals under natural conditions."122  Seemingly ahead of the wave in this area of 
scientific study is Dr. E.T. Thorne, wildlife veterinarian for the State Game 
and Fish Department and supervisor of the Wildlife Veterinary Service and 
Research Branch.123  According to Dr. Thorne, "[b]rucellosis in elk 
undoubtedly originated from infected cattle. Perhaps bison played an 
intermediate role in transmitting the disease to elk."124  Dr. Thorne and 
others began research in 1971 to determine the effects of brucellosis in elk.125  In 1974, they also initiated studies "to 
determine the means and important times of Brucella transmission from elk to 
domestic cattle."126  As a result of their studies, Dr. Thorne and 
his colleagues determined "that brucellosis will spread from elk to cattle under 
conditions of close association."127  However, 
"[t]ransmission of brucellosis from free-ranging bison or elk to cattle has not 
been confirmed under field conditions."128  From Parker's 
cross-examination of Dr. Thorne,129 we have learned that until Parker's claim no 
disease-based damage claim had ever been presented to the game and fish 
department - a conclusion one might intuitively reach from an understanding of 
the history of the events before and after the passage of the 1929 game animal 
damage law. 

 

[¶70]   From the foregoing information we can 
reasonably conclude with a high degree of confidence that when the legislature 
met in its 1929 session, none of its members had a clue about the embryonic 
esoteric research studies of game animal diseases. None had the foggiest notion 
that perhaps some game animals could transmit diseases to domestic 
livestock.

 

[¶71]   Meeting in 1929, the legislature did 
possess, however, ample knowledge about the problem of game animal depredation 
of ranchers' hay, crops, and fences. Acting on this knowledge, the legislature 
passed the first law authorizing the filing of claims against the state for 
destruction of property by game animals or game birds. 1929 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 85, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 49-215 (1931). Quite obviously, the mischief to be remedied was the 
rancher's loss of hay, crops, and fencing caused by foraging elk, deer, and 
antelope, damages for which the legislature had been making special 
appropriations in the past. Quite obviously, the mischief not to be remedied, 
since it was unknown and remained unknown until only recently, was the rancher's 
livestock loss allegedly caused by the transmission of disease from game animals 
to livestock. In the same statutory article in which this 1929 law now appeared, 
the legislature defined the term "game animals" for the purpose of the article, 
which included the new game animal damage law, as meaning "any elk, deer, 
mountain sheep, wild goats, antelope or moose." Wyo. 
Stat. § 49-102 (1931). Noticeably missing from the legislature's definition were 
bear and mountain lion. The plain language of the law, therefore, did not 
purport to cover property damage by bear and mountain lion. Since bear and 
mountain lion, known killers by tooth and claw of livestock, were omitted from 
the coverage of the new game animal damage law, one may reasonably conclude that 
the 1929 legislature intended to compensate ranchers for only damage to products 
of the soil and improvements such as fencing and hay cribs caused by foraging 
elk, deer, and antelope.

 

[¶72]   We remarked earlier that in 1921, the 
legislature had authorized the game wardens' killing of any game animal found to 
be damaging personal property. 1921 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 83, § 63. Obviously, the game animal killing law and the game 
animal damage law, both relating to the same subject matter, must be read in 
pari materia. Concerning the game animal killing law, we note in passing that in 
1939, the legislature authorized the owner of private property, in those areas 
in which bear were classified as a game animal by the Commission, to immediately 
kill any bear doing damage to private property; in all other areas bear were 
classified as a predatory animal. 1939 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 65, § 71; Wyo. 
Stat. § 47-502 (1945). We also note that in 1973, the legislature placed 
mountain lion and muskrat on the same list as bear as animals that a private 
property owner could immediately kill if they were doing damage to his property. 
1973 Wyo. Sess. Laws, ch. 249, § 1, subch. 3, subart. 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 23.1-68(a) (Supp. 1975). In 1979, the legislature added bobcat, weasel, 
and gray, red, and fox squirrels to the list. 1979 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 140, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-3-115 (Supp. 1979). Badger joined that select company in 1991. 1991 
Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 103, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-3-115(a) (1991).

 

[¶73]   Although the legislature would, over 
the next forty-one years, make minor changes in the 1929 game animal damage law, 
the key provisions would remain constant. See 1973 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 249, § 1, art. 9; Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-117 (1957); 1955 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 44, § 1; 1945 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 155, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 47-301 (1945); 1943 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 112, § 8; 1939 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 65, § 45.

 

[¶74]   Before we address the more recent 
legislative history of the 1929 game animal damage law for the light it sheds on 
our inquiry, in passing we should comment briefly about one other law passed in 
1929. Joining the preexisting livestock disease legislation, of which we spoke 
earlier, was a law relating to cattle affected with tuberculosis. 1929 
Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 44, § 1. Placed all by itself in article 9 of Wyoming Revised 
Statutes 1931 and designated § 67-901, this law provided that all cattle 
affected, without regard to source of transmission, could be sent, under the 
state veterinarian's direction and federal regulations, to livestock markets in 
which they would be sold for salvage and destroyed. The cattle owner would 
receive the net sale proceeds; but if that sum was not equal to the assessed 
valuation of the cattle, then the livestock indemnity fund, which was 
established and maintained with respect to the other livestock disease law, 
would pay the shortfall. Id. In 
1939, the legislature extended the coverage of the tuberculosis disease law to 
include Bang's disease. 1939 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 27, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 46-515 (1945). Named for the Danish veterinarian, Bernhard L.F. Bang, 
who in 1897 isolated the causative organism, Bang's disease is known as 
brucellosis.130  Today, the tuberculosis/brucellosis provision 
appears, unchanged, in Wyo. Stat. § 11-19-214.

 

[¶75]   In 1929, the legislature loaned the 
game and fish department $100,000, a portion of which was used to pay some of 
the game animal damage claims.131  In his biennial report for 1929-1930, the 
Commissioner worried about insufficient range conditions and the prospect of 
game animal damage to ranchers.132  He commented that in 1929 men had to herd the 
elk around Sheridan 
County to 
prevent damage to ranchers.133  He reported that "[a]t present in some 
counties in the state ranchers are complaining about antelope causing damage and 
we have several damage claims on hand at present 9*9 9*9 9*9."134  Damage claims for the period January 1, 1929, to 
December 31, 1930, 
totaled $12,120.50.135  In the period 1933-1934, the deer population 
increased noticeably and "stockmen were complaining of damage by large herds."136  The Commissioner would say of this time period 
that "the settlement of damage claims causes the department more grief than all 
other duties assigned to it by the statutes."137  Reportedly, "[e]lk 
and antelope were the principal offenders but there were complaints of damage by 
deer, bear, sage grouse and pheasants, varying from pheasants breaking 
windshields to elk eating strawberry sets, potatoes and stealing harness."138

 

[¶76]   Over the following decades, the game 
animal damage problem continued. For example, in the early 1940's in the 
Star 
Valley and 
Dubois areas, elk that had raided haystacks had to be removed.139  The problem was exacerbated during the 
blizzard winter of 1949. Large herds of deer forced from their usual winter 
habitat and into the lower country concentrated on ranch property.140  "[D]epradations on haystacks became so serious 
that steps [were] taken to prevent excessive loss among the deer, as well as to 
forestall considerable damage to livestock feed."141  The Commission paid 
$31,853.32 in damage claims that calendar year.142  A knowledgeable 
source has written:

 

All 
damage giving rise to these claims was committed by big game animals, except 
that in two instances damage in the amount of $200 was done by sage grouse. 
Additional claims 9*9 9*9 9*9 amounted to $12,000.

Over 
and above damage claims paid in cash considerable depredation on haystacks and 
livestock feed lots by game animals occurred during the winter storms of 1949. 
In many cases, wild animals had clearly raided or destroyed supplies of hay 
required to feed a rancher's livestock through the winter, and the Commission 
made immediate restitution from its own hay supplies, ton for ton, thereby 
forestalling actual damage claims.143

 

[¶77]   In 1952, Dr. Ira N. Gabrielson, of the 
Wildlife Management Institute, Washington, 
D.C., 
submitted a report to the Commission after spending several months analyzing the 
Game and Fish Department's operations. In his report he recommended, among other 
changes, that the game animal damage law be revised so that only limited claims 
could be paid.144  In Dr. Gabrielson's opinion, in his previous 
studies of the game laws of many other states, only in Wyoming had 
he found laws which gave "so much special consideration to livestock operators 
at the expense of the fish and game resources * * * * ."145  The legislature 
never acted on Dr. Gabrielson's recommendations.

 

[¶78]   In 1971, the legislature made the first 
significant changes in the game animal damage law since the law was first 
enacted in 1929. Other significant legislative changes worthy of comment were 
made again in 1973 and in 1980. We now focus our attention on this more recent 
legislative history for the evidence it may provide in our determination of the 
meaning of the law we have before us.

 

[¶79]   As the 1971 legislative session 
convened, the game animal damage law remained substantively unchanged since 
first enacted in 1929: Any person whose property had been damaged by game 
animals or game birds must report that damage promptly and could present a claim 
specifying the damage and the amount claimed. In the 1971 session, the 
legislature made the following changes to this law. First, it separated the 
statute into four subsections designated as (a)-(d). 1971 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 60, § 1. It placed the damage reporting requirement in 
subsection (a) and the claim presentation requirement in subsection (b). 
Id. The 
first sentence of subsection (b) contained language saying that any person 
claiming damages for injury or destruction of property by game animals or game 
birds shall present a claim specifying the damage and the amount claimed. A 
sentence was added to that language: "The Commission shall consider such claims 
based upon a description of the damaged land, growing crops, stored crops, seed 
crops, improvements, and extraordinary damage to grass." Id. By 
inserting the latter sentence into the statute, the legislature, for the first 
time in the forty-two year history of the statute, had provided express guidance 
to the Commission and the property owner relative to the basis upon which the 
Commission was to consider the property owner's damage claim. Noticeably missing 
from this newly-identified basis was any reference to injured or killed 
livestock. Rather, the basis referred only to real property (damaged land), 
improvements, and produce of the land (growing crops, stored crops, seed crops 
and grass). Our review of the action taken by the House and Senate on this piece 
of legislation, designated H.B. No. 128, during the session of its enactment, 
reveals no other information pertinent to our inquiry. House Digest, 41st 
Legislature (1971), 603-05.

 

[¶80]   In 1973, the legislature continued to 
work on the game and fish laws. Introduced as H.B. No. 16 and enacted into law 
as chapter 249, Laws 1973, this legislation constituted a complete 
recodification of the game and fish laws. Of the many changes made, only a few 
concern our inquiry. The legislature separated game animals into two 
classifications, one designated "big game animals" and the other "trophy game 
animals." 1973 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 249, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 23.1-1(b) and (c) (1957 & Supp. 1975). The term "big game animal" 
meant "antelope, big horn sheep, deer, elk, moose, or mountain goat." The term 
"trophy game animal" meant "black bear, grizzly bear or mountain lion." 
Id. 
With respect to the game animal damage law, the legislature made several changes 
of note. First, it now identified the property owner as "[a]ny landowner, lessee 
or agent." 1973 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 249, art. 9; Wyo. 
Stat. § 23.1-32(a) and (b) (Supp. 1975). Next, it changed "game animals" to "big 
or trophy game animals." Then, it placed the provision specifying the basis upon 
which the Commission shall consider the claims into a separate subsection (c). 
Finally, in that separate subsection (c), it inserted the word "cultivated" 
between the words "growing crops." As changed, then, the law provided that any 
landowner whose property was injured or destroyed by big or trophy game animals 
could report the damage and present a claim specifying the damage and amount 
claimed; then, "[t]he Commission shall consider the claims based upon a 
description of the damaged land, growing cultivated crops, stored crops, seed 
crops, improvements, and extraordinary damage to grass." § 23.1-32(c). Our 
review of the action taken by the House and Senate on this piece of legislation 
reveals no other information pertinent to our inquiry. House Digest, 42nd State 
Legislature 513-32 (1973).

 

[¶81]   In 1980, in a budget session, the 
legislature focused its attention once again on the big or trophy game animal 
damage statute. Sponsored by Senator Gerald F. Geis, S.F. No. 019, as 
introduced, proposed to amend subsections (b) and (c) of the statute "relating 
to damage to livestock caused by trophy game animals." Senate Files, 45th 
Legislature (1980). Specifically, the bill proposed to insert the following 
sentence into subsection (b) of the statute which contained the claim 
presentation requirement: "In the case of a trophy game animal, damage to 
livestock may be claimed and received if the owner of the livestock submits a 
statement under oath from a state or federal government trapper which verifies 
that the livestock was damaged or killed by a trophy game animal." 
Id. 
Also, the bill proposed to insert after the words "based upon a description of" 
in the first sentence of subsection (c) of the statute, which related to the 
basis upon which the Commission shall consider the claim, the phrase "the 
livestock alleged to have been damaged or killed by a trophy game animal." 
Id.

 

[¶82]   Before the bill cleared the Senate and 
was sent to the House, the senators had deleted the proposed change to 
subsection (b). Senate Digest, 45th State Legislature (1980), 33. However, the 
proposed change to the first sentence in subsection (c) remained intact. 
Id. In 
the House, the representatives slightly altered the language of the proposed 
change to the first sentence in subsection (c). Specifically, from the phrase 
"the livestock alleged to have been damaged or killed by a trophy game animal" 
they deleted the words "alleged to have been" and the words "by a trophy game 
animal." Id. 
With those deletions, the phrase read "the livestock damaged or 
killed."

 

[¶83]   Had those deletions passed muster with 
the Senate, which they did not as we shall see, the first sentence in subsection 
(c) of the statute would have read "the commission shall consider the claims 
based upon a description of the livestock damaged or killed, the damaged land, 
growing cultivated crops, stored crops, seed crops, improvements, and 
extraordinary damage to grass." (Emphasis supplied). Had the legislature enacted 
the bill in that form, then a compelling argument could be made that the 
legislature had consented to state liability for livestock damaged or killed by 
both big game or trophy game animals. However, the Senate, where the bill 
originated, did not adopt the House deletions. Id. In 
the joint conference committee appointed to resolve the disagreement, the 
members agreed to re-insert the words "by a trophy game animal" to the first 
sentence of subsection (c). Id. 
Both the Senate and the House adopted the joint conference committee's report. 
Id. As 
ultimately enacted, then, the law, as set forth in subsection (c) of the 
statute, read in pertinent part, "The commission shall consider the claims based 
upon a description of the livestock damaged or killed by a trophy game animal," 
etc. (Emphasis supplied). 1980 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws, ch. 37, § 1; Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-901(c) (Supp. 1980). This legislative action unmistakably reveals a 
clear intention to limit the claim coverage to livestock damaged or killed by a 
trophy game animal, viz., black bear, grizzly bear, and mountain lion. Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-101(a)(xii) (Supp. 1980). It also unmistakably reveals a clear 
intention not to broaden the claim coverage to livestock damaged or killed by 
big game animals, viz., elk, deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, moose, and mountain 
goat. Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-101(a)(i).

 

[¶84]   In light of all of the above and 
foregoing discussion of the historical setting leading up to and surrounding the 
enactment of the 1929 game animals damage law and its present-day descendent, 
the mischief the law was intended to cure, the conditions of the law and all 
other prior and contemporaneous facts and circumstances that have enabled this 
court intelligently to determine the intention of the Wyoming legislature, a 
serious argument cannot be made that these external matters, including the law's 
legislative history, disclose that the statute's plain meaning, which we earlier 
derived by our simple reading of the text, is unreasonable, produces an absurd 
result, or is obviously contrary to the legislature's intent. We hold that the 
historical record does not contradict our plain reading of the text; to the 
contrary, it readily confirms it.

 

[¶85]   Holmes believed that "a page of history 
is worth a volume of logic."146  The several pages of Wyoming 
history we have turned today have proved his point.

 

Substantial Evidence

 

[¶86]   Even were we to find that Parker's 
claim is cognizable under Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901, we would have to affirm the 
Commission's decision that Parker failed to show to a reasonable degree of 
probability which potential source was in fact the source of brucellosis in the 
Parker herd. We hold that the Commission's decision in this regard is based on 
substantial evidence in the record.

 

[¶87]   In conducting our review of 
administrative action in the context of the sufficiency of the evidence, we are 
charged by statute to examine the whole record to determine if there is 
substantial evidence to support the agency's findings. Wyo. 
Stat. § 16-3-114(c). If the agency's decision is found to be supported by 
substantial evidence, we cannot substitute our judgment for that of the agency; 
rather we are required to uphold its findings upon appeal. Mountain Fuel Supply 
Co. v. Wyoming 
Public Service Comm'n, 662 P.2d 878, 882 (Wyo. 
1983). In administrative appeals, we apply a definition of substantial evidence 
"as such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to 
support a conclusion." Mountain Fuel, at 882 (quoting Consolo v. Federal 
Maritime Comm'n, 383 U.S. 607, 86 S. Ct. 1018, 16 L. Ed. 2d 131 (1966)). See also, Bd. of Trustees, Laramie 
County Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Spiegel, 549 P.2d 1161, 1178 (Wyo. 
1976). We have also said that substantial evidence

 

may 
be less than the weight of the evidence, but cannot be clearly contrary to the 
overwhelming weight of the evidence. It is more than a mere scintilla of 
evidence or suspicion of a fact to be established. * * * *  If there is present 
substantial evidence to support a finding of the agency, the ultimate weight to 
be given that evidence before the [agency], as the trier of fact, is to be 
determined by the [agency] in light of its expertise and the experience of its 
members in such matters.

 

Mountain Fuel, 662 P.2d  at 882-83 (citations 
omitted).

 

[¶88]   With this standard of review in mind, 
we turn to the Commission's finding that Parker failed to prove its claim that 
Wyoming elk 
or bison transmitted brucellosis to the Parker herd.

 

[¶89]   Parker's argument, concerning the 
Commission's findings of fact, is couched as a challenge to the weight given the 
evidence by the trier of fact. For example, Parker argues:

 

These findings totally ignore the cross-examination of 
[the] [g]ame [w]arden. * 
* * *  Finding 
of Fact No. 35 is also controverted by the testimony referred to above. * * * * 
 When 
scientific evidence is carefully weighed. * * * *  In Finding of Fact 
No. 44 he [hearing officer] found that Drs. Bridgewater, Nicolletti and Thorne 
were the experts who were best qualified and most credible * * * * . (emphasis 
added).

 

[¶90]   As stated above, the weight to be given 
the evidence is determined solely by the agency, as the trier of fact and expert 
in the field. Therefore, much of Parker's argument concerning the Commission's 
findings of fact is irrelevant.

 

[¶91]   Despite a mass of expert testimony 
contained in reams of transcript, it would be impossible for any reasonable 
person to discern with any certainty, from this record, which potential source 
of brucellosis most likely infected Parker's herd. A parade of experts failed to 
provide a clear opinion as to the most likely source. Three expert witnesses 
could conclusively state that wildlife was the most likely potential source. 
However, three different experts could not determine the most likely potential 
source for the brucellosis outbreak. In addition, each of the three experts who 
could not point to a probable source has relevant expertise with brucellosis. 
Dr. Bridgewater is the actual investigating veterinarian of the Parker outbreak, 
Dr. Thorne is the foremost expert on brucellosis in Wyoming 
elk, and Dr. Nicolletti is a world renowned expert in bovine brucellosis. From 
this testimony alone, there exists substantial evidence to support the 
Commission's finding that Parker failed to demonstrate the most likely source to 
a reasonable degree of certainty.

 

[¶92]   However, based upon evidence concerning 
the transmissibility of brucellosis from wildlife to livestock in the natural 
environment and evidence of elk and bison behavior, it was reasonable to 
conclude that Parker failed to meet the burden of proving wildlife as the likely 
source. It is uncontroverted that the primary mode of transmission of 
brucellosis from one animal to another requires the transmittee to ingest either 
infected placenta or some other infected birth product. Therefore, an individual 
cow must gain access to either an elk's or bison's infected aborted fetus or 
related fluids, or the afterbirth of an infected viable fetus.

 

[¶93]   Concerning elk in particular, Kay 
Bowles, who is the Game and Fish Warden in the Parker ranch vicinity, and Dr. 
Thorne testified consistently and without significant contest about elk 
reproduction behavior. In short, they explained that elk, to avoid predation, 
isolate themselves during the birthing process and then quickly consume the 
entire afterbirth and fastidiously clean the area where the birth or abortion 
had occurred. This behavior severely reduces the availability of infected 
material for cattle to ingest.

 

[¶94]   In addition, these same two witnesses 
testified to the unlikelihood of contact between Parker's cattle and an infected 
elk, at a time ripe for transmission. Game Warden Bowles made this conclusion 
based upon years of experience observing elk movements in the Parker ranch area. 
Dr. Thorne was able to reach this same result by examining several related 
factors. First, brucellosis is not self-sustaining in an elk herd which does not 
winter on feedgrounds (non-feedground herds). Thus, very few individual 
non-feedground elk actually carry brucellosis. Second, all feedground herds - 
those that sustain brucellosis - generally exist west of the continental divide, 
while the Parker grazing units are east of the continental divide. Third, most 
feedground female elk winter and, therefore, will abort on the west side of the 
divide and also calve in traditional areas on the west side, while the 
non-feedground female elk generally winter and calve at traditional areas east 
of the divide, closer to the Parker grazing units. Hence, the opportunity for 
Parker cattle to commingle with infected feedground female elk during calving or 
abortion season is minimal, and in turn, so is the opportunity for brucellosis 
transmission.

 

[¶95]   Based upon the testimony concerning 
brucellosis transmission, elk reproduction behavior, and elk herding/migration 
patterns, it is clear that the potential for transmission of brucellosis from 
elk to cattle in the wild is remote at best. Therefore, it was reasonable for 
the Commission to conclude that Parker failed to demonstrate that elk were the 
most likely source of the Parker herd infection.

 

[¶96]   As to the bison, transmission of 
brucellosis from bison to cattle occurs primarily through the same basic process 
as described previously. Hence, an infected female bison had to have calved or 
aborted, leaving afterbirth available for consumption in an area accessible to 
Parker's herd.

 

[¶97]   After examining the evidence presented 
concerning bison, we feel it would have been unreasonable for the hearing 
officer to have concluded that Parker had proved, to a reasonable degree of 
certainty, that bison were the brucellosis source. Precious little evidence was 
presented on the bison issue. It was established that a total of nine head of 
bison - some male, some female, and some calves - were observed on or near the 
Parker grazing allotments in July of 1988. It was also demonstrated that 
approximately two-thirds of the estimated 120 Grand Teton 
bison were infected with brucellosis and that the Yellowstone 
bison population is, to some extent, also infected with brucellosis. In 
addition, Dr. Thorne testified that as between elk and bison, bison are more 
likely to have transmitted brucellosis because they do not isolate themselves to 
calve.

 

[¶98]   However, unlike the elk evidence, there 
was little testimony concerning bison migration patterns or testimony as to the 
bison's calving season or when they are likely to abort. The evidence 
demonstrated that a small number of bison, which may or may not be infected with 
brucellosis, were close to Parker's herd during the summer of 1988. This simply 
indicates that the opportunity for transmission was increased. Those factors, 
however, do not prove, with any certainty, that bison were the source of the 
Parker infection.

 

[¶99]   Having carefully examined the whole 
record, we hold that substantial evidence exists to support the Commission's 
findings.

 

[¶100] 
For the above and foregoing reasons, we affirm the order of the 
Commission.

 

THOMAS, 
J., files an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

CARDINE, 
J., files a specially concurring opinion.

URBIGKIT, 
J., files a dissenting opinion.

 

APPENDIX I

[¶101] 
                                                                                           
BEFORE THE WYOMING 
GAME AND FISH COMMISSION

In 
the Matter of: Parker 
Land and 
Cattle Company Damage Claim

Claim No. FY90-119

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND ORDER DENYING 
CLAIM

APPEARANCES: Stanley K. 
Hathaway and Brent R. Kunz, Cheyenne, 
Wyoming, 
for Claimant 
Parker 
Land and 
Cattle Company.

Roger C. Fransen, Senior Assistant Attorney General, 
Cheyenne, 
Wyoming, 
for the Wyoming 
Game and Fish Department.

HEARING: Testimony was taken before and exhibits received 
by John F. Raper, Hearing Officer, appointed by the Wyoming Game and Fish 
Commission, in Room 114, Herschler 
Building, 
Cheyenne, 
Wyoming, on 
November 13, 14 and 15, 1990.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

[¶102] 
The claim is being denied on two grounds:

1. 
Brucellosis transmitted from wildlife is not a compensable injury under the 
provisions of W.S. 23-1-901, quoted in pertinent part as follows:

(a) 
Any landowner, lessee or agent whose property is being damaged by any of the big 
or trophy game animals or game birds of this state shall, not later than fifteen 
(15) days after the damage is discovered by the owner of the property or the 
representative of the owner, report the damage to the nearest game warden, 
damage control warden, supervisor, or commission member.

(b) 
Any landowner, lessee or agent claiming damages from the state for injury or 
destruction of property by big or trophy game animals or game birds of this 
state shall present a verified claim for the damages to the Wyoming game and 
fish department not later than sixty (60) days after the damage or last item of 
damage is discovered. The claim shall specify the damage and amount 
claimed.

(c) 
The department shall consider the claims based upon a description of the 
livestock damaged or killed by a trophy game animal, the damaged land, growing 
cultivated crops, stored crops, seed crops, improvements and extraordinary 
damage to grass. Claims shall be investigated by the department and rejected or 
allowed within ninety (90) days after submission, and paid in the amount 
determined to be due. In the event the department fails to act within ninety 
(90) days, the claim, including interest based on local bank preferred rates, 
shall be deemed to have been allowed. No award shall be allowed to any landowner 
who has not permitted hunting on his property during authorized hunting seasons. 
Any person failing to comply with any provision of this section is barred from 
making any claim against the department for damages. Any claimant aggrieved by 
the decision of the department may appeal to the commission within thirty (30) 
days after receipt of the decision of the department as provided by rules of 
practice and procedure promulgated by the commission. The commission shall 
review the department decision at its next meeting following receipt of notice 
of request for review. The commission shall review the investigative report of 
the department, and it may approve, modify or reverse the decision of the 
department.

2. 
Claimant has not shown to a reasonable degree of probability which potential 
source was in fact the source of brucellosis in the Parker herd.

 

FINDINGS OF FACT

 

[¶103] 
1. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission has jurisdiction. W.S. 
23-1-901.

 

[¶104] 
2. The parties to this proceeding are the Wyoming Game and Fish 
Department (Department) and the Parker 
Land and 
Cattle Company, Inc. (Parker). Parker has filed its claim for damages with the 
Wyoming Game and Fish Commission (Commission) under W.S. 23-1-901. Mr. John 
Story appears here as a representative of Parker but is not a party to these 
proceedings in his individual capacity.

 

[¶105] 
3. Parker, at the time of the brucellosis outbreak in the winter of 
1988-1989, was engaged in a cow/calf operation on a combination of deeded lands 
which it owns and leased lands belonging to the United States and administered 
by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, all located in the 
Dubois, Wyoming area east of the Continental Divide. [V. II, p. 109; G & F 
Ex. 29]

 

[¶106] 
4. Parker's cattle winter on deeded land near the home ranch. Around the 
first of May the cattle move onto spring range which consists of a combination 
of deeded and BLM lands. That portion of the ranch known as Crooked Creek is 
spring range. On about June 16, the cattle are moved onto Forest Service grazing 
allotments. The Warm Springs allotment extends west to the Continental Divide. 
On about October 10, the cattle are brought back to lower pastures. [V. II, 
117-22]

 

[¶107] 
5. Parker's cattle come into contact with elk on the spring pasture 
called Crooked Creek and on the Forest Service allotments. [V. II, 121; G & 
F Ex. 29]

 

[¶108] 
6. During the summer of 1988, at least nine head of buffalo were seen on 
the Warm Springs allotment during July. [V. II, 141-42]

 

[¶109] 
7. In November 1988, Dr. Douglas Woody, a veterinarian employed by the 
United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection 
Service (USDA/APHIS) called the Parker ranch and advised them that a brucellosis 
reactor cow had been traced back to the Parker herd. The cow was a reactor; 
standard procedures indicated a herd test should be done, and Woody would 
normally have tested the herd at that time. However, Woody made a decision not 
to test any animals in the Parker herd, even though he was advised that Parker 
had no objection to such testing. [V. I, 53-54, 66-67, 128-129; V. II, 
199]

 

[¶110] 
8. The MCI program is a USDA surveillance system which tracks cattle sold 
for slaughter and tests those cattle for brucellosis. The system has certain 
limitations and the number of Parker cattle which were actually tested under the 
program is unknown. [V. II, 192-94, 210; V. III, 213]

 

[¶111] 
9. In February 1989, Dr. Woody again called, this time to report another 
reactor cow and to advise that a herd test needed to be done. Subsequent testing 
revealed the herd to be heavily infected with brucellosis. [V. II, 
130-31]

 

[¶112] 
10. Brucellosis is an infection by bacteria of the genus Brucella. It is 
a reproductive disease with its major manifestations being abortions or retained 
placentas in females and orchitis in males. It is transmitted orally by 
ingestion of the bacteria from contaminated placentas or other birth products. 
[V. II, 185-86]

 

[¶113] 
11. Following discovery of the infection, Parker was advised by Dr. Woody 
that its options were to either depopulate its herd or to begin a series of herd 
tests and slaughter all reactor animals until no brucellosis could be found in 
the herd. When asked whether adult vaccination could be used as an alternative 
means of managing the outbreak, Dr. Woody advised that such an approach would 
not be considered and could not be used. Adult vaccination was never 
investigated further. [V. II, 134-35, 161]

 

[¶114] 
12. The Department was not involved in management of the outbreak or 
related decisions. Those matters were handled by USDA/APHIS and the Wyoming 
Livestock Board. [V. I, 88-89; V. II, 174]

 

[¶115] 
13. Following discovery of brucellosis in the Parker herd, the herd was 
disposed of by selling the entire herd for slaughter over a period of time. A 
number of calves, reactor cows and cull cows were sold immediately. One hundred 
twenty-five head of yearling heifers were spayed, pastured over the summer of 
1989 and sold for slaughter. Most of the herd, 450 cows, heifers and herd bulls 
and 362 calves were placed on a quarantined feedlot in Idaho. An 
additional 55 head of cows and their calves were placed on the quarantined lot 
shortly thereafter. The cows and calves were kept on feed until the fall of 1989 
when the calves were weaned. The calves (400 head) were held over, placed on 
pasture during the summer of 1990 and sold in the fall of 1990. [V. II, 75, 98, 
106, 135, 138; Parker Ex. 32, 5-6]

 

[¶116] 
14. Dr. Donald Bridgewater is a veterinarian and is the regional 
epidemiologist for the USDA's western region, which includes Wyoming. 
Dr. Bridgewater investigated the Parker outbreak to determine (1) whether the 
infection was introduced from another state, (2) whether other herds in the area 
were infected, and (3) who had purchased cattle from the Parker herd. [V. I, 17, 
45-46]

 

[¶117] 
15. Dr. Bridgewater concluded, following his investigation, that: "To 
date, there has been no epidemiological evidence to indicate that brucellosis 
has been imported into the herd," and that "Elk or bison remain a potential 
source of brucellosis in the Parker 
Land and 
Cattle Company herd." Dr. Bridgewater's testimony is consistent with those 
conclusions. Neither in his report nor in his testimony did Dr. Bridgewater 
state a conclusion as to the most likely source of infection of the Parker herd. 
[V. I, 30, 34; Parker Ex. 32, 2, 29]

 

[¶118] 
16. Dr. Bridgewater was the only expert witness to testify who was 
personally involved in the investigation of the Parker outbreak. No other 
witness conducted an independent investigation to determine the source of the 
outbreak. [V. I, 90, 134; V. II, 38-39, 197]

 

[¶119] 
17. Dr. Norman Swanson has been the Wyoming State Veterinarian for over 
20 years. The Livestock Board has regulatory authority over matters of domestic 
animal health in Wyoming. 
The Livestock Board, through Dr. Swanson, tracked the handling of the Parker 
outbreak. Dr. Swanson was not directly involved in the investigation or 
management of the outbreak. [V. I, 73, 90] 

 

[¶120] 
18. Adult vaccination could not have been used in the management of the 
Parker outbreak without Dr. Swanson's approval. Whether that approach should be 
approved was never discussed with him. [V. I, 88; Parker Ex. 48]

 

[¶121] 
19. Dr. Mo Salman is a professor at Colorado 
State 
University who 
was retained by Parker as an expert witness in this case. He has not specialized 
in the study of brucellosis since receiving his Ph.D. [V. I, 104-05] Dr. Salman 
made no independent investigation of the Parker outbreak and has done no 
professional work in brucellosis in wildlife. He has no first-hand experience or 
knowledge of calving, social or migratory behaviors in elk. He is not an expert 
on elk management or elk diseases. [V. I, 127, 134, 139-40]

 

[¶122] 
20. Dr. Salman stated that contact with neighboring herds of cattle was a 
possible source of infection and that brucellosis could be transient in a herd 
of cattle such that it might be present in a herd for a time but go undetected 
before disappearing from the herd. Dr. Salman also stated that horses could be a 
source of brucellosis. [V. I, 135, 137] He testified that, in a state where 
brucellosis is relatively uncommon but which is not brucellosis free, cow/calf 
operators should reasonably vaccinate at least sixty to seventy percent of 
replacement heifers. [V. I, 131]

 

[¶123] 
21. Dr. John Reif is a professor at Colorado 
State 
University who 
was also retained by Parker as an expert witness. Dr. Reif is a veterinarian 
whose background, with the exception of a year in a small animal practice, is 
primarily academic. Dr. Reif has never done any professional work with 
brucellosis, diseases in elk or elk behavior. His experience in wildlife 
diseases is limited to a single study of the prevalence of the disease 
leptospirosis in antelope and cattle in parts of Colorado. 
That study did not examine the transmission of the disease between antelope and 
cattle. Dr. Reif made no independent investigation of the Parker outbreak. [V. 
II, 3-5, 35, 36]

 

[¶124] 
22. Dr. Reif testified that he did not know the infection status of the 
Wind 
River elk 
herd and did not assume any particular rate of infection for any "subgroup" of 
elk for purposes of his conclusions as to the likely source of the Parker 
infection. At the same time, he testified that his opinion was based upon the 
"extensive" prevalence of brucellosis in feedground elk and that his conclusion 
that elk were a more likely source of infection than bison assumed "essentially 
similar" infection rates of 37 and 50 percent for elk and bison respectively. 
[V. II, 30-33, 40-41, 53]

 

[¶125] 
23. Dr. Reif testified that January 1989 was a critical time for the 
spread of brucellosis among Parker's cattle because the disease began actively 
spreading through the herd when calving began in that month. [V. II, 13, 
46]

 

[¶126] 
24. Dr. Paul Nicoletti is a veterinarian and university professor and 
former USDA employee who has specialized in brucellosis work and research since 
1960. His testimony was based primarily upon a review of the Bridgewater Report, 
the Parker damage claim, and a trip to Wyoming to 
become familiar with the Jackson and Dubois areas. Dr. Nicoletti did not do an 
independent investigation to determine the source of the Parker outbreak. [V. 
II, 183-85, 196; G & F Ex. 24]

 

[¶127] 
25. Dr. Nicoletti testified that outbreaks of brucellosis in which 
wildlife is a potential source present unique problems for investigators. 
Wildlife sources are more difficult to investigate than bovine sources because 
their involvement cannot readily be determined in the absence of special 
expertise in wildlife. [V. II, 208-09] Dr. Nicoletti concluded that there was 
insufficient information available to reach a conclusion to a reasonable degree 
of scientific probability as to the source of the infection in the Parker herd. 
[V. II, 210-11]

 

[¶128] 
26. Dr. Tom Thorne is an employee of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department 
and is a veterinarian. Dr. Thorne has worked extensively with brucellosis in elk 
and has over 20 years first-hand experience in wildlife diseases, including 
brucellosis. He has conducted extensive scientific studies of brucellosis in 
Wyoming elk 
and of the transmission of brucellosis from elk to cattle. [V. III, 66-68, 
71-72; G & F Ex. 25] Dr. Thorne testified that elk were not the source of 
the Parker outbreak and that if wildlife were the source of the disease, bison 
are more likely than elk to be the source. [V. III, 123-24, 153-54]

 

[¶129] 
27. Kay Bowles is a game warden employed by the Wyoming Game and Fish 
Department. He has been stationed in Dubois, 
Wyoming 
since 1974 and, in the course of his employment, has regularly observed the elk 
in the Dubois area and their behaviors. No other witness has comparable 
experience and knowledge concerning the behavior of elk in the Dubois area. [V. 
III, 4-5, 48-49]

 

[¶130] 
28. The Wind 
River elk 
herd or Wiggins Fork elk herd, as it is also known, is a distinct population, 
separate from the Jackson and 
Green River elk 
herds. The Wind 
River elk 
herd generally occupies a territory east of the Continental Divide in the area 
around Dubois, 
Wyoming. 
There are no elk feedgrounds in the Wind 
River 
herd unit or anywhere else east of the Continental Divide in Wyoming. 
The Wind 
River elk 
winter east of the Divide, calve at lower elevations of the Wind 
River 
Mountains 
east of the Divide, and move to higher elevations during the summer months. [V. 
III, 5, 7-12, 26, 118; G & F Ex. 26]

 

[¶131] 
29. Jackson and 
Green River 
herd unit elk generally winter on elk feedgrounds managed by the Wyoming Game 
and Fish Department or, in the case of the National Elk Refuge, in cooperation 
with federal agencies. All of the elk winter feedgrounds are west of the 
Continental Divide. Elk which belong to feedground herds winter west of the 
Continental Divide and calve west of the Divide in the spring. Elk do not cross 
the Divide to calve because calving takes place in May and early June when there 
is a considerable amount of snow at higher elevations. Traditional calving areas 
are in sagebrush/aspen habitats at lower elevations. Elk on either side of the 
Divide calve on the same side of the Divide on which they spend the winter. [V. 
III, 11, 12, 21, 48, 88-92, 108-112, 118, 140] Elk from the feedground herds 
west of the Divide commingle with elk from nonfeedground herds east of the 
Divide when the two herds move to the top of the Divide during the summer 
months. Because calving is finished prior to that time, brucellosis transmission 
does not occur during that time. [V. III, 143]

 

[¶132] 
30. Some elk in herd units where feedgrounds are located do not come to 
the feedgrounds. Those elk are said to "winter out" but are part of the 
feedground herds and are distinct and different from nonfeedground elk. 
Nonfeedground elk are elk which belong to herds in herd units where there are no 
feedgrounds. The Wind 
River elk 
herd is a nonfeedground herd. [V. III, 7, 92-94, 95, 164-65]

 

[¶133] 
31. Brucellosis does not occur in wild elk populations anywhere except in 
the feedground elk in Northwestern Wyoming. 
Brucellosis is not transmitted between elk with sufficient frequency to sustain 
the disease in elk herds except where the elk are concentrated on winter 
feedgrounds. [V. II, 48, V. III, 143; G & F Ex. 1, 2]

 

[¶134] 
32. Elk-to-cattle transmission of brucellosis has been shown under 
artificial, experimental conditions. Elk-to-cattle transmission is extremely 
unlikely to occur under natural conditions, except under extreme circumstances 
where elk are forced to feed with cattle during winter months when abortions are 
likely to occur in infected cow elk. [V. III, 79-83; G & F Ex. 18, 19, 
20]

 

[¶135] 
33. Elk-to-cattle transmission will only occur in association with an 
abortion, or birth of a live or dead calf. When they calve, elk seclude 
themselves from other animals prior to giving birth. Following birth of the 
calf, the cow immediately consumes the placenta and other birth products and 
cleans the area where the birth occurs. When an abortion occurs, the cow will 
consume the aborted fetus unless it is a near-term fetus, which is too large to 
consume. Kay Bowles reports never having seen an aborted calf or a placenta in 
the Wind 
River 
herd unit. [V. III, 38, 49, 83, 85-87, 114] 

 

[¶136] 
34. The only place where elk-to-cattle transmission of brucellosis was 
likely to occur in this case was on Parker's Crooked Creek property. There is no 
showing that elk-to-cattle contact occurred during the time when Parker's cattle 
were on the home ranch and Parker's cattle do not go onto the Forest Service 
allotments until mid-June when elk calving is substantially completed and the 
risk of transmission is therefore eliminated. Parker's cattle do share the 
Crooked Creek property with calving elk during May and early June. [V. II, 
120-21; V. III, 86-87, 117] The Wind River elk herd is the herd with which 
Parker's cattle are in contact at times when brucellosis transmission is likely 
to occur. Those elk are not infected with brucellosis. The calving rate for the 
herd is very high, roughly 50 percent as compared to feedground elk west of the 
Divide, which have calving rates of only about 35 percent because of the 
existence of brucellosis in those herds. Brucellosis does not sustain itself in 
nonfeedground elk so that the occasional introduction of an infected animal into 
the Wind 
River 
herd cannot spread the disease through the herd generally. [V. I, 58; V. III, 
96, 101-02, 118; G & F Ex. 26, 28] Bull elk do not transmit brucellosis. [V. 
III, 105]

 

[¶137] 
35. Weather conditions during the winter of 1987-1988 and the spring and 
summer of 1988 did not increase the likelihood of transmission of brucellosis 
from elk to Parker's cattle during those times. [V. III, 16-17, 29] Because 
nonfeedground elk east of the Divide are not infected with brucellosis and 
because almost no feedground elk move east of the Divide and calve there, there 
are very few infected elk which could come into contact with Parker's cattle. 
Elk generally avoid cattle. The calving habits of elk are such that the 
likelihood of elk-to-cattle transmission is further reduced. The elk's habit of 
secluding themselves during the birth process and of consuming the placenta and 
other birth products and cleaning the area where the birth takes place 
eliminates the opportunity for contact with infectious materials and hence, the 
transmission of brucellosis. [V. III, 13-16, 96, 116-17, 123; G & F Ex. 
26]

 

[¶138] 
36. Bison were seen in close association with Parker's cattle during the 
summer of 1988. Bison have a strong herding instinct and will graze with cattle 
on summer range. Bison calve throughout the summer and do not seclude themselves 
during the birth process like elk. [V. II, 141-43, 116; V. III, 84, 86, Parker 
Ex. 32] The wild bison seen with the Parker cattle and on Parker's Warm Springs 
allotment were from either the Jackson (Teton) herd or one of the Yellowstone 
herds, all of which are known to be infected with brucellosis. [Parker Ex. 32, 
p. 20-21] Bison are a more likely source of the brucellosis outbreak in the 
Parker herd than are elk. [V. III, 86, 123]

 

[¶139] 
37. Public hunting of bison under the management of the Wyoming Game and 
Fish Department did not occur prior to the winter of 1989-1990. Bison are not 
now classified by the Department as a game animal [V. III, 21-22], nor were they 
at the time the disease was transmitted to the Parker herd.

 

[¶140] 
38. The fact that the strain of brucellosis that is commonly found in 
wildlife (Biovar 1) was the same strain that caused the Parker herd infection 
provides no evidence of the source of the infection. This is so because Biovar 1 
is also the strain most commonly found in cattle and would likely be found 
regardless whether the source was cattle or wildlife. [V. I, 139; V. II, 
206-07]

 

[¶141] 
39. Dr. Thorne is the only witness with demonstrated expertise in 
brucellosis in wildlife. He has studied brucellosis in elk extensively and has 
first-hand experience with the disease in wild bison. He is also familiar with 
the behaviors of elk and bison in Northwest Wyoming. 
Kay Bowles is the best authority on behaviors of elk in the wild. The testimony 
of Thorne and Bowles with respect to elk behavior is uncontroverted.

 

[¶142] 
40. Cattle cannot be entirely eliminated as a potential source of the 
Parker outbreak. Cattle purchased by Parker in 1984 could have infected the 
herd. Contact with infected cattle from neighboring herds could have occurred. 
Parker cattle contact cattle from as far away as Jackson. 
Cattle brought to the Dubois area for summer pasture could have carried the 
disease. [V. II, 164-65, 198, 210-11] Some bulls which had to be brought into 
the Parker herd prior to 1988 were no longer in the herd and were not tested 
when the outbreak was investigated. Neighboring herds were not looked at closely 
after they tested negative. [V. I, 47, 60]

 

[¶143] 
41. Dr. Salman testified that horses were a potential source of the 
disease. There is no evidence that horses as a source were ever investigated. 
[V. I, 135]

 

[¶144] 
42. Elk are an extremely remote possibility as a source of the disease. 
The behavior of elk at calving is such that transmission from elk to cattle in 
the wild is extremely unlikely to occur. Elk generally avoid close association 
with cattle. The Wind 
River elk 
herd is not infected with brucellosis. In combination, these factors make elk 
the least likely source of the Parker outbreak. [V. III, 122-23]

 

[¶145] 
43. Bison are more likely than elk to be the source of the Parker 
outbreak. Bison in the area are heavily infected with brucellosis. Bison calve 
throughout the spring and summer and could, therefore, transmit the disease at 
any time. Bison will herd with cattle and were seen in association with the 
Parker cattle during the summer of 1988, when Parker claims his herd was 
initially infected. [V. III, 123-24, 153-54]

 

[¶146] 
44. The evidence of this proceeding does not establish to a reasonable 
degree of medical or scientific probability the source of the Parker outbreak. 
The experts who were best qualified and most credible with respect to 
brucellosis in both livestock and wildlife were Dr. Bridgewater, Dr. Nicoletti 
and Dr. Thorne. None of them testified that wildlife was the most probable 
source of the disease. Dr. Bridgewater was apparently unable to reach that 
conclusion. Dr. Nicoletti testified that he was unable to determine the source 
of the disease to a reasonable degree of certainty. Dr. Thorne was of the view 
that elk were not the source of the disease and that bison were a more likely 
source than elk.

 

[¶147] 
45. Dr. Salman, who testified that he believed there was a greater than 
50 percent probability that wildlife was the source of the disease, had no 
experience with the disease in wildlife and had no experience with elk or bison 
behaviors and movements in Northwestern Wyoming. 
Dr. Reif, who testified that wildlife was the likely source of the disease, has 
no experience whatever with the disease, the disease in wildlife or the 
behaviors and movements of elk or bison in Northwestern Wyoming. 
Dr. Reif's testimony is simply not persuasive. Dr. Reif's conclusion that elk 
are a more likely source of the infection than bison is based upon the incorrect 
assumption that the Wind 
River elk 
herd is infected with brucellosis to the same degree as feedground elk west of 
the Divide.

 

[¶148] 
46. The evidence shows that of the four potential sources of the 
outbreak, elk are the least likely, bison and cattle can only be said to be 
potential sources, and horses cannot be evaluated as a source. Parker has not 
shown to a reasonable degree of probability which potential source is in fact 
the source of the Parker outbreak. The evidence reveals that the conclusion that 
wildlife were the most likely source of the disease is driven exclusively by the 
failure of the Bridgewater 
investigation to identify a bovine source. Parker's witnesses simply are not 
knowledgeable concerning brucellosis in wildlife or the behaviors of wildlife 
and the nature of the infections of wildlife in Northwestern Wyoming. 
They were, therefore, able to analyze only one side of the question and their 
conclusions are unreliable for that reason.

 

[¶149] 
47. Parker's vaccination program was below the usual standard for 
comparable herds in the area. Herds in the area, other than Parker's, having 600 
or more test-eligible cattle had an average (unweighted) of 51.8 percent ear 
tagged as official calfhood vaccinates. The Parker Ranch had only 25.89 percent 
tagged as official calfhood vaccinates. [Parker Ex. 32, 13-15] Additionally, 
Parker had no vaccination program at all before 1984, when Wyoming was 
not brucellosis free and vaccination of 60 to 70 percent of its heifers should 
have been maintained as a reasonable level of vaccination. [V. I, 74-75, 131] 
Although vaccination does not provide 100 percent protection against 
brucellosis, a thorough vaccination program has the important effect of 
preventing the rapid spread of the disease within a herd should infection occur. 
Therefore, an outbreak in a vaccinated herd can be controlled without the 
necessity for depopulating the herd since fewer animals become infected and the 
infection will spread slowly. [V. I, 56, 132-33; V. II, 202-03]

 

[¶150] 
48. A high percentage of the cattle found to be infected in the Parker 
herd were older cattle that had not been vaccinated. [V. I, 55-56; Parker Ex. 
32] Parker's failure to maintain a thorough vaccination program contributed 
materially to the severity of the outbreak in the Parker herd. A cow which 
tested positive for brucellosis was traced to Parker's herd in November, 1988, 
but no herd test was done until a second animal was traced to the herd in 
February 1989. Between November 1988 and February 1989, the disease was actively 
spreading through the herd. [V. II, 13, 46, 200] Failure to test the herd in 
November 1988 contributed materially to the severity of the outbreak in the 
Parker herd.

 

[¶151] 
49. When only a few animals are infected in a herd, the infection can be 
controlled without destroying the herd. Therefore, had either Parker vaccinated 
more of its cattle or had the herd been tested and control measures implemented 
in November 1988, the necessity for destroying the Parker herd would have been 
avoided and Parker's losses would have been very small. [V. I, 89, 132-33; V. 
III, 191, 200]

 

[¶152] 
50. Use of adult vaccination as an alternative in controlling the Parker 
outbreak was rejected without being investigated by regulatory officials, in 
part, at least, because depopulation is "policy" and any other alternative would 
be a headache for regulators. Adult vaccination should have been investigated as 
a possible means of minimizing Parker's losses. Use of adult vaccination could 
have allowed Parker to control the infection of its herd without destroying the 
entire herd. [V. I, 112-14; V. II, 201, 229-30; V. III, 214]

 

[¶153] 
51. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department was not consulted at any time 
for purposes of allowing the Department input into the management of the Parker 
brucellosis problem. The Game and Fish Department has no regulatory authority 
(unlike the State Veterinarian and Livestock Board (see W.S. 11-18-103)) to 
require vaccination of cattle for brucellosis. The Wyoming Game and Fish 
Department, therefore, had no opportunity to avoid or reduce the damages it is 
now being asked to pay. [V. I, 88; V. II, 174]

 

[¶154] 
52. To the extent that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department could reduce 
the risk of transmission of brucellosis to domestic animals from wildlife by 
managing the disease in wildlife, the Department has done all that could 
reasonably be expected. The Department has funded and conducted research to 
identify the nature and extent of brucellosis infections in wildlife by 
vaccination and has funded such a vaccination program. The Department has also 
conducted original research to develop methods of controlling brucellosis in 
wildlife. The Department has worked with the Wyoming Livestock Board and State 
Veterinarian (which have made no financial contribution toward managing the 
disease in wildlife), federal agencies that manage wildlife on Teton and 
Yellowstone 
National Parks, 
and USDA/APHIS. In addition, the Department has worked with private industry in 
its brucellosis program. The results of Department research have been published 
in popular publications and scientific journals over the years. There is no 
evidence whatever that the Department has ever sought to withhold information on 
brucellosis in wildlife or has ever failed to exercise reasonable diligence in 
identifying and dealing with the presence of brucellosis in wildlife. [V. I, 91, 
93, 203-04; V. III, 71-80; 184-85; G & F Ex. 4-7, 13-21, 25] 

 

[¶155] 
53. Except for the Parker outbreak, there has not been a documented case 
of brucellosis in cattle east of the Continental Divide in Northwestern Wyoming 
during the past 20 years. [Parker Ex. 23] Parker operated for roughly 20 years 
prior to 1984 or 1985 without vaccinating its cattle against brucellosis. [V. 
II, 109, 118] Cow/calf operations are common in the Dubois area and no operator 
has chosen to eliminate its cow/calf operation because of the risk of 
brucellosis in wildlife in the area. Vaccination provides efficient protection 
against loss of an entire herd in the event of a new infection. [V. I, 89, 110, 
132-33; V. III, 204-05] Parker's decision that it cannot continue as a cow/calf 
operation because of the risk of a future outbreak of brucellosis is 
unreasonable.

 

[¶156] 
54. The Parker claim should be denied.

 

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

 

[¶157] 
1. In interpreting a statute, we must first determine the statute's 
intent and purpose and then give effect to that intention. The course of that 
intent must, wherever possible, be found in the language of the statute itself 
and not conjecture. Geraud v. Schrader, 531 P.2d 872, cert. denied 
Wind River Indian Ed. Ass'n, Inc. v. Ward, 423 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 205, 46 L. Ed. 2d 134 (1975). It would be conjecture to add 
disease transmitted by wildlife as a basis for a claim under W.S. 23-1-901. 
Neither the courts nor the commission can enlarge, stretch, expand, or extend a 
statute to matters not falling within its express provisions. Lo Sasso v. Braun, 
386 P.2d 630 
(Wyo. 
1963).

 

[¶158] 
2. Where a statute enumerates the subjects or things on which it is to 
operate, or the persons affected, it is to be construed as excluding from its 
effect all those subjects and things not expressly mentioned. Town of 
Pine 
Bluffs v. State Board of Equalization, 79 Wyo. 
262, 333 P.2d 700 (1958). There 
is no express mention in the statute of damage caused by brucellosis or any 
disease so therefore it is not compensable.

 

[¶159] 
3. There can be no waiver of immunity by an agency of the State unless by 
specific legislative authority. Maffei v. Incorporated Town of Kemmerer, 80 
Wyo. 
333[33], 338 P.2d 808 (1959)1; Price v. State Highway 
Commission, 62 Wyo. 
385, 167 P.2d 309 
(1946).

 

[¶160] 
4. Crops are the products of the soil and do not include cattle or 
livestock. Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Ed.; Ellis, McKinnon & Brown v. 
Hopps, 30 Ga. 
App. 453, 118 S.E. 583 (1923); O'Neill Production Credit Ass'n v. Schnoor, 208 
Neb. 
105, 302 N.W.2d 376 (1981).

 

[¶161] 
5. W.S. 23-1-901 is plainly intended to create a mechanism by which 
landowners can be compensated for damage and injuries done by wildlife. The 
questions raised here concern the kinds of injuries that are compensable, the 
kinds of damages that may be claimed for an otherwise compensable injury, the 
kinds of animals' damage that is compensable, and how the limitations on time 
for filing claims contained in W.S. 23-1-901 should be interpreted and applied. 
As to the first issue, outbreaks of disease are not an injury which may be 
compensated under W.S. 23-1-901. Nowhere in the statutes relating to wildlife is 
disease even mentioned in any concept.

 

[¶162] 
6. W.S. 23-1-901 is not intended to be a waiver of the state's immunity 
for claims arising out of every kind of damage or injury caused by wildlife. It 
is, rather, intended to compensate a particular class of persons, landowners, 
for injury to certain kinds of property interests. The list of property 
interests which the Commission shall consider in awarding damages, which is 
found in W.S. 23-1-901(c) is indicative of the intent of the legislature with 
respect to the kinds of injuries which may be compensated. The injuries 
enumerated in W.S. 23-1-901(c) are of a kind commonly associated with 
interference of big or trophy game animals or game birds with agricultural 
operations, other than livestock, except with respect to injury caused by trophy 
game animals or being gored by elk, a big game animal as defined by W.S. 
23-1-101(a)(i). The legislature plainly had injuries of that general kind in 
mind when W.S. 23-1-901 and its predecessors were enacted. It is widely and 
commonly known, for instance, that big game animals trample and consume stored 
and growing hay and other crops. Fences and other improvements are sometimes 
damaged by big game animals. Trophy game animals such as mountain lions 
sometimes destroy livestock, and game birds feeding in large flocks sometimes do 
significant damage to crops. These types of damages and injuries are manageable 
by the Game and Fish Commission, whereas the control of disease after 
transmission is not.

 

[¶163] 
7. Since W.S. 23-1-901 is a statute in derogation of sovereign immunity, 
it must be strictly construed in favor of the State. The State's right to 
immunity from claims against it may not be diminished except where the express 
terms of a statute disclose a clear intent by the legislature to waive that 
immunity. Where there is any doubt as to the meaning or intent of a statute, it 
must be given the effect which makes the least, rather than the most, change in 
sovereign immunity. White v. Burns, 213 Conn. 
307, 567 A.2d 1195, 1198 (1990); 2A Sutherland Statutory Construction, § 58.04; 
82 C.J.S. Statutes, § 391.

 

[¶164] 
8. Injury caused by outbreaks of disease are unique and different from 
the kinds of injury enumerated in W.S. 23-1-901. Diseases have long been a 
problem for livestock producers and the legislature has long taken an active 
role in regulation to control outbreaks of disease in livestock. Additionally, 
the legislature has provided, in the context of regulation of the livestock 
industry, a means for compensating livestock producers who suffer losses in 
connection with the application of regulations intended to control diseases in 
livestock. W.S. 11-19-101 et seq. The source of disease is not mentioned in such 
section.

 

[¶165] 
9. It is apparent that cases such as this, in which an outbreak of 
disease occurs in livestock and in which officials of government agencies 
responsible for regulating with respect to livestock diseases act to eliminate 
the disease by means which have the effect of destroying the infected herd, 
claims against the state should properly be made under statutes governing 
regulation of livestock diseases and the livestock industry. This claim is not 
properly within W.S. 23-1-901, which concerns the management of 
wildlife.

 

[¶166] 
10. It may be argued that the claimant should have the option to choose 
his remedy since the state has, in either event, evidenced a willingness to 
allow a claim to be brought. This argument lacks merit here because the 
legislature has, in addition to providing separate provisions for bringing the 
claims, provided separately for funding payments to claimants. Funds for payment 
of claims brought under W.S. 23-1-901 are payable out of certain hunting license 
fees earmarked for that purpose. W.S. 23-2-101(c). Funds for payment of claims 
brought under W.S. 11-19-106 must be specially appropriated for that purpose. 
W.S. 11-19-109.

 

[¶167] 
11. Enactment of separate statutes providing for claims which are 
specially funded evidences the legislature's intent that claims be brought only 
under the applicable statute. In this case, the applicable statute is W.S. 
11-19-106 and not W.S. 23-1-901.

 

[¶168] 
12. Compensation under W.S. 23-1-901 is limited to damages done by big 
and trophy game animals and game birds. It is apparent, for instance, that the 
legislature does not intend that W.S. 23-1-901 should apply to allow 
compensation for losses to livestock caused by predatory animals like coyotes 
and others enumerated in W.S. 23-1-101(a)(viii). Compensating landowners for 
injuries done by those animals would be extraordinarily difficult and 
expensive.

 

[¶169] 
13. Bison are not big or trophy game animals. The terms "big game" and 
"trophy game" are specifically defined in W.S. 23-1-101 and do not include 
bison. The definitions in W.S. 23-1-101 have express application to Title 23, 
and thus to W.S. 23-1-901 under which this claim is brought. Damages caused by 
bison are, therefore, not compensable under W.S. 23-1-901. While bison are big 
as far as size is concerned, they are not so listed as within W.S. 
23-1-101.

 

[¶170] 
14. The Commission is directed to consider claims filed under W.S. 
23-1-901 "based upon a description of the livestock damaged or killed by a 
trophy game animal, the damaged land, growing cultivated crops, stored crops, 
seed crops, improvements and extraordinary damage to grass." This is a 
limitation on damages which may be paid both as to the property damaged and the 
kind of damage. Thus, damage to livestock may be paid only if caused by trophy 
game animals and damage may be paid only for the actual value of the property 
damaged. W.S. 23-1-101 defines a trophy game animal as meaning "black bear, 
grizzly bear or mountain lion." Parker's claim is for damage to livestock not 
caused by trophy game animals, and is, therefore, not compensable.

 

[¶171] 
15. Unless an agency in a contested case makes findings of basic facts 
upon all of the material issues in this proceeding and upon which its ultimate 
findings of fact or conclusions are based, there is no rational basis for 
judicial review. The failure of an agency to make findings of basic facts upon 
all material issues in a proceeding such as this and upon which its ultimate 
findings of fact or conclusions are based makes its determination susceptible to 
the charge that its order entered is contrary to law. Pan American Petroleum 
Corporation v. Wyoming Oil 
and Gas Conservation Commission, 446 P.2d 550 (Wyo. 
1968).

 

[¶172] 
16. The Wyoming Supreme Court has recognized that the concept of the 
burden of proof has its place in administrative proceedings. Id.

 

[¶173] 
17. The Wyoming Rules of Evidence provide that "[i]n all civil actions 
and proceedings not otherwise provided for by statute or by these rules, a 
presumption imposes on the party against whom it is directed the burden of 
proving that the nonexistence of the presumed fact is more probable than its 
existence." W.R.E. 301. This is the traditional measure of persuasion in civil 
cases and is called proof by a preponderance of evidence. McCormick on Evidence, 
3d Ed. § 338 at 957. As stated in the Wyoming Rules of Evidence, proof by a 
preponderance is proof that leads to a finding "that the nonexistence of the 
presumed fact is more probable than its existence." Id. 
This definition of preponderance of the evidence has been adopted in 
Wyoming. 
Scherling v. Kilgore, 599 P.2d 1352 (Wyo. 
1979). It was reapplied in Reed v. Getter Trucking, Inc., 735 P.2d 1370 
(Wyo. 
1987). The conclusion of what preponderates is with the trier of fact. Curless 
v. Curless, 708 P.2d 426 
(Wyo. 
1985). Accordingly, Parker has the burden of proving that the damage was caused 
by big or trophy game animals or game birds. The existence of this proposition 
must be more probable than its nonexistence; it is not shown by the evidence 
produced in this case.

 

[¶174] 
18. Two types of evidence are recognized by which a trier of fact may 
properly find the truth: direct evidence or indirect or circumstantial evidence. 
Blakely v. State, 542 P.2d 857 (Wyo. 
1975), see also Wyoming Civil Pattern Jury Instruction 2.01. In contrast to 
direct evidence where there may be, for example, testimony of an eyewitness, 
there is also indirect or circumstantial evidence. Indirect or circumstantial 
evidence is commonly defined as the proof of a chain of circumstances pointing 
to the existence or nonexistence of certain facts. Generally, Wyoming law 
does not recognize any distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence. 
As stated in Blakely, 542 P.2d  at 862, circumstantial evidence should be 
measured upon the same basis as direct evidence. Through circumstantial 
evidence, a high degree of certainty can be achieved.

 

[¶175] 
19. The claimant failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence, both 
direct and circumstantial, that brucellosis in its herd was transmitted by 
wildlife. The totality of evidence does not prove what the source was and 
remains unknown.

 

[¶176] 
20. The Parker claim should be denied.

 

DATED this ____ day of ____, 1991.

For 
the Commission

______________________________ President Wyoming Game and 
Fish Commission

BEFORE THE WYOMING 
GAME AND FISH COMMISSION

In 
the Matter of: Parker 
Land and 
Cattle Company Damage Claim

Claim No. FY90-119

ORDER DENYING CLAIM

The 
Wyoming Game and Fish Commission having made and filed its Findings of Fact and 
Conclusions of Law, it is

ORDERED that the claim of Parker 
Land and 
Cattle Company be, and is, denied.

Dated this ___ day of ____, 1991.

For 
the Commission

______________________________ President Wyoming Game and 
Fish Commission

  

THOMAS, 
Justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

 

[¶177] 
I concur in that aspect of the opinion in which the court concludes to 
affirm the order of the Commission because substantial evidence supports the 
ruling that Parker Land & Cattle Co. failed to establish the source of the 
brucellosis. I dissent from the first aspect of the opinion of the court that 
the claim is not cognizable under the statute so far as the potential source of 
infection may be elk. In this regard, I join in the dissenting opinion of 
Justice Urbigkit and the concurring opinion of Justice Cardine. I would permit 
cognizance of a claim for infection by bison as a taking by the State, but would 
not perceive it necessary to address the issue in light of the ruling as to the 
failure of proof on the part of the claimant.

 

CARDINE, 
Justice, specially concurring.

 

[¶178] 
I proceed from the premise that the Game and Fish Commission is liable 
for all damages (whether from disease, killing, clawing, injury or otherwise) to 
the livestock and property of citizens caused by big game, trophy game or other 
animals claimed, owned, protected by or licensed for hunting and taking by the 
Game and Fish. I would construe the pertinent statutes in pari materia to so 
provide.

 

[¶179] 
Thus, if an owner can establish that elk, bison, or other big game or 
trophy game animals under the protection and authority of the Game and Fish 
Commission have transmitted disease which damaged (in this case it is alleged to 
have resulted in destruction of) a rancher's cow herd, I cannot buy into a 
construction of our game and fish legislation that results in the Game and Fish 
ducking responsibility for damage it caused and the rancher going bankrupt. I do 
not believe the Game and Fish Commission is contending for that result. I am 
convinced that if there were clear proof that this rancher's livestock herd was 
destroyed because of contamination by game animals, the Game and Fish would have 
been prepared to accept its responsibility and compensate the rancher 
accordingly.

 

[¶180] 
With respect to legislative intent, that ought to be determined by 
conditions as they exist today in our society. Game and fish is big business. It 
generates large revenues from its game and fish operation. Much of the wild game 
feed off deeded lands owned by ranchers. The game goes to water in reservoirs 
and ponds constructed by ranchers and in creeks which often lie on ranchers' 
deeded land. The Game and Fish Commission acknowledges its working partnership 
with the ranching community and generally accepts its responsibility when its 
operation causes damage to this segment of our community.

 

[¶181] 
I cannot agree to the statutory construction developed by the majority. 
Due to the inconsistent placement of defined terms such as "trophy game animals" 
and "big game animals" within the subsections of W.S. 23-1-901, I would conclude 
that the statute is ambiguous concerning any intent to limit a claim based on 
the types of damages or the type of game animal. Then, because both wild bison 
and elk are directly controlled by the Game and Fish, I would hold that this 
general game damage statute was intended to apply when wild bison and elk damage 
private livestock. Therefore, in a claim in which the proof is clear, the facts 
favorable to the damaged rancher, and which establishes the cause of a rancher's 
damage as contamination by game animals, I would allow recovery.

 

[¶182] 
Were I deciding this case in the first instance, I might be inclined 
toward appellant. However, on appeal the question presented is one of 
substantial evidence to support the findings of the hearing officer and the 
decision of the commission. The Game and Fish Commission's decision was based 
upon the conflicting testimony of the several expert witnesses. As stated by the 
court in its opinion, there was substantial evidence from the testimony of the 
experts most familiar with brucellosis and most familiar with wildlife 
brucellosis and this particular outbreak to support the finding that the source 
of the brucellosis had not been established by appellant by a preponderance of 
the evidence. In fact, the expert who investigated this outbreak could only 
conclude that the elk and bison were a potential, not a probable, source of the 
brucellosis. Therefore, I can agree that the Game and Fish Commission did not 
abuse its discretion in denying appellant's claim and will, with some 
reservation, concur.

 

URBIGKIT, 
Justice, Retired, dissenting.

 

[¶183] 
With exhaustive scholarly detail, this court traces the history of 
Wyoming 
game management. Intertwined with that history, this court also comprehensively 
reviews excerpts from developed principles of statutory construction. See, e.g., 
Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Wyoming State Bd. of Equalization, 813 P.2d 214 
(Wyo. 
1991), Urbigkit, J., specially concurring. This court then continues to resolve 
whether state owned and managed wildlife which inflicts injury on property 
interests of a private individual is to be defined as an injury without remedy 
(injuria absque damno) through statutory interpretation. Cf. 
Parker 
Land and 
Cattle Co., Inc. v. United States, 
796 F. Supp. 477 (D.Wyo. 1992). With appreciation of the detailed 
Wyoming 
history and recognition that statutory interpretation still remains an inexact 
science, I respectfully dissent.

 

[¶184] 
I conclude conversely to the majority. If the livestock operator, with 
adequate proof, can demonstrate how the disease-spreading state wildlife 
inflicts that scourge on the property of a private individual, I believe a 
remedy for damage should not be denied to the party injured. There is nothing 
found in Wyoming legal history or governmentally-applied responsibilities that 
should justify a countervailing decision based on plain meaning of a statute or 
otherwise. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission should be financially 
responsible for the results of their management of wildlife which, by negligence 
or inattention, spreads contagious livestock diseases. That intendment to meet 
the constitutional responsibilities of Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 331 can be found within the laws which are the 
subject of this review and consequent decision.

 

[¶185] 
An opinion writer does not need exhaustive research to understand that 
representatives of the livestock industry were substantially numbered in the 
past annual and biennial sessions of the Wyoming 
legislature. We could then judicially notice their intelligence and the 
comprehensive attention which has been given to the responsibilities of the 
legislature to support and assist this important state industry.2 It is hard to believe that a Typhoid Annie 
danger, such as the spread of brucellosis to the cattle of private ranchers, was 
to be an acceptable or required risk of coexistence between the livestock 
operator and the state agency responsible for wildlife management.

 

[¶186] 
Additionally, I apply another tenant of statutory interpretation, 
presumed constitutionality, Paravecchio v. Memorial Hosp. of Laramie County, 742 P.2d 1276 (Wyo. 1987), cert. denied 485 U.S. 915, 108 S. Ct. 1088, 99 L. Ed. 2d 249 (1988), for a result that would not 
justify the taking of private property for public benefit contrary to Wyo. 
Const. art. 1, § 33. A safe haven permitting the state agency to maintain its 
assets in a fashion which spreads disease from public property onto private 
lands and into the livestock operator's cattle herds could properly be 
considered to be that level of confiscation of property for "public benefit." 
State Highway Commission v. Peters, 416 P.2d 390 (Wyo. 
1966).

 

[¶187] 
Consequently, I would find no impedance in the Game and Fish damage 
statute, Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901 (1991), precluding damage recovery resulting when 
game animals spread contagious diseases. Within a result-defined comparison, 
there is little difference between the predatory characteristics of some kinds 
of wildlife who kill the animals of a rancher for food or otherwise or the 
bacilli, bacteria or virus which are nurtured by the wildlife and spread into 
the cattle herds with an equally damaging conclusion.

 

[¶188] 
It is appropriate to note, as the United States 
Supreme Court recently reiterated, with statutory construction that "the 
beginning point must be the language of the statute, and when a statute speaks 
with clarity to an issue judicial inquiry into the statute's meaning, in all but 
the most extraordinary circumstances, is finished." Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos 
Drilling Co., ___ U.S. ___, ___, 112 S. Ct. 2589, 2594, 120 L. Ed. 2d 379, cert. 
denied ___ U.S. ___, 112 S. Ct. 3026, 120 L. Ed. 2d 897 (1992). See also Demarest 
v. Manspeaker, 498 U.S. 184, ___, 111 S. Ct. 599, 603, 112 L. Ed. 2d 608 (1991). The second stage in 
statutory interpretation seeking legislative intent, Allied-Signal, Inc., 813 P.2d 214, is to find a consistent and realistic intendment which includes the 
presumed desire of the legislature to recognize its legislative duty to 
"protect, obey and defend," in providing for constitutionally guaranteed 
interests. That guarantee should include the ownership of private property and a 
correlative right to compensation when damaged by governmental agency invasion. 
Wyo. 
Const. art. 1, § 33; State Highway 
Commission v. Rollins, 471 P.2d 324, 328 (Wyo. 
1970).

 

[¶189] 
The specific statutes which require our analysis, in addition to Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-901, are, currently, Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-101(a)(xiii) (1991), § 
23-1-302(a) (1991), and § 23-2-107 (Supp. 1992).3 

 

[¶190] 
The majority opinion achieves its conclusion to leave the wild bison out 
of the state regulatory and ownership system, including responsibility for 
damage, by two exclusionary determinations. First, it is announced that the wild 
bison, different from elk, moose or other wildlife, is neither a big nor a 
trophy game animal under the statutory construction of the damage statute, Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-901. It is then concluded that the terminology in that statute, 
"damaged by," cannot be extended to the transmission of contagious infectious 
conditions from the state herds to private livestock.

 

[¶191] 
It is my persuasion that the historical analysis used, although clearly 
accurate in text, cramps the plain meaning of the English language and ignores 
the conclusive right of the damaged private individual for compensation for harm 
caused within Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 33.

 

[¶192] 
This cramped and illogical construction is achieved by ignoring the fact 
that the wild bison are wildlife and, as such, are a state source of private 
property damage. I do not accept any thesis which in original concept concludes 
that sovereign immunity limits state taking liability under the express 
constitutional provision. To differentiate the wild bison from the elk and moose 
develops a convoluted and partially inoperative result for the statutes and 
precludes their constitutional application equally to identifiably similar state 
wildlife. See State Bd. of Equalization v. Cheyenne Newspapers, Inc., 611 P.2d 805, 809 
(Wyo. 
1980).

 

[¶193] 
The legalistic fallacy in the majority's "plain meaning" construction is 
confinement of right to damage recovery by applying the generically different 
hunting license statutes as the criteria for definition of words which have both 
a description in the licensing statutes and an obvious meaning in general text 
as a character of property owned by the state. I fail to read into the statute 
exclusions from damage responsibility based on availability for the issuance of 
licenses to hunt, which would mean, under the circumstances of this case, that 
pre-1989 bison damage was not compensable, but once you could hunt buffalo, if a 
license was obtained, then compensation for damage caused by the state-owned 
wildlife then also became available. The thesis is not determinable to me that 
in 1987 and 1988, wild bison as state-owned wildlife did not come within the 
damage statute until the 1989 enactment changed their wildlife character into a 
trophy game animal characteristic for licensing purposes. Consequently, I would 
find damage-caused coverage for wild bison to exist under Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901 
equally with the huntable elk and moose, which come similarly within the mammal 
family of state-owned wildlife.

 

[¶194] 
There is another misconception in damage liability analysis in the 
majority decision. Unlike eating the pasture or destroying the haystacks, these 
wildlife do not cause damage to a tangible real property interest of the 
livestock operator. It is the contagious condition with which they are infected 
and which is consequently spread to alleged disease-free livestock that 
occasions the source and substance of this litigation. There is general 
recognition that the entity that maintains diseased livestock is liable for the 
spread of a contagious condition to the livestock of others creating a civil 
cause of action from which recovery can follow. Grayson v. Lynch, 163 U.S. 468, 16 S. Ct. 1064, 41 L. Ed. 230 (1896). A similarity exists with developing 
litigation today where the person infected with AIDS infects another without 
providing caution or warning. In the case of the wild bison, obviously in the 
empirical sense, they are blameless; it is the owners and the system of game 
management from which injury and compensable damage may arguably flow as a civil 
cause of action. Hall v. Miller, 143 Vt. 
135, 465 A.2d 222 (1983). It is simply to state an apparent fact that private 
property is taken by the "public" when diseased wild game animals damage and 
destroy personal property (livestock).

 

[¶195] 
Consequently, within the context of Wyo. Stat. § 23-1-901 and Wyo. Const. 
art. 1, § 33, the taking by contagious disease epidemic is an issue different 
from either the crop damage inquiry or the trophy animal killing of privately 
owned livestock. It is, however, damage caused by state wildlife for which 
compensation should properly be paid.

 

[¶196] 
It is my view that the legislature had already directed this result in 
existing enactments. However, with the majority decision, the future can only 
provide answers for this significant societal problem by new legislation. 
Consequently, I challenge the legislature to correct the injustice which this 
decision creates. Appellant may not be benefitted, but certainly the ingenuity 
and the challenge to governmental responsibility can now be thoughtfully 
addressed by future legislative sessions.

 

[¶197] 
I would have provided a remedy for the injury with an appropriate 
construction of existing state statutory provisions. Lacking that capacity, I 
commend careful attention of the membership of the legislature and the involved 
industries of this state to work together to provide the answer through future 
legislation.

 

[¶198] 
I dissent in the belief that the right to recover for the damage is 
included in present laws, but further recognize my hope for future attention by 
the Wyoming 
legislature under these circumstances.

 

[¶199] 
The foregoing, in the context of a general dissent, only makes sense if 
it is recognized that the section in the majority opinion on sufficiency of the 
evidence was added after this dissent had been written. A decision on the 
further subject was required in order to maintain some agreement of a majority 
of the court. Following the supplementation of the majority opinion, the 
concurring and dissenting opinion of Justice Thomas and the specially concurring 
opinion of Justice Cardine were composed.

 

[¶200] 
At this juncture, where the present majority makes a sufficiency of the 
evidence determination in decision to justify affirming the initial decision, I 
write to recognize my dissent on that subject also. It is my persuasion that the 
Wyoming Game and Fish Commission really decided the case on a statutory 
interpretation and then threw in sufficiency of the evidence for good measure. 
Carefully, comprehensively and completely reading the record lead me, initially 
and now at this time, to conclude that the Commission was not only incorrect on 
statutory interpretation, but also incorrect regarding the hearing evidence 
which provides adversely, in my opinion, a clear persuasion for game animal 
infection of the rancher's livestock. In reality, the agency was just protecting 
itself from damage payment obligation.

 

[¶201] 
Consequently, I dissent at this stage in the final decision, which is 
adverse to the livestock operator, rather than concurring specially to reverse 
by application of statutory interpretation principles.

 

Footnotes

 

1 
This statute is currently found in the June 1991 pamphlet and remains 
unchanged.

2 
Each of the justices participating in this decision has authored one or more 
majority opinions endorsing this rule:

Keene v. 
State, 812 P.2d 147, 150 
(Wyo. 
1991) (Golden, J.)

Allied-Signal v. Bd. of 
Equalization, 813 P.2d 214, 219-20 (Wyo. 
1991) (Thomas, J.)

NL Industries, Inc. v. 
Dill, 769 P.2d 920, 
926 (Wyo. 
1989) (Urbigkit, J.)

Wyoming 
Mining Ass'n v. State, 748 P.2d 718, 721 (Wyo. 
1988) (Cardine, J.)

Wyoming 
Ins. Dep't v. Avemco Ins. Co., 726 P.2d 507, 510 (Wyo. 
1986) (Macy, J.)

3 In 
Drew v. Beckwith, Quinn & Co., 57 Wyo. 
140, 114 P.2d 98, reh. denied, 
57 Wyo. 140, 115 P.2d 651 (1941), 
Justice Fred H. Blume wrote the majority opinion in which he interpreted a 
statute he had sponsored some thirty years earlier while serving in the state 
senate in 1911. Following that opinion, appellate counsel, in a petition for 
rehearing, argued that it was improper for Justice Blume to interpret a statute 
he had sponsored some years earlier. In the court's denial of the petition for 
rehearing, Justice Blume responded:

The 
writer hereof was unaware of any impropriety in writing the opinion, and unaware 
that he was less qualified to construe the legislative act above mentioned by 
reason of the fact that he sponsored it in the state senate. It is generally 
thought that thorough knowledge of the history of legislation - and sponsoring 
an act could only involve such knowledge - is an aid in the construction 
thereof, rather than a disqualification. Of course, counsel is much too 
complimentary to the writer hereof in thinking that he, after the expiration of 
thirty years, would remember, either the intention of the legislature or his 
own, in connection with the phrase "organized under any law of this state," used 
in the legislative act of 1911. Reference to the writer's connection with that 
act was probably made by reason of the disappointment of counsel in the result 
of the case. And such disappointment is natural. Yet the members of the bar well 
know that the lot of lawyers is, unfortunately, in the nature of things, one of 
frequent disappointment. But in that connection they should remember that it 
gives no pleasure to the court to be the cause thereof. An opinion in cold type 
may seem to come from a bloodless heart, when in fact it found birth only after 
much travail.

Drew, 57 Wyo. at 
170-71, 115 P.2d  at 651-52.

4 Accord, Ardestani v. 
I.N.S., 502 U.S. ___, ___, 112 S. Ct. 515, 520, 116 L. Ed. 2d 496 (1991); 
Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 
242, 105 S. Ct. 3142, 3147, 87 L. Ed. 2d 171, 179 (1985).

5 
William N. Eskridge, Jr., The New Textualism, 37 UCLA L.Rev. 621, 624 
(1990).

6 Slaughter of diseased 
animals; owner's claims.

(a) 
All claims against the state arising from the slaughter of animals, together 
with the order of the veterinarian, shall be submitted to the state auditor who 
shall examine them without unnecessary delay. For each claim he finds to be 
equitable and entitled to indemnity under this chapter the auditor shall issue 
his warrant on the state treasurer for the sum named in the claim. All claims 
for indemnity arising under the provisions of this chapter, before they are 
presented for payment to the auditor, shall be submitted to the state 
veterinarian who shall fully inform himself of the facts connected with each 
claim. The state veterinarian shall endorse on each claim his approval or 
rejection and shall express in such endorsement the reasons for his approval or 
rejection.

(b) 
If the state veterinarian rejects a claim it and the reasons for rejection shall 
be submitted to a board of arbitration consisting of three (3) members selected 
as follows:

(i) 
The state veterinarian shall select one (1) stock grower who is a resident of 
the county where the slaughtered animal for which the claim is made 
ranged;

(ii) 
The claimant shall select one (1) stock grower who is a resident of the same 
county; and

(iii) These two (2) shall choose the third member from 
among the stock growers of the same county.

(c) 
The indemnity granted shall be that amount fixed by the state board of 
equalization each year for assessment of livestock. It shall be paid to the 
owner upon his application and presentation of proofs prescribed herein within 
six (6) months of the date of slaughter for which payment is claimed. The claim 
shall be barred if not presented within the time limited.

(d) 
Payments shall be made by the state treasurer from funds appropriated as 
provided by W.S. 11-19-109. The right to indemnity is limited to animals 
destroyed by reason of existence or suspected existence of some epizootic form 
of infectious or contagious diseases, generally fatal or incurable.

(e) 
There is no right to indemnity and payment in the following cases:

(i) 
For animals belonging to the United States;

(ii) 
For animals that are brought into the state contrary to the laws of this state 
or the governor's import proclamation;

(iii) For animals found to be diseased upon arrival or that 
were exposed to the disease prior to their arrival in the state under 
circumstances whereby the Wyoming 
owner knew or should have known of such conditions;

(iv) 
When an animal was previously affected by any other disease which from its 
nature and development was incurable and necessarily fatal;

(v) 
When the owner or person in charge has knowingly or negligently omitted to 
comply with W.S. 11-19-104 or 11-19-105; or

(vi) 
When the owner or claimant at the time of coming in possession of the animal 
knew it to be diseased or received the notice specified in W.S. 
11-19-110.

Note 
that subsection (c) was amended in 1991.

7 
John M. Kernochan, Statutory Interpretation: An Outline of Method, 3 Dalhousie 
L.J. 333, 343 (1976).

8 
More recently we used this method in Belle Fourche Pipeline Co. v. State, 766 P.2d 537, 544-49 (1988).

9 
T.A. LARSON, HISTORY OF WYOMING, at 
7 (1965).

10 
Id.

11 
Id.

12 
Id.

13 
Id. at 
8.

14 
Id.

15 
Id.

16 
Id.

17 
James P. Blaisdell, A History of the Conservation Effort in Wyoming and the 
Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to 1950, pp. 1-8 (June 1964) (unpublished 
Master's thesis, University of Wyoming).

18 
Id. at 
4.

19 
Id.

20 
Id.

21 Id. at 7.

22 Id. at 1-8.

23 Id.

24 Id. at 13.

25 Larson, supra note 9, at 163.

26 Id.

27 Id. at 164.

28 
Id.

29 Id.

30 
Id. at 164-65.

31 Blaisdell, supra note 17, at 9-11.

32 Larson, supra note 9, at 36 et seq.

33 Id. at 15-16.

34 Id. at 39.

35 Id.

36 Id. at 41-42.

37 Blaisdell, supra, note 17, at 13.

38 Id. at 14.

39 Ch. 59, Compiled Laws of Wyoming 1869; Blaisdell, supra 
note 17, at 22.

40 Larson, supra note 9, at 165.

41 Id. at 106.

42 Id. at 166.

43 Blaisdell, supra, note 17, at 14-15, 18-21.

44 Id. at 18.

45 Id.

46 See generally, 1882 Wyo. Sess. Laws, 7th Legislative 
Session, ch. 49; 1884 Wyo. Sess. Laws, 8th Legislative Session, ch. 45; Wyo. 
Stat. §§ 1233-1237 title 14 (Fish) and title 16 §§ 1455-1459 (Game) (1887); Wyo. 
Sess. Laws 1886, ch. 109, § 1; and NEAL BLAIR, THE HISTORY OF WILDLIFE 
MANAGEMENT IN WYOMING, at 15-27 (1987).

47 Larson, supra note 9, at 166.

48 Id. at 167.

49 Id.

50 LEWIS L. GOULD, WYOMING: FROM TERRITORY TO 
STATEHOOD, at 62-63 (1984); see generally, Larson supra note 9, at 163-94.

51 AGNES WRIGHT SPRING, SEVENTY YEARS: A PANORAMIC 
HISTORY OF THE WYOMING STOCK GROWER'S ASSOCIATION, at 20-28 (1942).

52 1882 Wyo. Sess. Laws, ch. 41, § 10.

53 
Id. § 
12.

54 Id. § 13.

55 
Id.

56 Larson, supra note 9, at 243, and MARIE H. ERWIN, WYOMING 
HISTORICAL BLUE BOOK, at 168, 638, 640, 643, 644, 645, 647, 922, 938, and 939 
(1946). The fifteen were George W. Baxter, Henry G. Hay, William C. Irvine, 
Caleb P. Organ, Charles W. Holden, Alexander L. Sutherland, Jonathan Jones, 
Hubert E. Teschemacher, Charles L. Vagner, Robert C. Butler, Charles W. Burdick, 
DeForest Richards, Meyer Frank, George Ferris, and John McGill.

57 Larson, supra, 
note 9, at 244.

58 Legislature to 
provide for protection of livestock and stock owners. - The legislature shall 
pass all necessary laws to provide for the protection of livestock against the 
introduction or spread of pleuro-pneumonia, glanders, splenetic or 
Texas fever, and 
other infectious or contagious diseases. The legislature shall also establish a 
system of quarantine, or inspection, and such other regulations as may be 
necessary for the protection of stock owners, and most conducive to the stock 
interests within the state.

59 Blaisdell, supra note 17, at 29-75.

60 Id. at 29-30.

61 Id. at 30.

62 
Id. at 
31.

63 Id.

64 Id.

65 Id.

66 Id. at 32.

67 Id. at 33.

68 Id.

69 Id. at 34.

70 Id.

71 
Id. at 40.

72 Id.

73 We may take notice of official state reports: 
Washakie Co. Sch. Dist. No. One v. Herschler, 606 P.2d 310, 
322 n. 16 and accompanying text (Wyo. 1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 824, 101 S. Ct. 86, 66 L. Ed. 2d 28.

74 STATE OF WYOMING ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE GAME 
WARDEN TO THE GOVERNOR OF WYOMING 1903, at 5 (Wyoming State Library, Documents 
Division).

75 Id.

76 Blaisdell, supra note 17, at 38.

77 Id. at 43.

78 Id. at 43-44.

79 
Id. at 
45.

80 Id.

81 
Id.

82 State of Wyoming, BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE STATE 
GAME WARDEN OF WYOMING 1913-14, at 14 
(Wyoming State Library, Documents 
Division).

83 State of Wyoming, ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE 
GAME WARDEN 1915, at 4 (WyomingState Library, Documents 
Division).

84 Id. at 6.

85 Id. at 35.

86 State of Wyoming, ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE 
GAME WARDEN 1916, at 8 (Wyoming State Library, Documents 
Division).

87 State of Wyoming, BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE STATE GAME WARDEN 
OF THE STATE OF WYOMING 1919-1920, at 7 (Wyoming State Library, Documents 
Division).

88 Id. at 8-9.

89 Id.

90 Blair, supra 
note 46, at 57.

91 Id.

92 Id.

93 Id.

94 State of Wyoming, BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE STATE GAME 
AND FISH COMMISSIONER OF THE STATE OF WYOMING 1921-1922, at 8 (Wyoming State 
Library, Documents Division).

95 Id. at 29.

96 State of Wyoming, BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE STATE GAME 
AND FISH COMMISSIONER OF THE STATE OF WYOMING 1923-1924, at 9 (Wyoming State 
Library, Documents Division).

97 Id.

98 Id. at 10.

99 Id. at 11.

100 Id.

101 Id. at 14.

102 Id.

103 Id.

104 1925 Wyo. Sess. Laws, ch. 90, § 1.

105 1927 
Wyo. Sess. Laws, 
ch. 107, § 21.

106 State of Wyoming, BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE STATE GAME AND 
FISH COMMISSIONER OF THE STATE OF WYOMING 1927-1928, at 11-12 (Wyoming State 
Library, Documents Division).

107 Id. at 13.

108 Id.

109 Id. at 14.

110 Id. at 15.

111 Id. at 17.

112 Id. at 17-21.

113 Id.

114 Id. at 19.

115 State of Wyoming, BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE STATE GAME 
AND FISH COMMISSIONER OF THE STATE OF WYOMING 1929-1930 (Wyoming State Library, 
Documents Division).

116 Id. at 23.

117 
Id.

118 Id.

119 Id. at 23-24.

120 Parker's exhibits 16 and 49; Game and Fish exhibits 2, 5, 
6, and 7.

121 Game and Fish exhibit 2: Scott M. McCorquodale and 
Ronald F. DiGiacomo, The Role of Wild North American Ungulates in the 
Epidemiology of Bovine Brucellosis: A Review, 21 JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASE, at 
351 (1985).

122 Id. at 355.

123 Thorne testimony, vol. III, p. 66.

124 Game and Fish exhibit 5: Tom Thorne, Fighting Brucellosis 
in Wyoming Elk - A Shot in the Arm, XLX WYOMING WILDLIFE, at 15 (September, 
1985).

125 Id. Game and Fish exhibits 6 and 7, Parker's 
exhibits 16, 49, and 51.

126 State of Wyoming, Wyoming State Game and Fish 
Department, Project No. FW-3-R-22, BRUCELLOSIS TRANSMISSION BETWEEN ELK AND 
DOMESTIC CATTLE, at 1923 (June 30, 1976) (WyomingState Library, 
Documents Division).

127 Parker's exhibit 49: E.T. Thorne, Jamie K. Morton, 
and Winthrop C. Ray, Brucellosis, Its Effect and Impact on Elk in Western 
Wyoming, in NORTH AMERICAN ELK: ECOLOGY, BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT, at 216 (1979, 
M.S. Boyce and L.D. Hayden-Wing, eds.).

128 Parker's exhibit 16, Brucellosis Control Strategic Plan 
(Draft 1990) at 2.

129 Thorne's testimony, supra note 123, at 69.

130 RUE JENSEN AND DONALD R. MACKEY, DISEASES OF 
FEEDLOT CATTLE, at 95-101 (1971).

131 Blair, supra note 46, at 71.

132 Biennial 
Report, supra note 115, at 12-15.

133 Id. at 13.

134 Id. at 15.

135 Id. at 28.

136 Blair, supra note 46, at 73.

137 Id.

138 Id.

139 
Id. at 
108.

140 Id. at 127.

141 Id. at 128.

142 Id. at 130.

143 Id.

144 State of 
Wyoming, REPORT TO THE 
WYOMING GAME AND FISH 
COMMISSION BY IRA N. GABRIELSON, at 31-33 (March 1952) (Wyoming 
State Library, 
Documents Division).

145 Id. at 31.

146 New York Trust 
Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S. Ct. 506, 507, 65 L. Ed. 963 (1921).

Footnote for the 
Appendix

1 Maffei has been 
partially overruled by Collins v. Memorial Hospital of Sheridan County, 
521 P.2d 1339 
(Wyo. 1974), but only insofar as it holds that the purchase of liability 
insurance is not a waiver of tort immunity, a question not involved in the 
proceeding.

Footnotes for the 
Dissent

1 
Wyo. 
Const. art. 1, § 33 states that "[p]rivate property shall not be taken or 
damaged for public or private use without just compensation."

2 The 
amicus brief filed in behalf of the Mountain States Legal Foundation and the 
Wyoming Stock Grower's Association appropriately recognizes that the Stock 
Grower's Association represents 1,500 ranchers, which are a vitally important 
economic interest for the economy of Wyoming.

3             
"Wildlife" means all wild mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, 
reptiles, crustaceans and mollusks, and wild bison designated by the 
Wyoming 
game and fish commission and the Wyoming 
livestock board within Wyoming.

Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-101(a)(xiii).

(a) 
The commission is directed and empowered:

(i) 
To fix season and bag limits, open, shorten or close seasons on any species or 
sex of wildlife for any type of legal weapon, except predatory animals, 
predacious birds, protected animals, and protected birds, in any specified 
locality of Wyoming, and to give notice thereof;

(ii) 
To establish zones and areas in which trophy game animals may be taken as game 
animals with a license or in the same manner as predatory animals without a 
license, giving proper regard to the livestock and game industries in those 
particular areas[.]

Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-1-302(a)(i) and (ii).

(a) 
Any person who will be fourteen (14) years of age or older prior to September 15 
of the season for which the wild bison license is issued and who qualifies under 
W.S. 23-2-106 may apply to the department for a wild bison license.

(b) 
A resident applicant shall pay a license fee of two hundred twenty dollars 
($220.00). A nonresident applicant shall pay a license fee of one thousand three 
hundred fifty dollars ($1,350.00) and shall pay the fee required by W.S. 
23-2-101(e).

(c) 
The commission shall promulgate reasonable rules and regulations regulating wild 
bison licenses and the management of wild bison.

Wyo. 
Stat. § 23-2-107.

A 
bison (buffalo) is a mammal. A wild bison is a wild mammal and also a 
state-owned wild animal. Generic recognition of the state ownership was first 
found in 1973 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws ch. 249, where wildlife was defined as all wild animals. The more 
specific terminology was added in 1979 Wyo. 
Sess. Laws ch. 140, where wildlife was defined, inter alia, as "all wild 
mammals." The wild bison hunting statute, which provided for licensing to hunt 
this state animal by conversion into an available game animal for hunting, came 
with 1989 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 23, which added these buffalo (wild bison) as a 
licensed object for the Wyoming hunting experience. With creation of the wild 
bison hunting license, contribution from each issued license provides revenue 
for the game damage fund.

This 
new hunting prospect does not come cheaply with a resident's license fee of $220 
and a nonresident's license fee of $1,350. Obtainable within a lottery licensing 
process, only the mountain goat licensing fee of $1,500, effective January 1, 
1991, is more expensive, with grizzly bears and mountain sheep (if any licenses 
are issued) equal in license fee cost.