Yak bills roam Wyoming house

At the request of local commissioners and ranchers, the state legislature has entered the fray in the Johnson County Yak War. The House Agriculture Committee has introduced three bills aimed at controlling yaks-at-large. House Bill 57 would give the state authority to declare feral livestock a nuisance and charge owners for the cost of herding and transporting the animals. House Bill 58, which was defeated in committee, would have allowed county commissions to declare feral livestock a public nuisance and impose fines accordingly. And House Bill 173, which is scheduled for hearing Thursday in the agriculture committee, would amend state statute to read that nuisance animals shall include “a dog, cat or yak.” At the heart of the issue are a herd of wooly Asian bovines that seemingly don’t know how to stay home. The herd, owned by John and Laura DeMatteis of Yak Daddy Ranch, has irked neighbors and led them to seek legal relief from just about every angle and from entities ranging from the Johnson County Board of Commissioners to the state Stockgrowers Association, the state Livestock Board and now the state legislature. The problem started last April when three Johnson County ranchers first approached the county seeking relief from the Yak Daddy Ranch yaks that they claimed repeatedly crashed through fences and into neighboring pastures, eating up precious grass and posing the threat of impregnating cows...more