Seeking to make the department’s position clear, the Wyoming Game and Fish director and commission chair expressed their strong support for the Wyoming State Shooting Complex project south of Cody.

At a meeting of the complex’s joint powers board on Thursday, Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce apologized to the board for some staff sending a different message. She was apparently alluding to a recent story by WyoFile, which noted the department had raised some concern about the complex’s potential impact on wildlife last year, when a state task force was deciding between the site outside Cody and another near Gillette.

WyoFile obtained an internal memo composed by the department’s habitat protection supervisor that suggested portions of the 2,000-acre complex should be moved outside of core sage grouse habitat and crucial mule deer range. However, the department told WyoFile the document wasn’t a formal comment.

“We all know that there’s been some miscommunication, or maybe some department staff sending a different message, and I just want to apologize for that,” Bruce told the complex board on Thursday. “Definitely, like I said, we’re 100% supportive, and I want to show that in any way, shape or form that we can and that you feel would be helpful.”

She said the project plays right into the department’s efforts to recruit and retain new hunters.

“It’s a great opportunity for Wyoming, but also for the department,” Bruce said.

Commission Chair Ashlee Lundvall of Powell seconded that sentiment, adding that the transparency of the process has been helpful.

Board chair Glenn Ross noted Game and Fish has been involved in the shooting complex process from the beginning; before a legislative budget fight forced a shakeup, the initial plan had been for $2.5 million of the state’s $10 million investment in the complex to come from Game and Fish.

Fellow board member James Klessens added that the local group that pushed to bring the complex to Park County took the department’s advice when picking a site, as they’d initially looked at an area along Skull Creek, north of Cody. 

“We had a lot of support for doing a site north of town, and we backed off of that site because of wildlife issues,” Klessens said. “We felt we were going to be crossing into an area that was a little bit of a challenge, and so we pulled our proposal and regrouped at the site that we’re at. So wildlife has been at the forefront of our planning and conceptualization of this project from the outset.”

Bruce made of point of saying that the department supports the chosen site, which sits about 7 miles south of Cody and west of Wyo. Highway 120. 

“I'm actually excited for this location,” Bruce said, adding that when she thinks of a shooting competition, there’s no place she’d rather go.

“I think it will draw a great crowd, and we'd like to be a part of that, because I think there's a lot of messaging that we can do to those out of staters who come to visit, and just how we do things right in Wyoming and how we manage wildlife,” she said. “So I see endless possibilities of how the department can continue to work with the complex as it moves into operational space.”

Once the range is finished — scheduled for sometime in the fall of 2026 — Bruce said she wants to have her local staff work with the complex for some of the department’s existing programs, especially in regards to new shooters.

“It will be a state-of-the-art facility that we’ll want to use for recruiting young children to adult, all ages to continue to be engaged in shooting sports, which we do know in our research shows, is one of the first steps to making hunters out there on the landscape,” Bruce said. “And so we’re definitely excited about this.”