State rules · Wyoming
Wyoming
Private ranches supply the trade; state trust land needs a permit, and only the Exclusive Commercial permit allows resale.
Some rules in this article could not be confirmed against a primary source at the as-of date. Verify locally before relying on them.
Wyoming's dinosaur, Green River fish and Eocene mammal material comes from private land — the landowner owns the fossils and sets the terms — and from commercial quarries at Kemmerer that sell digging by the day. Almost half the state is federal, so the checkerboard problem is acute: confirm ownership before you dig, especially around Fossil Butte (a National Monument, closed) and in the Bighorn and Powder River basins.
State trust lands (the blue sections on the map, managed by the Office of State Lands and Investments) require a fossil permit. OSLI issues two kinds: an Exclusive Commercial Fossil Removal Permit for anyone who intends to collect for resale, awarded by solicitation on a defined tract, and a Non-Exclusive Scientific Fossil Removal Permit for research, display and education, under which specimens stay on loan from the State and may not leave Wyoming without written approval. Casual hobby collecting on trust land is not one of the permit categories; treat trust land as closed without paperwork.
The Green River Formation quarries around Kemmerer (Warfield, American Fossil, Fossil Safari and others) are on private land; fish collected there under the quarry's terms are yours to keep and sell, and the quarry's receipt is the provenance document. Wyoming State Parks prohibit collecting.
Verify locally: OSLI's fee schedule and the current Chapter 11 rules before applying; the office's contact is on the permit page.
Sources
Cite this article
Stratum Study. "Wyoming" (Law & ethics). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16. https://stratum.black/study/law/us-wyoming. Accessed 2026-09-20.
@misc{stratum-us-wyoming,
title = {Wyoming},
author = {{Stratum Study}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/law/us-wyoming}},
year = {2026},
note = {Law & ethics article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.