16 U.S.C. § 673
Section 673 · Wyoming Elk Reserve
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Defenders of Wildlife v. Salazar (2011)
Most recently applied in 177 F. Supp. 3d 91 - Sierra Club v. Jewell (March 2016)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
There is established a winter game (elk) reserve in the State of Wyoming, which shall be located in that section of Wyoming lying south of the Yellowstone Park, and shall include not less than two thousand acres in township 41 north, ranges 115 and 116 west, and the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to purchase said lands with improvements, to erect necessary buildings and inclosures, and to incur other expenses necessary for the maintenance of the reserve. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to include in said refuge and to inclose not more than one thousand acres of unoccupied public lands, which when selected shall be made to conform to the lines of the public surveys, and shall be adjacent to or partly inclosed by said refuge.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
Section is a combination provision, the first sentence being from act Aug. 10, 1912, and the last from act Mar. 4, 1913.
As originally enacted, the first sentence was in the form of an appropriation for the purposes thereof as was also the second sentence which began with the following words: “For the establishment and maintenance of a winter elk refuge in the State of Wyoming, $5,000, to be available until expended, and the Secretary, etc.”
Res. Feb. 25, 1927, ch. 205, 44 Stat. 1246, authorized the acceptance of title to certain lands in accordance with this section.
Transfer of Functions
Transfer of functions of Secretary of Agriculture to Secretary of the Interior by Reorg. Plan No. II of 1939, see Transfer of Functions note set out under section 671 of this title.