Cheyenne, Wyo. — Outrage over a man hitting a wolf with a snowmobile, duct-taping the injured animal’s mouth before taking it to a bar has led to a proposal to amend Wyoming’s animal cruelty law to apply to people who intentionally run over and legally kill wolves. .
People would still be able to intentionally maul wolves, but only if the wolves are shocked or die quickly after being shocked, according to a draft bill tabled in a legislative committee Monday.
Wyoming’s animal cruelty laws are currently written to not apply at all to predators like wolves. The proposed changes would require anyone striking a surviving wolf to immediately use “all reasonable efforts” to kill the wolf.
The bill does not specify how surviving wolves should be killed after an intentional attack.
The fate of wolves in western Wyoming last winter has prompted a new look at the state’s policy toward wolves. Wildlife advocates have pushed back against ranchers’ reluctance to change laws enacted after lengthy negotiations to eliminate federal protections for wildlife.
Additional changes to the draft bill may be in the works, but the proposals discussed Monday are unlikely to change significantly, said Kristin Combs, executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates.
“Everyone is against torturing animals. “No one I’ve ever met has said, ‘Yes, I’d like to keep doing that,’” Combs said Friday.
A wolf captured on camera lies on the bottom of a bar in Sublette County, Wyoming’s $4.8 billion annual tourism industry centered around Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, which comprise prime wolf habitat not far from where the wolves live. sparked calls for a boycott. It was right.
The organizing has had little effect and Yellowstone is well on its way to one of its busiest summer seasons on record.
Meanwhile, a man who killed a wolf after beating and bragging about it paid a $250 fine for illegal possession of a wild animal but did not face more serious charges.
Investigators in Sublette County said the investigation into the wolf incident was halted because witnesses refused to talk. County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich said in an email Friday that the case is still under investigation and he could not comment on further details.
A draft bill to be discussed Monday would allow anyone who intentionally hits a wolf with a vehicle to be charged with felony animal cruelty if the wolf survives and is not killed immediately.
It is not known how often wolves are intentionally run over in Wyoming, either for quick death or for other purposes. Such murders do not need to be reported, and there are few recorded cases like the Sublette County case.
The incident brought new attention to Wyoming’s policy on killing wolves, which is the least restrictive of the states where the animals roam. Wolves kill sheep, cattle, and game animals, making them unpopular throughout rural areas where ranchers and hunters live.
State laws throughout the region are trying to prevent predators from spreading out of the mountainous Yellowstone ecosystem and into other areas where ranchers raise cattle and sheep.
In most of the United States, wolves are federally protected as an endangered species, but not in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, where they are hunted and trapped under state laws and regulations. In Wyoming, wolves can be killed without restrictions in 85% of the state, excluding the Yellowstone region.
Few people in Wyoming have spoken out in defense of what happened to the wolves, but officials have been reluctant to change the law to stop abuse. Jim Magagna of the Wyoming Cattle Growers Association condemned the incident but said it was an isolated incident unrelated to the state’s wolf management laws.
