On February twenty eighth of this 12 months–simply 26 days after the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service denied grey wolves protections–Cody Roberts of Daniel Wyoming tortured and killed a feminine yearling grey wolf after working her down with a snowmobile and taping her mouth shut.
This abhorrent act of cruelty can not develop into regular or acceptable. The wildlife that you simply and I battle for daily face sufficient threats from habitat loss, local weather change, and over consumption by lawful hunters. Torture can’t be added to that already-grave record.
Share this story to construct stress on decision-makers to behave.
Whereas this disgusting motion possible shocks you as a lot because it does me, Mr. Roberts is presently dealing with a mere $250 fantastic for possessing a dwell wild animal. To place a fantastic level on that: working a wolf to exhaustion with a snowmobile and incapacitating her, taping her mouth shut, parading the still-live wolf round a bar, and at last killing and skinning her don’t violate state regulation. Solely the possession of the dwell animal is a low-level infraction.
Wyoming’s Governor,1 the native sheriff,2 the Director of the state’s fish and wildlife company, and former U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) Director Dan Ashe3 have issued statements condemning this brutal assault. However to this point, the present Director of the USFWS, Martha Williams, and her boss, Secretary of the Inside Deb Haaland, have had no remark.
The USFWS may have prevented this. We labored for greater than two years to arrange help for the safety of grey wolves in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana below the Endangered Species Act.4 Scientists, authorized specialists, activists, biologists, and Tribal representatives advocated to Secretary Haaland and Director Williams in help of safety.
And let’s be clear: Wyoming’s designated “predator zone,” 85 p.c of the state the place wolves may be shot on sight (with out even a looking license,) ought to by no means have been accepted by the USFWS as a suitable wolf administration plan. Such a classification sends a message to the general public that state wildlife officers think about wolves a pest and permits the kind of horrific therapy of wolves that we witnessed final week.
As I wrote above, their resolution to disclaim these essential safeguards preceded this act of cowardly torture by simply 26 days. I have no idea if Mr. Roberts felt empowered by the USFWS deciding that these wolves didn’t warrant safety–however I do know that the company may have acted earlier than it and it may certainly act now.
We might be in contact quickly with further actions that we will all take to guard wolves within the Northern Rockies and Colorado from related acts of torture.
Thanks on your dedication to wildlife and wild locations.
Sincerely,
Susan Holmes
Government Director
Endangered Species Coalition
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1. https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/04/08/gov-gordon-joins-outrage-over-torment-of-wyoming-wolf/
2. https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/natural-resources-energy/2024-04-08/wolfs-capture-alleged-abuse-by-wyoming-man-condemned-highlights-legal-limitations
3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/10/wyoming-wolf-bar-animal-abuse
4. https://www.endangered.org/statement-of-endangered-species-coalition-on-todays-announcement-by-the-u-s-fish-and-wildlife-service-to-deny-federal-protections-to-gray-wolves-in-the-northern-rockies/
