A group of state lawmakers, agency heads and industry and advocacy group lobbyists will meet in coming months to assess laws related to the now infamous capture of a wolf that was kept alive while gravely injured and brought to a Sublette County bar for a local resident’s entertainment.
That incident, which occurred Feb. 29, incited global condemnation and even calls to boycott Wyoming as a tourist destination.
Now it has a real shot at changing state law.
“I’d like to assign a working group to look at a few issues, mainly [an] enhanced penalty for having a live wolf,” Rep. Sandy Newsome (R-Cody) told members of the Wyoming Legislature’s Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee on Wednesday.
The group, she added, could potentially examine statutes related to the public display of a live wild animal.
Newsome, who co-chairs the panel, announced the subcommittee’s membership: It’ll be chaired by Rep. Liz Storer (D-Jackson), who will be joined by Rep. John Winter (R-Thermopolis) and Sens. Fred Baldwin (R-Kemmerer) and Mike Gierau (D-Jackson). Non-lawmaker public officials include Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Brian Nesvik, Wyoming Department of Agriculture Director Doug Miyamoto, and a representative from Gov. Mark Gordon’s office. Two lobbyists will join the subcommittee: Wyoming Stock Growers Association representative Jim Magagna and Wyoming Wildlife Federation representative Jessi Johnson.
Although Newsome noted specific topics for the subcommittee to examine, Storer senses the group isn’t bound to only laws pertaining to wolf possession and public display of wildlife.
“Sandy said to me, ‘Here’s your task,’ and I said, ‘Well, the committee may want to broaden that out,’” Storer told WyoFile. “I think it depends on what the subcommittee members want to do, but obviously the public discussion has been broader, right?”
Storer said that she’s interested in the subcommittee exploring this question: “Are Wyoming statutes adequate to ensure the humane treatment of predators while recognizing the need to address the predation of livestock and other issues related to predator management?”
Daniel resident Cody Roberts admitted to Game and Fish investigators that he took possession of a live wolf by hitting it with a snowmobile, reportedly until it was so injured it could barely stay conscious. (Video of the wolf lying listless on the floor of a local bar lends credence to the allegation.) Past legislative attempts at prohibiting the practice of running over predatory species like coyotes with snowmobiles have failed, but it’s another legal matter the new subcommittee could revisit.
“Is there an appetite to draw the line differently than we do now?” Storer asked. “I’d have to go study the statutes, but if I had to guess, the exemptions for predators probably predate the manufacture of snowmachines.”
Retired Laramie veterinarian Donal O’Toole testified about “motorized harassment of native predators” to the committee during the Tuesday portion of its meeting.
“We have a statewide problem of recreational abuse of wildlife — they just happen to be predators,” O’Toole said. “The truth is it’s not that difficult an issue. It just takes one or two lines to amend our animal cruelty statutes. All you need to do is to write that purposeful harassing, torturing and killing predators by motorized vehicles is illegal in this state.”
Nesvik, the Game and Fish director, updated the committee on Wyoming wolf issues. During that discussion Tuesday he touched on the Sublette County incident, suggesting that there was no need to quickly change the law.
“There’s not an urgent crisis to make a change tomorrow,” Nesvik said.
Comments from Nesvik and others who testified about acting fast in response to the Daniel wolf incident were shaped by a Gov. Mark Gordon-assembled stakeholder group charged with devising a response to the Sublette County wolf incident, according to reporting in the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Members of that stakeholder group and the new legislative subcommittee partially overlap: Nesvik, Magagna, the governor’s office and Wyoming Wildlife Federation are a part of both groups.
Roberts’ illegal possession of a gravely injured live wolf was not publicized for a month, until after it was reported by KHOL Jackson Hole Community Radio. He was cited and fined $250 by a Wyoming Game and Fish Department warden on March 4.
Sublette County prosecuting attorneys, who were not informed of the incident until after it blew up in the news, disagree with Game and Fish about whether species classified as predators are covered by animal cruelty statutes.
“It’s an active investigation that’s ongoing and charges are possible,” Sublette County Prosecuting Attorney Clayton Melinkovich told WyoFile on Wednesday.
Newsome initially announced a “working group,” but it was changed to a formal legislative subcommittee at Rep. Don Burkhart’s (R-Rawlins) urging. That’ll bring transparency to the process, because meetings will be noticed and open to the public, Storer said.
The subcommittee is likely to meet once or twice in June, then report its progress to the broader Travel, Recreation and Wildlife Committee at its July 9-10 meeting in Casper. It likely wouldn’t be until September that the committee would work through bills that would be introduced during the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 general session, which begins in January.
The law needs to be changed…what was done to this wolf pup is beyond the grasp of what a “normal” person would do..would you do this to a child, sibling or even a parent? She was tortured, tormented and abused in any possible and for people to think this is the norm..it’s not ☹️would you do this to a animal…sorry, whether domestic or wild, there needs to be some responsible oversight with no conflict of interest and laws need to be changed and individuals punished
This was not predator control ,it was torture over hours .How can this be sanctioned ? Clearly this young wolf suffered for hours .
This sends a powerful message to any one who has compassion and a sense of ‘fairness’ when it comes to hunting .Nothing moral about this .
I have always wanted to visit ,am now retired .My tourist dollars will not be spent there.
YAY for public outcry. Wyoming is right to worry about losing tourism dollars. I know that I won’t be going there until they enforce cruelty laws for all animal species and stop the brutality.
It has been known for a very long time the seemingly total disregard for the safety of the magnificent wildlife that roams the Stare of Wyoming. Advocates are very outnumbered in all of the western states. However the people of Wyoming and especially the governor should be so proud to have such incredible wildlife and care that trophy hunters and just really uninformed citizens kill off the wildlife in great numbers and often in cruel and inhumane ways. The governor himself is quirky of this. I am a wildlife advocate and will do my best to let the cruel decimation of wildlife in Wyoming be known to foreign and US tourists. Especially Yellowstone National Park. I have sent information to various European countries hoping to deter foreign tourists to Yellowstone snd anywhere in the state of Wyoming.
This incident was beyond inhumane and herrendous.with the ridiculous fine given, my family, friends, co-workers have all agreed to cut Wyoming out of any vacation plans. This barbaric cruelty is more than disgusting.
While they are looking for ways to keep the wolves from suffering, could they also find a way to keep the prey that the wolves capture, eat, then kill from suffering also?
I would argue that humans are far more likely to be cruel than wolves or any other predator. After all predators kill to live. Humans kill for fun.
I agree with all commentary. Why should abusing a wild animal be any less punishable than ANY animal that laws are provided for? Most people that I know and talk with (Illinois) have never heard of “whacking” and when I explain they cannot believe it happens and is legal in those states. I think the boycott is coming and those folks in WY, MT, Idaho are forgetting how much money wolves have brought in tourism to their economy from people like me. What happened to “Hope” has not gone unnoticed.
My name is Gary Martin; I feel strongly that the person who committed this heinous act should be punished. $250 in not nearly enough. This points to a person who has no respect for other living beings and it is very offensive. This also points to the Wyoming legislature who have not found it important enough to put laws in place to adequately protect the wildlife in this state. I suspect their sudden interest has to do with the fact that it’s an election year combined with the national outrage associated with this issue. I suggest we start choosing our leadership more carefully and we get the committee, associated with this issue, to more fairly represent the wildlife of this state.
Barbaric behavior left unpunished is permission.
Wyoming likes to think we’re in our own world, but that would be wrong. We are part of the United States of America and now we are labeled as an embarrassment to the rest of the country.
I am not trusting this working group with created sufficient legislation that has teeth to enforce it. There is not one wildlife biologist or wildlife advocate on the Committee. This means that a serious change in perspective that leads to effective strong legislation, enforcement with major fines and/or jail time will not be created. Boycotting visiting or anything to do with Wyoming until this is remedied.
Whatever about Rep. Storer’s legislative committee, the driver here is likely to be Gordon’s ad hoc “stakeholder” committee. We now know its membership, thanks to a public records request by JHN&G’s Billy Arnold. As noted by Mr. Koshmrl, Gordon’s group shares several key members with Rep. Storer’s committee.
The Gordon committee has 15 members. Of these, 5 are ranchers. Another two are directors of the very agencies (WGFD; Dept Ag) which promoted lax regulatory climate toward predators Another is president of a county predator control board; I wonder how he feels about wolves and coyotes. Three are lobbyists for, or a satellite of, the ranching industry,. Another is a former WGFD public information officer. Gordon himself is a gentleman rancher.
Not one independent wolf or coyote biologist. No wildlife rehabber. No animal welfare advocate. No citizen Wyomingite who cares about intact ecosystems. A few stakeholders appear to have been overlooked.
Not hard to figure out how this will play.
Mike, I wish your prediction about reform was true, but if you have studied the people who are on these work groups it’s clear the neither group is reform-minded. Heavy on ranchers, legislators and agricultural groups and not one single wildlife advocacy group, including Wyoming Wildlife Federation, which is closely aligned with wool growers and livestock groups. The Governor’s Task Force is the same. This is by no means a sincere or authentic effort at reform. Maybe the most they will be willing to do is increase the fines for owning a live wolf, which entirely misses the point. They will drag their feet and in the end there will be little, if any, change. I wish the media would push back hard on the makeup of these so-called ‘working groups’ as it is obvious “the fox has been put in charge of constructing the hen house”.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s like the BLM advisory group Made up of ranchers and members of drilling, fracking and mining operations. Truly the fox guarding the henhouse. My apologies to foxes everywhere.
Except for disallowing the capture of a wolf, they need only apply current animal abuse laws to predators and other wildlife. This should cover running into or running over with a snowmobile. Current allowances are a disgrace, especially as heralded by self-proclaimed sportsmen.
Legal reform about the abuse of predators is a first step toward a culture change that values these magnificent animals and their humane treatment. Education of people who believe these animals are “evil” of predators’ value in the eco system, and developing and teaching techniques to manage livestock interactions will shift community values and standards of behavior.
Cody Roberts is a sub contractor for WYGF. He’s one of the good ole boys and in bed with all of them. Let the boycott begin.
The only reason that all these committees are being formed is because Wyoming got caught. To run an animal down with a snowmobile is an obvious lust for torture plain and simple. Let the boycott begin.
Here’s what we know: Fred Eshelman of the infamous corning crossing case is dang glad that animal abuser Cody Roberts unseated him as the most hated man in Wyoming
Derek, you comment about Fred Eshelman being unseated by Cody Roberts as the most hated man in Wyoming is most likely absolutely correct.
It’s amazing how one person can cause so much hate and discontent in an entire state, but some always manage to find a way.
Nothing I could add to your comment. You nailed it!