Wyoming considers slight change to law allowing wolves to be killed with vehicles
CHEYENNE, Wyo.– Outrage at how a man hit a wolf snowmobiling the injured animal’s mouth shut and taking it to a bar has resulted in a proposal to change Wyoming’s animal cruelty law to apply to people who legally kill wolves by deliberately running them over.
Below draft legislation Brought to a legislative committee Monday, people can still deliberately run over wolves, but only if the animal is killed quickly, either upon impact or shortly afterwards.
Wyoming’s animal cruelty law is currently written in such a way that it does not apply to predators like wolves at all. The proposed change would require anyone who strikes a wolf that survives to immediately make “all reasonable efforts” to kill it.
The bill does not specify how a surviving wolf should be killed after it has been deliberately attacked.
The fate of the wolf that struck Western Wyoming last winter has led to a new look at state policy toward wolves. Wildlife advocates have pushed back against the ranch state’s reluctance to change laws created after long negotiations to lift federal protections for the species.
Although further changes to the bill are in the works, the proposal up for discussion Monday wouldn’t change much, said Kristin Combs, executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates.
“Everyone is against the torture of animals. There’s no one I’ve met yet who has said, ‘Yes, I want to keep doing that,’” Combs said Friday.
The wolf, which was caught on camera seen on the floor of a bar in Sublette County, sparked calls to boycott Wyoming’s $4.8 billion-a-year tourism industry, which focuses on Yellowstone national parks and Grand Teton, which provide important wolf habitat not far from where the wolf lives. was hit.
The organization has had little effect, and Yellowstone is on track for one of the plans busiest summer seasons registered.
Meanwhile, the man who hit the wolf — and killed it after showing it off — paid a $250 fine for illegal possession of wildlife but faced no more serious charges.
Investigators in Sublette County say their investigation into the wolf incident has stalled because witnesses refuse to talk. County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich said by email Friday that the case was still under investigation and that he could not comment on its details.
The bill being debated Monday would allow someone who intentionally hits a wolf with a vehicle to be charged with animal cruelty if the wolf survives and he doesn’t kill it right away.
How often wolves in Wyoming are deliberately run over – for a quick death or otherwise – is unknown. Such killings are not required to be reported and recorded cases like the Sublette County incident are rare.
The case brought new attention to Wyoming’s wolf killing policy, which is the least restrictive of all the states where the animals roam. Wolves kill sheep, cattle and game, making them unpopular in the rural country of farmers and hunters.
Across the region, state laws are trying to keep the predators at bay of proliferation from the mountainous Yellowstone ecosystem to other areas where ranchers run cattle and sheep.
In most of the US, wolves are federally protected as an endangered species, but not in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, where they are protected. hunted and captured under state laws and regulations. In Wyoming, wolves can be killed without restriction in 85% of the state outside the Yellowstone region.
While few in Wyoming have spoken out in favor of what happened to the wolf, officials are reluctant to change the law to discourage abuse. Jim Magagna of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association condemned what happened, but called it an isolated incident not related to the state’s wolf management laws.