Animal cruelty and protection laws are often notoriously selective. Who we protect and why often says more about humans’ relationship to animals than what the animals need or deserve. In Wyoming, a man who tortured a wolf is not responsible because Wyoming’s animal cruelty laws don’t protect predatory animals.

Wyoming’s animal cruelty laws only apply to domestic animals and pets, not “predatory animals.” Animal cruelty charges and penalties can’t protect these animals from the “the hunting, capture or destruction of any predatory animal or other wildlife in any manner not otherwise prohibited by law.”

What allegedly happened to the wolf in Sublette county is something that many people would view as the work of a sociopath or budding serial killer. The torture was calculated. The wolf was tortured for an extended period, and there was humiliation involved. The wolf was allegedly run down by Cody Roberts in a snowmobile, humiliated and displayed at a local bar while disabled, and then shot at the same bar. This prolonged injury, torture and death is something that would be considered unconscionable if it happened to a human. The violence is shielded however, by the acceptance of hunting animals, and protected by outdated laws.

An investigation into animal cruelty surrounding the incident is now underway, but the County Prosecutor has said that according to Wyoming Law it is legal to hunt a predatory animal by running it down in a snowmobile or another vehicle. The investigation will determine whether, legally, animal cruelty has taken place.

Before the public outcry drew attention to the incident, Cody Roberts received nothing more than a 250 dollar fine for the possession of live wildlife.

Grey wolves in Wyoming lost federal protection in 2012 and 2017 and animal rights groups are now suing the United States Federal Wildlife Services to restore protections for wolves in the state. The status of predators or dangerous animals in the human pantheon of wildlife we deem worth protecting is often low. We view these animals as historic enemies, or a threat to livestock and economic productivity, or merely existing to be hunted for sport. Wolves are individuals who relate to each other in a highly social manner and have histories and relationships that can last years. All beings are deserving of protection. The mythology of wolves is maintained from a violent human centered perspective that  must be transformed through education, activism and compassion.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/04/04/wyoming-animal-cruelty-laws-dont-apply-to-alleged-wolf-torment-case/

Until Wildlife Services agreed to “cut back” on killings of wild animals in Montana, it might not have been visible to most Montanans that thousands of animals were being killed in Montana every year. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, Wildlife Services killed 7,965 coyotes, 46 wolves, one grizzly bear and other species in Montana. Until the settlement with WildEarth Guardians required Wildlife Services to stop exploding sodium cyanide bombs on certain tracts of public and private land, Wildlife Services’s explosion of bombs to destroy animal habitats wasn’t a subject of discussion.

The massacre taking place under our fingertips is still taking place, only at reduced levels. Wildlife Services is an anachronistic name for a violent agency that mostly appears to protect the interests of big farmers and ranchers. Public understanding of these agencies is that they restore balance in livestock predator conflicts and to human/animal interactions. Yet the activity that most undermines balance is protected by Wildlife Services: the livestock industry that endangers the planet through climate change and pollution. The whole system is one in which countless numbers of animals (including cattle) die to feed a machine that requires more killing to perpetuate its existence. By definition any system running on this level of destruction is not sustainable.

WildEarth Guardians have won a battle that requires the Wildlife Services to turn to science to justify their killings; they are now required to review the killings based on updated reports rather than carry them out wantonly. Unfortunately, it has not won the war. Winning the war is only possible when human groups participate in protecting an environment shared with non-human creatures equally.

Read more:
https://montanafreepress.org/2020/05/14/wildlife-services-to-cut-back-killings-pending-environmental-review/