Editor:
Thank you for publishing the photograph on Saturday of this Cody Roberts with the wolf that he ran down (using only a snowmachine), then trotted out for his buddies at the bar. Shining a light on this sickening story is a public service.
The next day, your Sunday edition reported that Rob Wallace (interviewed for “The Roundup”) said, “... in no way do I believe that this represents who we are as a state.” Given the reactions I’ve read in Cowboy State Daily and elsewhere, I also believe that: the state’s wildlife lovers and decent hunters are, personally, outraged and sickened. As a long-time Wyomingite and hunter, these are the individual reactions that I expect, and am proud of.
Unfortunately, Wyoming’s laws don’t express our personal outrage. Apparently, the only applicable state law carries a $250 fine. Any lout who will do what Cody Roberts did will gladly pay $250 for the bragging rights it buys him. Years of telling the story and showing the photos in the bar are well worth $250. That’s partly why we’re outraged.
But there’s more. Under Wyoming law, had Cody Roberts left that wolf to die after running it down, or gut-shooting it, or doing anything else to it that he could have thought up, he’d have been OK. He could have taken photos or video-recorded the whole sorry event to prove his manhood to the world, and driven away without having committed a crime. That’s at least as great an outrage, and as sickening, as his showing the wounded wolf around.
It’s frustrating that our personal outrage won’t discourage louts like Cody Roberts. But they don’t give a rip about our outrage. What matters to them is how their actions play at the bar with their drinking buddies and fellow braggarts.
If anything matters to them, it will be a law backed by a stiff penalty. Wyoming has a law against animal cruelty, but it applies only to domestic animals. According to our laws, it’s OK in Wyoming to treat predators cruelly. So the Cody Roberts types can run down wolves or coyotes and share around their photos, and decent Wyomingites can express their outrage, and the louts can grin, and that’s the end of it.
As an elk and pronghorn hunter, I understand that hunter groups are reluctant to extend animal-cruelty law to non-domestic animals, for fear that anti-hunting groups will use it to harass ethical hunters. At the same time, I firmly believe it’s wrong that our laws permit louts to treat living animals this way. We can, I’m confident, come up with a law that prevents this outrage while protecting ethical hunting. We can work for this with fellow hunters, and non-hunters, and our legislators, so that our laws represent the same sort of Wyoming as our personal outrage does. If this is worth our being outraged over, then let’s change our laws.
Sincerely,
George Jones, Laramie
