After a bipartisan coalition of southern congressional representatives introduced a bill to ban running predators down with snowmobiles, Wyoming’s Rep. Harriet Hageman and Sen. Cynthia Lummis said southerners should stay out of the Mountain West’s business.
“With all due respect to my southern colleagues, we do not need members from districts that do not even drive snowmobiles trying to regulate our Western way of life,” Lummis stated in an email from her office to Cowboy State Daily.
In an email message from her office, Hageman was equally critical of the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons (SAW) Act.
“The SAW Act is poorly thought-out legislation pushed by radical activists and sponsored by members of Congress who have minimal to nonexistent federal land, snow or wolves in their district,” Hageman stated.
“Our Western issues and way of life is completely foreign to them,” she added. “This bill is a poor response to a single incident which was swiftly handled by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department law enforcement. I would appreciate my colleagues respecting Wyoming’s handling of the incident and not use it to weaponize the federal government's outsized control of Western lands.”
One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, is among Hageman’s strongest conservative allies in the U.S. House, even though they are apparently at odds regarding the SAW Act.
The SAW Act would ban deliberately running down wolves, coyotes and other predators on all federal land in the United States.
Running predators down is already banned on federal lands controlled by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The SAW Act would expand that to include Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land.
The bill’s other sponsors include Reps. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, Don Davis, D-North Carolina, and Troy Carter, D-Louisiana.
On Wednesday, Sen. John Barrasso’s spokeswoman Laura Mengelkamp stated in an email response to Cowboy State Daily that, “This legislation hasn’t been introduced yet. Senator Barrasso will review the details of the bill if it’s officially introduced in the U.S. Senate.”
There was no further response from Barrasso’s office Thursday.
A Matter Of Ethical Animal Welfare
The SAW Act is promoted by Animal Wellness Action, a national animal welfare group that was among many outraged by the killing of a wolf in Daniel in February.
According to accounts of events, Daniel resident Cody Roberts, 42, captured a wolf alive after hitting and injuring the animal with a snowmobile.
He then reportedly took the wolf to his home, and also showed it off at the Green River Bar in Daniel before taking out behind the bar and killing it.
During an online press conference Thursday, Animal Wellness Action President Wayne Pacelle said that he and others around the country and world don’t think the Daniel wolf killing was an isolated incident
Predator “whacking” or “thumping” with snowmobiles or other vehicles is an all-too-common practice in Wyoming and other states, Pacelle said.
Though Congressional Democrats and Republicans have been severely at odds over other topics, animal welfare is one subject they agree on, he added. And that’s why his group was able to get members of both parties behind the bill.
There are ongoing efforts to introduce a companion bill in the U.S. Senate, Pacelle added.
‘Not A Form Of Hunting’
Retired Park Service wildlife biologist Elaine Leslie said during the press conference that running over coyotes and wolves is unacceptable and should be banned nationwide.
“I don’t know how you can call this anything other than torture, cruelty and abuse,” she said. “This country’s obsession with killing wolves and predators in general, a myriad of predators, needs to change.”
Predator whacking or thumping is “not a form of hunting,” Pacelle said.
“It bears no resemblance to hunting. It is a form of animal abuse,” he said.
He and Leslie reiterated their claim that Wyoming’s response to the Daneil wolf killing and predator whacking/thumping in general has been too weak.
Therefore, federal intervention is needed, they said.
They spoke in reference to the recommendations of the Wyoming Legislature’s Treatment of Predators Working Group.
The working group is an offshoot of the Legislature’s Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee.
It will likely recommend a proposed bill when the full committee meets in October. That bill calls for continuing to allow people to pursue predators such as wolves and coyotes with vehicles, but the animals would have to be killed as quickly as possible and not allowed to suffer.
Wyoming Should Manage Wyoming Wildlife
Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Vice President Jim Magana, a member of the working group, agreed with Lummis and Hageman that the SAW Act is poorly conceived.
It’s based on reaction to “a single incident (the Daniel wolf killing) that was stupid, and we all condemned it,” he said.
“The person who did it should be punished, but you can’t use that to set predator policy,” Magana added.
Wyoming should control its own predator management policy, not the federal government, he said.
“It’s a not a land management issue, it’s a predator management issue, and that’s best managed at the state level,” he said.
The working group’s recommendation that predators be killed quickly, regardless of the method, addresses the outrage over a wolf being subjected to prolonged suffering, Magagna said.
If a predator is hit with a snowmobile, “You can immediately reach down and put it out of its misery – which you are obligated to do,” he said.
“Your chances of doing so might be even better than they would be if your tried shooting it from a distance and wounded it, and it ran off,” Magana added.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
