Dear editor:
The torture of a wolf by Cody Roberts is not an isolated incident of individual depravity. It is the logical outcome of a system that has normalized violence toward predators.
Cruelty can be trivialized and accepted, as it was the night Cody Roberts ran the young female wolf to exhaustion and taped her mouth shut.
We all remember the details: Roberts took the disabled wolf home and left her in his yard to be tormented by his dogs, took her to a bar for further torture, then ruthlessly killed her.
While the world still struggles to understand the mindset of someone who could commit such brutality, others enabled Roberts behavior, such as former Wyoming Speaker of the House, Albert Sommers, who said he knew Roberts, and he’s a decent guy.
Decent guys don’t torture animals.
The sanctioned cruelty lands at the feet of the Wyoming legislature. Running over animals remains legal, though, under HB0275, individuals must make a reasonable effort to kill an injured animal.
The debate is not whether such acts should occur, but how to regulate the suffering. This framing reflects a deeper ethical erosion: when the conversation shifts from prevention of cruelty to management of cruelty, violence has already been normalized.
The origins of Roberts’ behavior also lie within the culture of Wyoming itself. Wyoming has a sanctioned and systemic acceptance of wildlife cruelty. Children learn cruel and violent behavior from those around them, and it is often multi-generational.
Children raised witnessing violence toward animals are at high risk for significant, long-term psychological damage, including decreased empathy, desensitization, and trauma. Among the most violent offenders, histories of repeated animal cruelty are alarmingly common. Aggression toward animals becomes a training ground for domination, perpetrated without social consequences.
Psychopathy is the most predictive of violent behavior, characterized by thrill-seeking, lack of remorse, and diminished emotional responsiveness. Intentional harm to animals is so strongly associated with this profile that it is considered a standard diagnostic indicator in forensic assessment.
Acts of domination or aggression can trigger dopamine release—the same chemical involved in pleasure and reinforcement. When cruelty produces reward, behavior escalates. Chasing and running over a wolf becomes a socially indoctrinated and pleasure-seeking experience.
When communities frame the killing or torment of predators as sport, necessity, or heritage, they teach bystanders—especially children—that suffering can be dismissed if the target is sufficiently devalued or deserves it. Empathy and compassion become blunted and situational, and indifference takes root. It becomes easier to legitimize cruelty.
Normalized violence desensitizes and erodes the guardrails that protect us from tolerating depravity.
Wyoming must reject the idea that cruelty is entertainment, policy, or tradition. Laws must reflect ethical accountability, not acceptance of cruelty as a cultural tradition. Compassion is not a soft-hearted value—it is a learned social skill essential to preventing violence.
The way we treat the most vulnerable beings in our care shapes the moral architecture of our culture. When cruelty is excused, that architecture fractures. When compassion is enforced, it prevails.
Sincerely,
Susan Kane-Ronning, PhD
Bellingham, WA
