Images of injured wolf, muzzled in a bar, draw fury over Wyo. hunting laws

Phones in Wyoming’s Sublette County are still ringing off the hook nearly three weeks after images of an injured wolf spread widely on social media. Local businesses have fielded threats from angry callers while the sheriff’s office was inundated by thousands of complaints — some from as far as Brazil, Greece and Australia.

The rural county just south of Yellowstone National Park, home to oil wells, ranches and around 8,900 people, is an unlikely target for international outrage. But the images of the injured gray wolf, reportedly taken in Sublette County, drew swift condemnation, including from officials in Wyoming, one of the few states where it is legal to hunt wolves.

A man seen posing with the wolf in a photo allegedly struck the animal with a snowmobile before muzzling it, showing it off at a Sublette County bar and later killing it, the Cowboy State Daily reported in early April. Videos later released by Wyoming’s Game and Fish Department show the wolf muzzled and slumped on a wooden floor, as one of its hind legs twitched and bar patrons talked in the background. The man was fined $250 for violating Game and Fish Department regulations on possessing live wildlife, according to records obtained by The Post.

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Gov. Mark Gordon (R) issued a statement calling the incident “reckless, thoughtless and heinous.” The Sublette County sheriff’s office announced it is investigating “allegations of animal abuse” after activists called for the man to face further punishment. But Sublette County officials announced on Monday that the treatment of the wolf might not break state laws, which exempt the creatures and others classified as “predatory” from animal-abuse protections.

Cowboy State Daily has obtained a photo of a wolf that was captured and had its mouth taped shut while it was reportedly taken to a local man’s house and a bar in rural Daniel, Wyoming, before it was killed. https://t.co/iEEGGwvuon

Kristin Combs, the executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, likened the controversy to the high-profile killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe in 2015. Attempts to toughen Wyoming’s wildlife protection laws have failed in the past. But the anger over the images of the injured wolf might be enough to rekindle efforts, she said.

“It’s just something that’s so egregious,” Combs said. “ … People just can’t sit by and let that happen.”

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Wyoming is one of the three states in the Intermountain West — alongside Idaho and Montana — that permit wolf hunting (gray wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act in the rest of the contiguous 48 states). Activists have raised concerns about the loosening of wolf-hunting laws in Montana, which have led to a decline of wolf populations in Yellowstone, The Post reported in 2022.

Wyoming allows more wolf hunting than its neighbors do. In most of the state, wolves are classified as a predatory animal and can be hunted year-round without a license. Animals classified as predatory aren’t protected by the state’s animal abuse laws, an issue raised in 2019 when a legislator tried to amend them to outlaw “coyote whacking”: the practice of hunting those animals, also classified as predatory, by chasing them down and ramming them with snowmobiles. The bill did not pass.

“It got tossed out before it even got out of committee,” Combs recalled.

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The Cowboy State Daily reported that Cody Roberts, a Wyoming resident, allegedly used a snowmobile to run down the gray wolf in the photo in late February, injuring but not killing the animal. Roberts took a live wolf to his house and a business in Daniel, Wyo., according to a Wyoming Game and Fish Department investigation.

Attempts to reach Roberts for comment were not successful.

The case might have escaped further attention if images of the injured wolf had not been released in April. The Cowboy State Daily first published an image of Roberts smiling with his arm around the wolf on April 6. Days later, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department released two videos from its investigation that showed the wolf in a bar and the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office began investigating the incident.

The sheriff’s office received phone calls and emails from countries including Canada, France, Greece and South Africa, and is also investigating threats made to Roberts’s family and unrelated Sublette County businesses, spokesperson Travis Bingham told The Post.

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Combs said her organization also received a flood of inquiries.

“I think the eyes on the wolf in that photo are really … one of the reasons people are having such a visceral reaction to this,” Combs said. “Because the look on that wolf’s face is just so sad.”

Last week, dozens of people criticized Wyoming’s animal abuse laws and called for Roberts to face further punishment during a two-hour public comment period in a Wildlife Game and Fish Department Commission meeting. Some speakers said they drove in from other states to attend the meeting and declare that they’d no longer visit Wyoming. A California wolf sanctuary called to offer $10,000 to advocate for the strengthening Wyoming’s animal protection laws. Several people who identified themselves as hunters with generations of history in Wyoming said the treatment of the wolf betrayed their values.

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“Many hunters are worried that this incident will affect their hunting rights and their ability to hunt in the future,” Jim Laybourn, a hunter and program director at Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, said at the meeting. “I’m worried about something even worse. I’m worried that if there’s no change on this issue, that Wyoming hunters will forever be associated with the likes of the wolf torturer from Daniel.”

Dave Stalling, a hunter and wildlife advocate from Montana who also spoke at the meeting, told The Post that the incident called for a broader reckoning around how wolves are viewed by hunters in the region. Wolf hunting is buoyed by a hunting culture that dismisses the animals as disruptive predators and threats to livestock, he said. Bumper stickers encourage hunters to “save a hundred elk” by killing a wolf and to “smoke a pack a day.”

“We have a deep, irrational hatred for these animals,” Stalling said. “And we treat them horribly.”

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On Monday, Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich released a statement through the sheriff’s office, responding to criticisms the wolf’s treatment did not result in harsher punishment. Melinkovich said that Wyoming’s animal abuse laws exempt the lawful capturing and killing of predators, and that it is lawful to hunt predators using vehicles, but he said the incident remains under investigation.

“While many of the animal abuse provisions do not apply to the hunting, capture, killing, or destruction of a predatory animal, there are narrow circumstances where a person could be charged and convicted of animal abuse,” Melinkovich said. He declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Combs, the wildlife advocate, said she hopes the sustained anger can pressure legislative change to outlaw hunting with snowmobiles, even in a state that has resisted attempts to strengthen animal protections in the past.

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Few legislators have spoken publicly about the incident, Combs said, but an update on wolf management was recently added to the agenda of a Travel, Recreation, Wildlife & Cultural Resources Committee meeting scheduled to start May 14.

“The state of Wyoming, they just need to know that they have to take action,” Combs said. “There’s no other option right now. Basically, do you want to be seen as condoning animal abuse?”

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