Cheyenne, Wyoming— As Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park opens for the busy summer, wildlife advocates are leading calls for a boycott of the conservative ranching state over laws that give people wide leeway to kill gray wolves with little oversight .
The Wyoming Tourism Department’s social media accounts were flooded with comments urging people to stay away from the Cowboy State amid allegations that a man attacked a wolf with a snowmobile, taped its mouth shut and killed a wolf in a A bar in Platte County has injured animals on display.
While critics say Wyoming has perpetrated this kind of animal cruelty, a leader of the state’s cattlemen’s association said it was an isolated incident and not related to the state’s wolf management laws. The law, which has been in place for more than a decade, is intended to prevent predators from spreading from the Yellowstone Mountains to other areas where ranchers raise cattle and sheep.
“This is an act of abuse. None of us condone it. It should never happen,” said Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Livestock Growers Association, which drew media attention. , but this is not a model for how we manage wolves to deal with livestock issues or other issues.
Wolves are federally protected as an endangered or threatened species in most of the United States, with the exception of the Northern Rockies. Wolf populations have rebounded since they were reintroduced to Yellowstone and central Idaho nearly 30 years ago, and hunting and trapping of wolves is allowed in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Prior to their reintroduction, wolves in the lower 48 states had been wiped out in the mid-1900s through government-sponsored poisoning, trapping and bounty hunting.
Today, Wyoming has the least restrictive wolf-killing policy. There are restrictions on hunting and trapping in the state’s northwest corner, and their hunting is prohibited in Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park, where they are a major attraction that attracts millions of tourists. But outside of Yellowstone, in the 85 percent of the state known as predator zones, they can be hunted at will.
The wolf was allegedly chased down, paraded and killed in predator territory.
Wolves roam hundreds of miles, often killing cattle and sheep. Gray wolves attacked livestock hundreds of times in 2022 in 10 states, including Wyoming, according to an Associated Press review of depredation data from state and federal agencies, the latest available. Other times, livestock die from other predators, disease or exposure, or simply disappear.
Wolf losses can be devastating for individual ranchers, but the impact of wolves on the industry as a whole is negligible: A comparable number of cattle have been killed or injured in documented cases, according to a comparison with state livestock depredation data 0.002% of the cattle stocks in the affected states.
The predator zone is the result of negotiations between U.S. and Wyoming officials, who traded federal compensation for livestock killed by wolves in exchange for allowing free hunting of wolves in the area.
Saharai Salazar was among those who had their travel plans changed in light of an alleged incident on Feb. 29 near the western Wyoming town of Daniel. There were about 150 people.
The Santa Rosa, Calif., dog trainer posted on the state’s tourism Instagram account that she would not be getting married in Wyoming next year as planned. The post was one of hundreds of similar comments, many of which have been posted on social media in recent weeks with the hashtag #boycottwyoming.
“We have to amend the legislation and rewrite the laws to provide more protection so that we can’t interpret them in a way that allows for such atrocities,” Salazar said in an interview.
Ed Bangs, a wolf expert and former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf biologist, said Wyoming’s rules have long been controversial but are unlikely to harm the entire population because most of the state’s animals live In the Yellowstone area.
Bangs said the incident of the wolf being brought into the bar was an episode in the species’ successful recovery. Predator areas, he said, consist mostly of open landscapes that are generally not hospitable to wolves.
Wyoming’s regulations, including predator zones, have withstood multiple court challenges that have kept wolves on and off the endangered species list since it was first added in 2008. Wolves have been absent from lists in the area, and their numbers have increased.
Although state law does not specify how to kill wolves in a predator zone, nor does it specifically prohibit running over wolves, the Humane Society and others believe the state’s animal cruelty laws apply in this situation.
Widely circulated photos show the man posing with a gagged wolf. Video footage shows the same animal lying on the floor, still alive but barely moving.
The Sarplette County Sheriff’s Office said it has been investigating anonymous tips about the man’s behavior but has been having trouble getting witnesses to come forward.
“We have kept the tip line open for two weeks in the hope of finding witnesses or providing useful information,” said Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Travis Bingham said. I know people are hesitant to come forward.
The only punishment the man has received so far is a $250 fine for illegal possession of wildlife.
The suspect has not commented publicly and did not answer calls to his company. Calls to the bar went unanswered.
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Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.
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