Protect gray wolves
Imagine chasing a wolf with a snowmobile, and running it over. The wolf is disabled, so you take it home to show your family and take pictures. With its mouth muzzled, you then take the still-alive wolf to a bar, for all your friends to see. You then drink beers with your buddies, and shoot videos of the wolf lying disabled, muzzled and suffering on the floor. Finally, you take the wolf outside, and shoot it dead. This is behind the charges facing Cody Roberts, of Wyoming.
Cody is the new poster child for everything that’s wrong with the state management of wolves.
Ever since Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., orchestrated the removal of federal protections for gray wolves in 2009, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho have unleashed a barrage of policies that have resulted in the slaughter of wolves numbering in the thousands. Hunting, trapping and strangulation (snaring) are some of the tactics employed by “sportsmen.” Don’t forget poisoning, killing wolf pups in their dens, and state-sanctioned aerial gunning and bounties. It’s been a bloodbath.
I support the recent lawsuit seeking federal protections for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies. And Cody Roberts should have his hunting privileges suspended for life, and be sent to jail.
Brett Haverstick
Missoula
