A Wyoming hunter who reportedly ran over a gray wolf with a snowmobile, taped the creature’s mouth shut, took a picture with it inside a local bar and then shot it to death behind the tavern has ignited calls for stiffer penalties in such an egregious case of animal abuse.
Cody Roberts, 42, is at the center of the uproar after being ticketed and fined a couple of hundred dollars for illegally possessing the wolf while it was still alive – but so far going unpunished for the manner in which he is said to have killed the animal.
Meanwhile, Wyoming wildlife authorities have kept much of the case hidden under a veil of secrecy, arguing that records on wolves taken in the state are not matter of public record under laws there.
But the news outlet WyoFile.com reported that the laws only protect the privacy of people “legally taking a wolf” within the state and therefore may not apply in the case of Roberts, who stands accused of flagrantly and cruelly violating hunting ethics.
I mean, hiding in a tree, disguising your scent, scoping a dumb animal and shooting it with a rifle from a hundred yards away isn’t exactly a fair fight either. I agree there is a difference, I think there is just a lot of mythmaking about what is effectively using all of the gifts of civilization in order to trick a sub toddler intelligence deer that it’s not about to be murdered.
No predatory animal is looking for a fair fight. Hell, if the fight is too fair the animal is likely to just choose different prey.
You’re not wrong, but I’ll say some devil’s s advocate stuff: hunting is a lot harder to get a successful kill than you make it out, deer are experts in their environment, they aren’t just bumbling around, and hunters usually honor the animals they kill reasonably well.
I don’t think dishonor is really the issue. I’m not a hunter, I’m actually vegan…but I like to think that most recreational game hunters are hunting responsibly and want to ensure as clean a kill as possible, and to put the animal down quickly if they don’t get that on the first shot.
It’s the poachers and irresponsible hunters they are aiming to stop. People hunting over their limit and without tags/permits. The point of the tags/permits/limits is to keep the population itself relatively healthy.
In a lot of regions, hunting is a necessity, if only because we’ve hunted down or driven out most of the game animals predators (like wolves). It’s a necessary evil in order to keep the wild population from overbreeding.
When I’ve hunted blacktail in the Pacific Northwest that’s certainly true. When I’ve hunted whitetail in the Midwest it was as if the deer also didn’t want to live in that hellhole lol
If hunting was about honoring a fair fight, we wouldn’t have lasted long as a species.
Well the world would certainly be a better place now if that were the case.
Idk, the other apocalypses without us were meteors and volcanos. At least ours has that solid narrative irony.
There’s no question the planet and all other life would be better off if we died out in the stone age. Climate change, PFAS, microplastics… We’re parasites to the planet (channeling my best Andrew Ryan impression there).
It is a cultural ritual and a challenge, but certainly not a “fight” in the sense of taking your chances one v. one. I don’t hunt. I find the idea of making myself incredibly uncomfortable solely for the opportunity to be the one who kills my meat animal to be distinctly unappealing. That said, I eat meat. I can’t do so and also condemn someone for being willing to kill an animal, even if I am eeshed out by the ones who seem to enjoy it too much.
I grew up around a lot of hunters, though, and to a one they all had chest-freezers full of venison, so in terms of expending vertebrate life they’re certainly no worse than I am. Even field crops involve some chance of killing vertebrates, though I don’t think it’s as many as some of my fellow omnivores like to imply (and hay for livestock feed seems to be the worst of it). I’m cognizant of the difference between killing to eat and tolerating rather less killing in order to eat.
Ironically, allowing hunting itself is probably one of the best ways (and certainly one of the oldest) to encourage conservation of wild spaces and the lives therein, and if properly regulated it can be maintained at a scale that I don’t think would be out of line with a fairly natural role for humans in the natural world. The world is messy, people have deeply held beliefs coming from vastly different frameworks and experiences, and finding the right balance is necessary to avoid even more tragic disasters.
Fuck this guy in Wyoming, though. Showing off and torturing a dying animal is cruelty for its own sake and I don’t think that’s a hard line to draw either. He sure as shit wouldn’t do that with a calf or deer (or maybe he would, but he’d find even fewer defenders).
The criticism isn’t about a fair fight, it’s about the unnecessary cruelty in the treatment of the animal. An important part of hunting ethics is minimizing the suffering of the prey. Kills should be as quick and efficient as possible.