According to news reports, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department fined the man $250. His only crime: possession of a live wild animal. The more we learn, the worse this disturbing story gets. Most recently, one news outlet released video footage from the state game department showing the muzzled wolf splayed out on the bar floor.

The single upside to this incident is that it has brought scrutiny to the state of Wyoming’s bureaucratic indifference to wolves and other wildlife.

We now know that the responsible management agency can’t effectively punish one of the worst acts of cruelty ever exposed in the state. But is that any wonder when we consider that the state funds ineffectual predator-control programs that kill wolves and other wild animals indiscriminately?

This failure stands out starkly when compared to neighboring Colorado, now hosting reintroduced wolves. Although Colorado Parks and Wildlife reported recent wildlife-rancher conflicts, two state agencies, which held many meetings with the public before wolves came back to the state, are already working with those ranchers to prevent and mitigate losses and to provide generous compensation funds. 

The new Born to be Wild specialty license plate has already generated more than $60,000 toward Colorado Department of Wildlife’s nonlethal-conflict prevention fund for wolves. If a wolf, bear or mountain lion causes a livestock loss, the producer is eligible for compensation, as in a case in early April, where wildlife staffers reported that wolves had killed two calves.

Most states have limits on “manner of take,” defined as what methods are permitted to kill wildlife. But in what Wyoming calls its “predator zone” that’s a whopping 85% of the state where wolves, coyotes, red foxes, raccoons, porcupines, jack rabbits and stray cats can be killed using any method.

Methods include hounding, baiting, neck snares, leg-hold traps, shooting wildlife from aircraft and M-44 “cyanide bombs,” courtesy of the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services.

This is all usually undertaken to protect sheep and cattle and grow mule-deer herds for hunters. But conservation biologists find otherwise.

We know that livestock losses attributable to wolves and other native carnivores are rare. Using government data, the Humane Society of the United State found that losses to cattle and sheep caused by wolves, cougars and grizzly bears amounted to less than 1% of those domestic animal inventories in every state containing those wildlife species.

Recent reports have indicated that the Sublette County Sheriff’s office has opened an investigation into the killing of the wolf, and we hope officials will move forward with new charges.

Meanwhile, “wildlife advocates in Wyoming, energized by the wolf torture allegations, plan to push for policy reform,” reports the news outlet Wyofile. In Wyoming now, it is legal and routine to pursue coyotes by running them down with snowmobiles. The “sport” even has a name: “Chasin’ fur.”

The plight of wolves in Wyoming, along with those in neighboring states Montana and Idaho where similar practices are allowed, highlights the need for increased protections for these animals. On April 8, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was sued by several wildlife organizations to restore protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies.

In the meantime, a case as shocking as this must never recur. At the least, Wyoming lawmakers need to eliminate its predator zone and strengthen animal cruelty laws. In Colorado, wild animal or not, such an incident would be classified as “aggravated cruelty to animals.”

That is the decent thing to do for animals, and when we take into account the links between cruelty to animals and interpersonal violence, we should see it as essential for a civil society as well.

Wendy Keefover is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about Western issues. She works for the Humane Society of the United States as senior strategist for native carnivore protection.

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After months of investigation, the state agency, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, found no evidence of wolves in the area at all.

Yet when the news of the cattle deaths went public last October, the agency issued a press release stating it was “investigating a report of dead domestic cow calves on White River National Forest lands near Meeker that show damage consistent with wolf depredation.”

A month later, the agency’s Northwest regional manager testified before the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission that though some of the cattle had injuries that appeared to come from wolves, he added: “It’s perplexing; it’s confusing; it’s frustrating, trying to figure out exactly what occurred in this incident.” The story of wolves as the culprits, however, made national headlines.

Wolves are coming back to the state naturally and because in 2020, the public passed Prop 114, mandating restoration of wolves by the end of this year. Through a Colorado Open Records Act request, the Humane Society of the United States obtained documents and photos about the livestock deaths, and shared them with Carter Niemeyer, an expert on wolf-livestock conflict. He is also a member of the state’s Technical Working Group on wolf restoration.

In his February 14 report, Niemeyer found that “the evidence at Meeker is inconsistent with wolf attacks.” Niemeyer and veterinarians concluded that the cattle more likely died from “brisket disease,” which commonly afflicts cattle living at high altitudes.

Misunderstandings like this one, which lasted weeks, aren’t helpful. Do wolves ever come into conflict with livestock? Yes, but it is relatively rare. In the Northern Rockies where wolves are established, they account for less than 1% of cattle losses. Disease, birthing problems, weather and theft take nine times as many cattle than all predators combined, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

In Washington state, which is home to at least 33 wolf packs after nearly 15 years of wolf recovery, more than 80% of the packs have no conflict with livestock in an average year. 

Overall, the threat of wolves to the livestock industry is negligible. For the few livestock producers who are impacted by wolves, it is, of course, economically painful and time consuming.

But options exist for ranchers to safeguard their livestock. Old-fashioned riding the range to drive off wolf packs, cleaning up carcasses so they don’t attract wolves, penning up livestock at night, installing scare devices, and using guard dogs are all deterrents that can work.

Unfortunately, data from the United States Department of Agriculture suggest that few livestock owners use these effective, non-lethal mitigation measures.

But many livestock producers across the west — in southern Alberta, the Big Wood River Drainage of Idaho, the Tom Miner Basin and Blackfoot Valley of Montana and elsewhere — do use a variety of these deterrents, which make it possible for their herds to live alongside both wolves and grizzly bears.

To its credit, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has produced a resource guide for livestock producers. To do an even better job as wolves integrate into western Colorado, the state must improve the way it investigates livestock deaths.

These investigations must be timely and transparent — as in other Western states such as Washington — and withoutscapegoating. The Colorado legislature could do its part, too, by providing funding for a trained, rapid-response team that would immediately investigate livestock injuries and deaths.

According to Niemeyer, authorities must respond as if they were investigating a crime scene — checking out dead livestock within 24 hours to prevent losing evidence from tissue decomposition or scavengers.

Only when a cause is determined, based on evidence, should information be made public. If wolf recovery is going to be successful for both wolves and people, everyone involved — livestock producers, wolf advocates, agencies — must work together. What happened in Meeker has been a valuable lesson in what not to do.

Story Warren is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is a program manager in wildlife protection for the Humane Society of the United States.

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