Outrage over how a man struck a wolf with a snowmobile, taped the injured animal’s mouth shut and brought it into a bar has resulted in a proposal to tweak Wyoming’s animal cruelty law to apply to people who legally kill wolves by intentionally running them over.
Under draft legislation headed to a legislative committee Monday, people could still intentionally run over wolves but only if the animal is killed quickly, either upon impact or soon after.
Wyoming’s animal cruelty law is currently written to not apply at all to predators such as wolves. The proposed change would require a person who hits a wolf that survives to immediately use “all reasonable efforts” to kill it.
The bill doesn’t specify how a surviving wolf is to be killed after it is intentionally struck.
I know there are reasons to allow targeted hunting of wolves in some areas. I don’t know if I agree with the reasons, but I’m also not a rancher in that area and don’t know the full impact on either side of the issue.
However, I feel like intentionally running over any animal is a step in the wrong direction.
More and more it becomes evident with these people that the cruelty is point.
The reason there are still hungry children is not that there is not enough food, because there is. It’s that people just don’t care enough about feeding them.
The convenience is the point, the ease is the point, the preference is the point. And this man had a preference to hit a wolf with a snowmobile to show it off in a bar. The opportunity was present, it was easy to do. It was a convenient way to do something memorable amongst peers.
It is not convenient to feed children. It is not easy. It is not enough of a human preference to be done.