Outrage over the torment of a Wyoming wolf continues. But will it change anything?

By means of Mike Koshmrl

RIVERTON, Wyo. – From her home in the rural South Carolina town of Six Mile, Lorraine Finazzo typically spends her weekdays managing construction projects for a New York City real estate developer.

An incident involving a Wyoming wolf more than 1,500 miles away has recently reduced her productivity.

“I sit at the computer every day crying,” Finazzo said from the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Riverton. “I’m supposed to be working remotely and instead I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, there’s another video.’”

“I don’t know why I feel this way,” she added. ‘Helpless animal. It’s just wrong.”

The now infamous incident — in which Daniel resident Cody Roberts ran over a sub-adult wolf on a snowmobile, muzzled the injured animal and then showed it off at the bar before killing it — got Finazzo so nervous that she decided to drive all the way to Wyoming to get her share opinions with the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. Her husband Russell and daughter Nicole occasionally vacationed in the Wind River Valley.

Finazzo had never done anything like this before. She barely slept Tuesday night and before she picked up the microphone, she was nervous. But Finazzo’s voice persisted a few hours after speaking to WyoFile, when she was given the opportunity to share her thoughts with the seven-member agency that oversees Wyoming’s wildlife. She focused on how Roberts acquired the wolf: He told Game and Fish rangers who investigated that he ran him over with a snowmobile until he was so injured he could barely stay conscious — a completely legal practice in Wyoming.

“Knowing that the state allows snowmobiles to run over animals as a wildlife management tool is appalling,” Finazzo told commissioners. “I urge you to take necessary steps to ban this barbaric practice, which only appeals to a small extreme minority in the state.”

Wave of outrage

Finazzo’s voice was one of dozens heard by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commissioners on Wednesday. The accusations of wolf torture have made headlines in national publications and even foreign tabloids and have sparked international outrage, creating a public relations nightmare for the state of Wyoming. Not a single person who said anything approved of Roberts’ actions, who so far have only been punished with a $250 fine for illegal possession of warm-blooded wildlife. Many people didn’t get a chance to voice their opinions: At the start of Wednesday’s meeting, the committee agreed to end public comment after two hours.

For the most part, the commissioners had no control over their response to the commenters. At the beginning of the two-day meeting, they agreed to an official statement. That statement asserted that Wyoming is the “gold standard in wildlife management,” and said the Game and Fish Department acted “transparently” in an incident that went unpublicized for more than a month — until KHOL Jackson Hole Community Radio was tipped and went bankrupt. the story.

After hearing two hours of public comment, Game and Fish Commission Chairman Richard Ladwig shared his thoughts. The Air Force veteran from Niobrara County expressed frustration with the level of interest in the wolf torture incident compared to other atrocities that have occurred in Wyoming in recent weeks.

“I can’t believe there wasn’t more of an outcry about the 14-year-old boy who was stabbed to death by two other teenagers in front of the mall in Casper, Wyoming,” Ladwig said. “That’s as bad or worse than killing a wolf, and I don’t think there’s any of the outrage that we’ve seen about this (wolf) with this situation.”

Much of the condemnation for what Roberts did at the Green River Bar was less than civil. “Many of our people who answered the phone had to hear extremely vulgar language,” Game and Fish Chief Warden Rick King told WyoFile.

There were also threats from people angry about the treatment of the wolf, prompting Game and Fish to request a large law enforcement presence at the Riverton meeting. There were uniformed and plainclothes officers everywhere around the Holiday Inn.

“We were concerned, given the global attention this had, and the passion and fear that was there,” King said. “We wanted to make sure everyone who came here today was safe.”

Desire for change

The commissioners took no formal action before the meeting adjourned. But Ralph Brokaw, an Arlington rancher, said he was “afraid” the commission would do something.

“But we have to show respect,” Brokaw said. “We must respect the governor and the leadership he surrounds himself with.”

“I just want to assure people,” he said, “that we will find a way forward.”

Game and Fish Director Brian Nesvik told the audience he was meeting with Gov. Mark Gordon, state lawmakers and “agricultural people” later Wednesday to discuss the incident. There was no clear outcome for that meeting, which Michael Pearlman, a spokesman for the governor, called “informal.”

“It was a discussion about what was happening and … a general conversation about wolf management,” Pearlman said. “They’re not working on an action item or an agenda or anything like that, these are just conversations.”

So what is the path for reform? Interest groups and concerned citizens have called for several changes. Some oft-repeated policy moves included a ban on running over animals with snowmobiles and tweaks to Wyoming’s animal cruelty laws to more explicitly include species classified as predators, such as coyotes, red foxes and other species. wolves in 85% of Wyoming.

Jessi Johnson, a longtime lobbyist for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, pointed out that many of the reforms being called for fall outside the authority of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. Yet on Wednesday that was the body that acted as a sounding board for the disgust and the call for change.

“People are going to burn a lot of energy. They travel, spend money to be here and express a lot of emotions and feelings,” Johnson said. “But it is (being told) to an entity that often cannot do anything because they are legally handcuffed by the legislature.”

There are two legislative committees that are particularly equipped to implement reforms, Johnson said. The Committee on Agriculture is one of them, as it is the body that deals with legislation on predators. The Travel, Recreation and Wildlife Committee is the other, as its members oversee many of the wildlife statutes.

There are indications that these legislative committees will at least consider changing the law because of what happened to the wolf in Sublette County.

Nesvik, the Game and Fish director, will brief the Travel, Recreation and Wildlife Committee on wolf management at its May 14-15 meeting in Cody. There is no agenda yet for the next Agriculture Committee meeting, scheduled for June 6-7 in Rock Springs.

One lawmaker who happens to be on both committees attended the committee meeting in Riverton. Rep. John Winter (R-Thermopolis), a retired outfitter, is not a fan Wolf – he believes that “the wolf is an illegal animal in the state of Wyoming” – but he also foresees lasting changes as a result of what happened to one particular wolf.

“I’m sure there will be (changes),” Winter told WyoFile. “There must be something about snow machines. Right now I’m not willing to get too involved, but when the time comes I’ll speak up.

“There’s a lot of fuss and feelings right now,” he added, “and it’s not really the time to make decisions.”

Some wildlife activists say they are committed to taking advantage of the intense interest in an abused Wyoming wolf and using it to push through those statute changes.

“This is it,” said Lisa Robertson, a Jackson Hole resident who has long sought reforms and a ban on the practice of hitting coyotes with snowmobiles. “It’s all coming together, and it’s impossible to drop it, period.”

Johnson of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation is skeptical. She has seen viral incidents and white-hot demand for reform spread before.

“Unfortunately, I think what we’re going to see here is a lot of emotion (at the Game and Fish Commission meeting),” she said. “But I don’t know if we’ll see this translate to the Travel, Recreation and Wildlife Committee meeting in Cody in May or the Agriculture Committee meeting in Rock Springs in June.”

Johnson has been a lobbyist in Wyoming for nearly a decade. And during all that time, she has seen noticeably fewer people attending legislative committee meetings, she said. Whether the current outrage over a tortured wolf will change that trend remains to be seen.

This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on the people, places and policies of Wyoming.

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