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Dear Friend,
This week, the Center for a Humane Economy, with Animal Wellness Action issued an offer of a $15,000 reward to any individual who provides additional evidence to police and to prosecutors about Cody Roberts that results in his being sentenced to at least one year in prison for his appalling abuse of a young, female wolf. The tips came streaming in. There are people who saw what Cody Roberts did, and they knew it was wrong and revolting.
By now, you know exactly who and what I am talking about. Cody Roberts ran down an adolescent female wolf with a 700-pound vehicle and stole her from her pack—from her parents and from her siblings.
He grievously wounded her, and then bound her mouth, put a shock collar on her, transported her to his home for private photos, and then left her dying in a corner of a bar as he laughed and carried on with family and friends.
Several people who were witnesses started leaking information to the press, delivering photos and videos of the serial acts of cruelty. But for their exposure of his conduct, the world would not have known what transpired in rural Sublette County, Wyoming.
I extend our thanks to the people who cared enough to expose the abuse of the young wolf.
Recently, we named her Theia for the goddess of light in Greek mythology. We don’t want Theia to be remembered only for her suffering, but for her sacrifice and her ability to bring light to the systemic cruelty to wolves happening across Wyoming and in other Northern Rockies states.
We all have a role in doing something about this spectacle of cruelty. It’s now our turn to act.
Please consider donating to support our efforts to get justice for this young wolf and to hold Cody Roberts accountable for his appalling actions. [[link removed]]
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The Plan to Address This Sickening Conduct
The first order of business is to prosecute and then incarcerate Cody Roberts. We provided a legal memorandum to authorities plainly determining that the law applies to the set of actions Roberts took against Theia. And now, thanks to our pressure—your pressure—in making this a global news story and social media outrage, the local authorities in Sublette County, where Roberts’ serial acts of cruelty occurred, have opened a case. It is our understanding that federal authorities have also opened up a case.
The second order of business is to change Wyoming’s anti-wolf policies, which abet the kind of hatred and zealotry and cruelty that Roberts meted out against an innocent animal.
In Wyoming, it is legal to run down and crush a wolf with a snowmobile. It is legal to unleash a pack of hounds to chase and maul wolves. It is legal to set out strangling neck-snares. It is legal to kill them in unlimited numbers every day of the year.
Does this sound like madness to you? I know it sounds like madness to me.
The unimaginable is legal in Wyoming.
This week, Dr. Jim Keen on our staff spoke at a hearing about the issue in Riverton, Wyoming. He was joined by dozens of other people who raised their voices. The critics of this merciless abuse of Theia drowned out the apologists of this crime. We should all be heartened by the outpouring of support for Theia and the demand for accountability.
Suing the Federal Government for Dereliction of Duty
The third order of business is to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for rejecting our petition to restore federal protections for wolves in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. We told the federal government that some state policies, including Wyoming’s, were ruthless and that they should not be allowed to control the fate of wolves.
If a state doesn’t have the most elemental instincts to responsibly steward wolf populations—if it cannot even ban ramming and crushing wolves with a snowmobile—then how can that state be trusted to manage a species that is now on the federal list of endangered ones in dozens of other states?
If the states are going to allow unremitting killing of species that remain on the endangered list in the vast majority of our country—removed from the federally protected list in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho because of a congressional rider and timid action from the USFWS—then it should not be permitted to allow lawless cruelty. The animals, precisely because of the failure of state management, must be protected under federal law.
Our first tranche of evidence in making that case is the Roberts/Theia story. Roberts felt he could do anything, and that’s exactly what he did.
And today, I hope you’ll write to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and urge her to reverse her stance and to restore federal protections for wolves. We’ve made it easy for you to write her and use this form. [[link removed]]
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Rewarding Good Behavior, Punishing Evil
As I’ve said, we cannot be bystanders when cases of cruelty like this arise.
Last week, we paid out a $2,000 reward for canine cruelty in Oklahoma. A man beat a puppy to death on a street in Oklahoma City. That image was captured on a ring camera, and the homeowner turned it over to the media, broadcasting the footage and setting up a manhunt. We offered a reward, and before the day was out a man was arrested.
The abuser’s girlfriend turned him in. She told us that he’d been harming her. That was no surprise to us.
She had the courage of her convictions. She decided not to be a bystander and to leave it up to someone else.
Every one of us has power to make change. Every one of us can do something—whether it is sharing information in a cruelty case, writing to lawmakers or agency heads about retrograde policies, or donating to a group like Animal Wellness Action so that we can drive outcomes like prosecutions and better public policies.
We must not leave it to someone else to seek justice. And we must fight to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again. [[link removed]]
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Thank you for not allowing anyone to forget about Theia’s plight.
Sincerely,
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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