͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. To enact good laws, we must elect good lawmakers, and that’s why we remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones don’t. If you’d like to unsubscribe, click here. [[link removed]]

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Dear Friend,
I must say that my head is still spinning, given what just happened in Wyoming with Cody Roberts and a young female wolf, when it comes to the decision of Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives to bring up legislation to lift federal protections for wolves and allow the states to continue their assaults on these beleaguered animals.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives very narrowly passed H.R. 764 to eliminate federal protections under the Endangered Species Act for gray wolves across their range in the United States. The bill, led by U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., passed 209-205 ( Roll Call #169 [[link removed]] ), with four Democrats favoring it and four Republicans opposing it. In short, about 98 percent of House Democrats opposed the terrible bill and 98 percent of House Republicans favored it. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., led opposition to H.R. 764 on the floor.
We have, since inception, been a non-partisan organization. We want every lawmaker, regardless of political persuasion, to embrace the universal value of opposition to cruelty. Opposition to animal cruelty should never be a partisan value.
But this was a tone-deaf move by Republican leaders to go after wolves just weeks after Wyoming’s retrograde wolf-treatment policies—put in place after a Congressional rider passed more than a decade ago delisting wolves in the Northern Rockies—made national and international news because of a case of extreme wolf cruelty.
In early April, facts came to light in national media about the late-February torture and killing of a wolf by a Sublette County rancher and trophy hunter named Cody Roberts. Roberts ran down a female adolescent wolf with a snowmobile, crushing her and injuring her, taking her into his possession, and then torturing her in front of patrons at a bar. He was fined just $250 for taking a live wild animal into his possession–about the cost of an expensive speeding ticket.
Animal Wellness Action, the Center for a Humane Economy, and other organizations are demanding state and federal prosecution of Roberts and have announced a $15,000 reward for information that contributes to his arrest and his incarceration for at least one year. We are about to expand the size of that reward to drive the flow of more intelligence on this case.
We’ve also called on Wyoming to revamp its wolf-treatment policies, eliminating its “predator zone” where, in 85 percent of the state, wolves and nearly a dozen other native wildlife species can be killed without limit every day of the year, by any method, including running wolves down in snowmobiles or even setting them on fire.
How could House Republican leaders–led by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La.--bring up this bill with this freshly imprinted set of facts in our heads still?
Cody Roberts’ savage act of cruelty tells us all we need to know about the consequences of a federal delisting of wolves: a state-based free-for-all when it comes to killing and maiming and torturing wolves.
It’s legal, in some states that have delisted wolves, to run down wolves with snowmobiles, to allow packs of dogs to attack them, to use neck snares and leghold traps, and to kill them without limit in some circumstances.
The Republican-dominated vote was shameful and it will produce unfiltered, appalling cruelty to wolves if it clears the Senate. The Democratic majority in the Senate should refuse to consider this toxic legislation.
Deciding which species are listed or delisted under the federal Endangered Species Act is a job best left to wildlife management professionals and the courts. This ham-handed intervention by the House of Representatives in federal endangered species management shows us exactly why the 118th Congress has become known for ineptness and dysfunction.
Kudos to Republicans who worked to retain federal wolf protection policies: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Mike Garcia of California, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina. And deep disappointment in the four Democrats who voted to eliminate federal protections for wolves: Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Jared Golden of Maine.
We’ll work as hard as we can to kill this awful legislation in the U.S. Senate. We’ll also be teeing up national legislation to ban the use of snowmobiles and other motorized vehicles to chase, run down, and run over wolves and other wildlife on our federal lands. And we are demanding that Wyoming not only prosecute Cody Roberts but also change its retrograde wolf policies.
The path to animal protection is not always linear. There are powerful forces who want to perpetuate mistreatment of animals for their benefit. They act as if the lives of animals don’t matter at all.
But every one of their lives matters to us–to you and me and our millions of backers. We’ll take our anger and indignation over terrible acts of cruelty and misguided policy decisions and turn that into the energy of reform.
That’s what we do every day, and I know you share my resolve in tackling the toughest problems for animals and forging lasting solutions. We will not give up on wolves or any other creature in crisis.
Please continue to enable us to do this work. For so many millions of animals, the work we do together is a matter of life and death. [[link removed]]
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Today, please call your two U.S. Senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to oppose any effort by Congress to remove federal protections for wolves. Senators must hear loud and clear that this would be a disaster for wolves nationwide.
For the animals,
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Animal Wellness Action
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