͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌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]]

​[link removed] [[link removed]]
Dear friend,
Isn’t it remarkable that some politicians hedge, or hem and haw, on a bill to stop people from running over wolves with snowmobiles for the thrill of it? Flattening them by driving over them over and over again?
Yesterday, we worked with four major allies in Congress—U.S. Representatives Nancy Mace, R-S.C., Don Davis, D-N.C., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Troy Carter, La.—to introduce the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act.
WRITE TO YOUR REPS TODAY [[link removed]]
Wyoming Politicians Send the Wrong Signal on Malicious Animal Cruelty
Perhaps even without reading the legislation, Wyoming’s U.S. representative and one U.S. senator bashed the legislation and announced their opposition to the narrowly tailored measure.
“With all due respect to my southern colleagues, we do not need members from districts that do not even drive snowmobiles trying to regulate our Western way of life,” U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis said in an email from her office to the Cowboy State Daily.
Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It is not the “Western way of life” to ram and crush living creatures with snowmobiles with malicious intent. That behavior is pathological. And to be clear, it’s probably just a hundred or so miscreants out of 500,000 people in the Cowboy State who engage in this atrocious behavior.
Senator Lummis is too good a politician to misread her electorate so badly. This was, in my opinion, a very bad misstep for her.
U.S. Rep. Harriett Hageman, the lone member of the House from the thinly populated state, also panned the idea of the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act. “The SAW Act is poorly thought-out legislation pushed by radical activists and sponsored by members of Congress who have minimal to nonexistent federal land, snow or wolves in their district,” Hageman said.
It’s important Rep. Hageman understand that Minnesota—which has far more wolves than Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana combined—has a law that forbids the use of any motorized vehicles to chase, torment, run into, or crush wolves or other wildlife. And Minnesota undoubtedly has as much or more snow than any of those more semi-arid Western states. That law has been in place since 1986, and ranchers, hunters, and other stakeholders have no problem with it at all.
Hageman then dug a deeper snow hole, saying that the SAW Act “is a poor response to a single incident which was swiftly handled by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department law enforcement. I would appreciate my colleagues respecting Wyoming’s handling of the incident and not use it to weaponize the federal government's outsized control of Western lands.”
The state agency didn’t handle it in any satisfactory way. It gave the guy a $250 fine for running over and tormenting a wolf. And that act of cruelty wasn’t a one-off.
Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Vice President Jim Magana, a member of the working group, agreed with Lummis and Hageman that the SAW Act is poorly conceived.
“It’s based on reaction to “a single incident (the Daniel wolf-killing by Cody Roberts) that was stupid, and we all condemned it,” he said.
There Is a Subculture of ‘Whacking’ Wolves and Coyotes
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have broadcast videos online that show other people “whacking” wild canids and proudly posting those videos on-line. The whole point is, a broader policy is needed to address this subculture of cruelty. Just like we have laws against dogfighting—since a small number of people can create havoc for dogs—we need laws against people crushing animals with motorized vehicles for the thrill of it.
In the absence of Wyoming handling this issue with purpose and resolve, that is precisely why Congress is stepping in. The federal bill would not have come to pass but for the deficient action at the state level.
And I have news for Wyoming’s political leaders who oppose efforts to restore protections for wolves. It’s the absence of even the most minimal safeguards—such as banning running down animals with snowmobiles—that jeopardizes state control of wolf management. Why would any judge, presented with a claim that the state is not providing any kind of safety net for a threatened or endangered species, have confidence in the collective political judgment of key decision-makers if they cannot find enough resolve to forbid this kind of sadism?
The truth is, we worked with Republicans and Democrats in the House to introduce the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act six months after learning that Wyoming resident Cody Roberts ran over a wolf with a snowmobile and tortured the animal. The state wildlife agency has publicly said it doesn’t have a regulation or statute that forbids running over wolves or other “predatory animals” with snowmobiles. And Roberts hasn’t even been prosecuted for cruelty to animals after he ran over the adolescent female.
And last week, an advisory panel reviewing this circumstance said that it would not recommend to state lawmakers that they ban the practice. If someone runs over a wolf or other animal with a snowmobile, they’d be obligated to kill the animal and not leave the creature injured.
What kind of madness is this?
On what planet is running over an animal with a machine an acceptable form of recreation?
The Cody Roberts Case Was a Revelation We All Should Heed
We learned about the monstrous practice of “whacking” wolves and other wildlife after the bragging tour Cody Roberts took in the small town of Daniels, Wyo. That thug ran down an innocent, adolescent female wolf with a snowmobile and then compounded his savagery by hurting her even more.
We are still seeking his prosecution for cruelty to animals, while also addressing the larger problem of “whacking” that he put on ruthless display for the American public. That’s why we worked, on the latter subject, to introduce the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act, H.R. 9568.
Meanwhile, we’ve sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to safeguard wolves from snowmobile-killing, neck snaring, and other retrograde wolf-killing practices that Northern Rockies states still allow.
This kind of cruelty is never acceptable, no matter the level of scarcity or abundance of a wildlife population.
But to be sure, populations can easily be overexploited with a combination of ruthlessness and cruelty, new technologies, and a lack of state-based policy safeguards. Today, with faster snowmobiles, more lethal weaponry, and with high-tech gadgets such as night-vision goggles and electronic tracking devices affixed to the collars on their hunting dogs, humans have more firepower than ever to wipe them out again.
Idaho allows year-round killing of wolves without limit. So does Wyoming. Montana’s governor even trapped a wolf right outside of Yellowstone National Park.
There must be limits on cruelty and year-round, unrestrained killing.
Please consider giving a donation to help us put an end to senseless violence aimed at some of the most majestic animals in the world. [[link removed]]
DONATE [[link removed]]
We Need You in This Fight to Protect Wolves, Mountain Lions, and other Majestic Animals
And let’s remember that wolves provide ecological balance and ecosystem services that, if put in monetary terms, would be valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. They limit the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease in deer and elk, perhaps almost as efficiently as mountain lions do in the areas they inhabit. They regulate prey species by reducing the frequency of vehicle crashes with deer or elk. They are part of the tourism economy that is so enormous in and around Yellowstone National Park.
These animals are not punching bags for people with malice in their hearts. We must be a counterweight to their cruelty. We are counting on you to give generously to fund our multi-pronged efforts to shield these animals from attacks.
Taking the United States into federal court is also an immense task. And so is launching a new bipartisan legislative effort in Congress.
With these efforts and more, you have an opportunity to invest your dollars in tangible, high-impact campaigns. We need your help. Please give generously today. [[link removed]]
DONATE TODAY [[link removed]]
For all cats, wolves, and all other animals,
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Animal Wellness Action
[[link removed]] DONATE NOW [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] WEBSITE [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]]
Animal Wellness Action | 611 Pennsylvania Ave SE #136 | Washington, DC 20003
If you would like to manage your subscription or contribution history, please log into your self-service portal here. [[link removed]]
If you need to you can unsubscribe here: unsubscribe: [link removed]
You can also click here to donate [[link removed]] .