| From | Wayne Pacelle <[email protected]> |
| Subject | A year later, we’re still fighting for Theia |
| Date | March 3, 2025 8:55 PM |
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͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏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,
March 3, 2024. It was one year ago today that Cody Roberts, a rancher and mountain lion trophy hunter in rural Wyoming, jumped on his 700-pound snowmobile and ran down an adolescent female wolf. Just for the fun of it.
Roberts grievously wounded his victim, then bound her mouth, put a shock collar on her, took her to his home for a grisly photoshoot, and then left her suffering in a corner of a bar as he laughed and carried on with his buddies. Eventually, he took her out back and shot her to death.
An individual who witnessed the bar spectacle provided details to the press and to Wyoming authorities, delivering photos and videos of the serial acts of cruelty. But for that person’s disgust with Roberts’s conduct, the world would not have known what transpired in rural Sublette County.
We named the innocent victim “Theia,” after the goddess of light. We hoped that the horrifying torture of the wolf would bring awareness and reform. We didn’t want this kind of malice to be replayed anywhere.
But since then, we’ve not seen others act with the courage or conscience that prompted the witness at the bar to expose Roberts. There’s been harumphing and denouncing of Roberts. But no substantive, reform-minded action.
In fact, Wyoming state lawmakers are bending to the whims of a handful of ranchers who offer the preposterous argument that they need snowmobiles for wolf control.
Despite the efforts of a set of Wyoming representatives and senators, including state Representative Mike Schmid from Sublette County, the Wyoming legislature turned away a bill to address this cruelty and forbid this kind of unvarnished ruthlessness.
It’s been a year, but the county prosecutor hasn’t filed any charges against Roberts for cruelty, despite our repeated requests to do so and our offers to help with the case. What more evidence does he need than the photographs and the witnesses who heard Roberts brag about what he did?
The Plan to Address This Sickening Conduct
Precisely because of this incident, Animal Wellness Action filed a federal lawsuit to restore protections for wolves in the northern Rockies. That case is in progress, and we are hopeful that the courts recognize that wolves are now in jeopardy in these states.
The reckless treatment of the wolves doesn’t stop with snowmobiles used as animal crushing tools. It is also legal to unleash a pack of hounds to chase and maul wolves in Wyoming and Idaho. It is legal to set out strangling neck snares in those states as well as in Montana. Across most of Wyoming, there’s no limit on how many wolves you can kill every day of the year.
This is not sportsmanship. This is not responsible management of wildlife. This is not sane behavior.
This is a free-for-all for sadists.
Roberts felt he could do anything, and Wyoming officials are effectively letting him off the hook. There is plenty of precedent for responsible limits on hunting and taking wildlife—limits on means of killing, distinct seasons, limitations on hunting methods. But when it comes to wolves, all bets are off. You can do anything to them in Wyoming.
Until that changes, the courts should step in and take over management 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 species in dozens of other states?
A National Push for the SAW
Last fall, in the wake of Theia’s death, we worked to introduce the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act in Congress. It was late in the Congress, and we knew time was short for lawmakers to act.
By the end of this month, we’ll introduce a stronger, better bill with a broader set of lawmakers backing it. We’ll have more runway to build support for it on both sides of the aisle and with the American public.
There is the federal Airborne Hunting Act, passed in 1971, forbidding the use of planes and helicopters to run down animals for sport or sadism. It’s time, in 2025, to have a federal Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapon Act, to ban the use of ground-based vehicles to do the same thing.
Head of Wyoming Game and Fish Ascends to run USFWS
The incoming director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the man who headed the Wyoming Game and Fish Department when the incident with Theia occurred. He was generally muted about the case—which is no credit to him—but Brian Nesvik knows exactly how out of bounds it is to run over an animal with a snowmobile and crush a living creature for the hell of it.
It's time for him to act on the question of a national policy to ban the use of motorized vehicles to run down animals on federal lands. That is a matter of controversy only with a sliver of the most ruthless ranchers and hunters.
Please take a moment to write to your federal lawmakers and urge them to support the SAW Act when it is reintroduced. [[link removed]]
TAKE ACTION [[link removed]]
And please support our work to keep Theia’s story alive and to demand practical change. [[link removed]]
DONATE NOW [[link removed]]
The status quo is anything but acceptable. We must not take “no” for an answer as we ask policymakers to address this kind of cruelty.
Thank you for not allowing anyone to forget about Theia’s plight.
For all 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]] .
[link removed] [[link removed]]
Dear friend,
March 3, 2024. It was one year ago today that Cody Roberts, a rancher and mountain lion trophy hunter in rural Wyoming, jumped on his 700-pound snowmobile and ran down an adolescent female wolf. Just for the fun of it.
Roberts grievously wounded his victim, then bound her mouth, put a shock collar on her, took her to his home for a grisly photoshoot, and then left her suffering in a corner of a bar as he laughed and carried on with his buddies. Eventually, he took her out back and shot her to death.
An individual who witnessed the bar spectacle provided details to the press and to Wyoming authorities, delivering photos and videos of the serial acts of cruelty. But for that person’s disgust with Roberts’s conduct, the world would not have known what transpired in rural Sublette County.
We named the innocent victim “Theia,” after the goddess of light. We hoped that the horrifying torture of the wolf would bring awareness and reform. We didn’t want this kind of malice to be replayed anywhere.
But since then, we’ve not seen others act with the courage or conscience that prompted the witness at the bar to expose Roberts. There’s been harumphing and denouncing of Roberts. But no substantive, reform-minded action.
In fact, Wyoming state lawmakers are bending to the whims of a handful of ranchers who offer the preposterous argument that they need snowmobiles for wolf control.
Despite the efforts of a set of Wyoming representatives and senators, including state Representative Mike Schmid from Sublette County, the Wyoming legislature turned away a bill to address this cruelty and forbid this kind of unvarnished ruthlessness.
It’s been a year, but the county prosecutor hasn’t filed any charges against Roberts for cruelty, despite our repeated requests to do so and our offers to help with the case. What more evidence does he need than the photographs and the witnesses who heard Roberts brag about what he did?
The Plan to Address This Sickening Conduct
Precisely because of this incident, Animal Wellness Action filed a federal lawsuit to restore protections for wolves in the northern Rockies. That case is in progress, and we are hopeful that the courts recognize that wolves are now in jeopardy in these states.
The reckless treatment of the wolves doesn’t stop with snowmobiles used as animal crushing tools. It is also legal to unleash a pack of hounds to chase and maul wolves in Wyoming and Idaho. It is legal to set out strangling neck snares in those states as well as in Montana. Across most of Wyoming, there’s no limit on how many wolves you can kill every day of the year.
This is not sportsmanship. This is not responsible management of wildlife. This is not sane behavior.
This is a free-for-all for sadists.
Roberts felt he could do anything, and Wyoming officials are effectively letting him off the hook. There is plenty of precedent for responsible limits on hunting and taking wildlife—limits on means of killing, distinct seasons, limitations on hunting methods. But when it comes to wolves, all bets are off. You can do anything to them in Wyoming.
Until that changes, the courts should step in and take over management 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 species in dozens of other states?
A National Push for the SAW
Last fall, in the wake of Theia’s death, we worked to introduce the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act in Congress. It was late in the Congress, and we knew time was short for lawmakers to act.
By the end of this month, we’ll introduce a stronger, better bill with a broader set of lawmakers backing it. We’ll have more runway to build support for it on both sides of the aisle and with the American public.
There is the federal Airborne Hunting Act, passed in 1971, forbidding the use of planes and helicopters to run down animals for sport or sadism. It’s time, in 2025, to have a federal Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapon Act, to ban the use of ground-based vehicles to do the same thing.
Head of Wyoming Game and Fish Ascends to run USFWS
The incoming director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the man who headed the Wyoming Game and Fish Department when the incident with Theia occurred. He was generally muted about the case—which is no credit to him—but Brian Nesvik knows exactly how out of bounds it is to run over an animal with a snowmobile and crush a living creature for the hell of it.
It's time for him to act on the question of a national policy to ban the use of motorized vehicles to run down animals on federal lands. That is a matter of controversy only with a sliver of the most ruthless ranchers and hunters.
Please take a moment to write to your federal lawmakers and urge them to support the SAW Act when it is reintroduced. [[link removed]]
TAKE ACTION [[link removed]]
And please support our work to keep Theia’s story alive and to demand practical change. [[link removed]]
DONATE NOW [[link removed]]
The status quo is anything but acceptable. We must not take “no” for an answer as we ask policymakers to address this kind of cruelty.
Thank you for not allowing anyone to forget about Theia’s plight.
For all 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]] .
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- Country: United States
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