A Bill That Would’ve Outlawed Running Over Wolves, Coyotes with Snowmachines Failed in Wyoming
Chasing and killing predators like wolves and coyotes with snowmachines remains legal in Wyoming even after some lawmakers tried twice to ban the practice Thursday.
The two efforts, a bill called Taking of Predators on Private Lands and another an amendment to an anti-wildlife torture bill, failed largely because the agricultural community says running over carnivores with snowmachines is necessary to manage domestic livestock in the state’s most-rural areas. National media and members of the public, on the other hand, are confusing the practice with hunting.
“I’ve talked to too many producers, particularly sheep produces, that say using snowmachines has become a tool for them,” says Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and retired sheep rancher.
While efforts to ban running over wolves and coyotes with snowmachines have been proposed in past years, this was the first time it gained much traction. Southwest Wyoming Rep. Mike Schmid proposed the amendment and standalone bill in response to an incident last year in Daniel, Wyoming, where a man ran a wolf over with a snowmachine, duct taped its mouth shut, and paraded it around a local bar before shooting it. Backlash after photos and videos of the wolf were released was swift and fierce, with calls to boycott the state.
Schmid said the ordeal was a “black eye” on Wyoming, and prohibiting the ability to run wolves over would help that to heal. Other lawmakers disagreed, Wyofile first reported.
The bill and amendment would have allowed people to run wolves and coyotes down with snowmachines on private land but not on public land. It’s a distinction that Magagna says doesn’t matter to the ranching community, who run livestock on a mixture of federal, state and private land.
“We need to move away from the concept that property line boundaries make a difference,” Magagna says. “If you want to say you can run over a coyote on private land but in 200 feet it’s on public land, that’s not practical at all.”
Running an animal over with a snowmachine — even if the animal is a predator like a coyote or wolf — is not fair chase, says Sabrina King, a hunter and lobbyist for the Wyoming Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. BHA’s Wyoming board voted to support the bill to ban the practice.
“Our members found what happened in Daniel offensive and there was a lot of blowback to the sporting community” she says. “…We need to be sure on public land — whether it’s a big game animal like elk or a carnivore like a wolf — that we treat animals with respect. And running them over with a snowmobile should not be allowed on public land.”
She adds that the agricultural community cannot claim that property lines don’t matter when chasing predators but do matter when hunters face trespassing violations if they touch private land while trying to access public land.
“If the boundaries exist for us then boundaries exist for them too,” she says.
While the ability to run animals down with snowmobiles will still continue in Wyoming, a bill to prohibit torturing wildlife was passed out of the House and is now in the Senate. That bill, called simply Treatment of Animals, says that once a wild animal is in someone’s possession, they are legally required to kill it quickly.
The bill would prevent something like what happened in Daniel, says Magagna. The livestock lobbyist agrees that bringing a wounded wolf into a bar was “horrible” and is a bad look for Wyoming. If the anti-torture bill passes and someone runs a wolf or coyote down with a snowmachine, they would be required to dispatch the creature. At that point, he says, the snowmachine is no different than any other method of hunting an animal, he says, adding, “any tool has the potential to cause suffering to an animal.”
But for King and others who testified in favor of the snowmachine amendment, the torture bill doesn’t go far enough by still allowing an animal to be chased by a machine.
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Source: https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/wyoming-snowmachine-bill-wolves-coyotes/
