…because it would have made her cry. Heck, it very nearly made me cry. But as much as I hate posting this awful story of animal cruelty on what would have been my wife’s birthday (I guess it still is) attention must be paid. Attention must be paid, and this vicious asshole needs to be shunned by all decent people.
It is things like this that prompted me to designate Animal Kind International as a charity Grace would be proud to have someone give to in her memory.
That’s Wyoming ethics villain Cody Roberts, 42, smiling and raising a can of beer in the picture above. Next to him is the cowering, terrified, injured wolf he disabled by running it over with his snowmobile. Instead of putting the wolf out of its misery, Cody, who calls himself a hunter, dragged it to a bar with the wolf’s mouth taped shut to show it off in front of his friends, all of whom are obviously assholes too since they didn’t tell him to stop. After everyone had a good laugh, Cody took the suffering beast behind the building and killed it, but not before reportedly torturing it some more, you know, for fun.
After an anonymous tip was received from some weenie who witnessed this atrocity but who didn’t have the guts, integrity or decency to intervene, Wyoming Game and Fish investigated. Roberts was fined only $250 for a a”wildlife violation,” the only penalty that Game and Fish said it had the power to enforce because animal cruelty is only applied to cases involving pets and domestic animals. Yes, in Wyoming it’s not a crime to torture wild animals. No wonder Cody Roberts lives there.
I guarantee Grace would have adamantly argued that Roberts deserves to tortured and shot himself. He’s a monster, after all.
Be proud, Wyoming…as if Liz Cheney wasn’t embarrassment enough.
I don’t think I want to write about this any more. Grace’s birthday made me too sad already.
Ethics Alarms 
well, if it would make you (or Grace) feel better, I passed by an e-mail from NextDoor, a regional social networking site for neighborhoods.
someone was posting about watching out for turkeys. Apparently, a wild turkey got run over somewhere near me.
then there was that cougar prowling around Minneapolis (not that kind of cougar) that got run over in Minneapolis:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/12/20/cougar-struck-killed-in-minneapolis-will-live-on-in-new-park-display
I am a bit ambivalent here. I slow down and stop for Canadian Geese (genuine Migrants), swerve for squirrels and rabbits, and, generally try not to hit living things in my car.
but, if I were to hit a turkey, cougar, wolf, or deer, I would not be too distraught about it (apart from the whole car accident part of it); at the same time, I would not be posing with a suffering animal.
assholes to the right of me, weenies to the left, here I am….
-Jut
mixed up my left and right.
-Jut
Horrible. The look in its eyes. I’d like to put him a room with a wolf that isn’t disabled and doesn’t have its mouth taped shut and see how he does, this man among men. What a piece of shit (pardon me).
Sometimes only vulgarity will suffice.
This is the expected occurrence when one grows up to be a large man with very small testicles. They must bully and dominate others to overcome their lack of confidence.
Chris M,
A lot of people are still raised to perceive other animals as non-sentient and behave accordingly. The stories are endless and far more cruel and brutal than this one. Heck, there are probably even more people who are currently being raised to perceive certain other humans as unworthy of life. The behavior, the acting out of that mindset all tragically ends the same way.
In looking into this case I found out about the ‘sport’ of coyote-whacking, which means chasing them on snowmobiles to the point of exhaustion then running them over. This is likely how this guy got his wolf. The Wyoming Legislature failed to pass a bill to make this illegal in 2019. It’s been a problem for quite a while. Maybe this attention will turn the tide.
“Attention must be paid, and this vicious asshole needs to be shunned by all decent people.”
This would be a legitimate use of Cancel Culture.
One characteristic of an ethical hunter is that he/she only kills what will be eaten – or what needs to be killed in defense of self, family, or livestock. And in all of those instances, the ethical hunter attempts to dispatch the animal in a way that causes the least amount of suffering. We kill the worst of humanity in ways deemed by many to be far too compassionate for their crimes…how much more should we be compassionate to animals, which don’t have the reasoning power we do and act almost entirely on instinct?
This also applies to apex predators (in the U.S., those include wolves, bears, and mountain lions) that occasionally become aggressive killers – even killing humans. They should be treated with respect. There is sometimes a need to kill them, but it should always be done humanely. This awful story appears to be the exact opposite of that.
This final paragraph is written with the following caveat: I have stayed in Wyoming once (a couple of nights in Sundance and a visit to Devil’s Tower), and have met just two residents.
With regards to Wyoming’s lax laws on cruelty to wild animals, I would offer the hopeful thought that maybe the vast majority of Wyoming’s hunters are of the ethical variety, refusing to shame and torture their helpless quarries before finally killing them. Maybe there hasn’t been a real need for harsher penalties in the past…though that should probably at least be revisited by their legislature, given the rotten display exhibited by those in this piece.
They may also be afraid of how those laws will be used by anti-hunting activists to persecute and harass them using the legal system. I did not make a mistake by using ‘will’ instead of ‘could’.
I have been a hunter for sixty years. For over a decade now, my primary hunting activities involve coyotes, wild hogs and groundhogs. The coyotes are a constant threat to our deer and wild turkey populations, and occasionally take young calves. The wild hogs are very destructive of farm crops. The groundhogs undermine the foundations of farm buildings. I have never understood the attraction of hunting from a vehicle of any type; I see nothing “sporting” about it. Like every hunter I personally know, I pride myself on being a good enough woodsman and marksman to get close, accurate shots rather than take a chance on wounding an animal, which results not only in needless suffering to the animal, but often long and grueling tracking to locate and dispatch the animal. When I used to hunt deer, I never had to take a shot longer than about 100 yards, and never had a deer move more than a few feet after being shot. I do all my long-range shooting at the range. The wolf-torturer is in no way an ethical hunter or even a decent human being. I would like to see not only the public in general, but also sportsmen’s organizations specifically, denounce him.
Jim,
From your commentary; I know you to be very ethical, honorable, and smart. I want to understand why you hunt coyotes. Would their population explode otherwise, due to a lack of predators? Other reasons? Thanks in advance.
Coyotes have expanded their range considerably past where many people imagine them in the desserts “out west”. They’re in urban and suburban areas; we see them in our metro-Atlanta area neighborhood. They’re generally considered invasive pests. They prey on other wildlife (turkeys, foxes, fawns), and pets and small livestock, like chickens. Sometimes (rarely) they attack humans, but they are one of the top carriers of rabies, along with raccoons, skunks, foxes, etc.
I think Jim lives in TN…imagine it’s the same there.
Exactly right in all respects.
Here’s a purported “update” on the story, in which the officials talk and split hairs, and duck responsibility, and refuse to deal with the issue, which is “Why won’t the state do something significant to someone who tortures a wild animal?” He can’t even bring himself to say, “You’re right, and this is a gaping hole in our laws that needs to be fixed. His conduct was horrible and a shame to the state.”
“Coyotes have expanded their range considerably“
No shortage of ’em here, I see them all the time, occasionally right in our yard.
Their presence hasn’t affected the Turkey population in the least, but I see a LOT of Missing Cat posters, any number of which may have been dispatched by coyotes.
Letting Mittens roam free is against the law in Madison, yet some cat owners believe Fluffy’s just too gosh darn special to be kept indoors.
PWS
My sister sees coyotes regularly in her yard in Saugus, MA, not one of the first places you think of when you talk about coyotes.
As does my sister in Roslyn, Va, less than a mile from Georgetown’s main campus.
Another reason to reintroduce wolves into the area to prey upon the coyotes and when the inevitable human shrieking erupts, simply remind the fearful that humans have become too complacent, slothful, and the wolves are a natural remedy. Whenever possible, go natural…
I never understood the laws against letting cats roam free. Dogs and cats should be outside, that is where we found them. We didn’t find them in houses and move in with them. Dogs can be confined to a yard, but cats can’t. Loose dogs are often a threat to humans, especially children, but cats either are friendly or flee from people, so they aren’t a public safety hazard. My cats have always come in when they want to and go out when they want to. They usually want to be inside 2-6 hours/day (depending on the weather) and all but one lived more than 18 years (that one was a smoker and died of lung cancer).
Grace let her wonderful Siamese cat roam until he was attacked and nearly killed by two neighborhood dogs that had escaped from their yard and chased him into ours. Kibby recovered and lived to be 20 (I was going to give him a car for his birthday). Cats also kill am amazing number of birds: this one actually “charmed” them out of trees by making an ungodly noise. The cat used to sleep on top of my parents-in-law’s huge St. Bernard.
“I never understood the laws against letting cats roam free.“
BILLIONS of songbirds (many from our Bird Friendly back yard) unavailable for comment…
PWS