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Friday, October 11, 2024

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Florida picks up the pieces after Hurricane Milton; Georgia elected officials say Hurricane Helene was a climate change wake-up call; Hosiers are getting better civic education; the Senate could flip to the GOP in November; New Mexico postal vans go electric; and Nebraska voters debate school vouchers.

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Civil rights groups push for a voter registration deadline extension in Georgia, federal workers helping in hurricane recovery face misinformation and threats of violence, and Brown University rejects student divestment demands.

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Hurricane Helene has some rural North Carolina towns worried larger communities might get more attention, mixed feelings about ranked choice voting on the Oregon ballot next month, and New York farmers earn money feeding school kids.

Federal lawmakers respond to WY wolf abuse, state's response

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Monday, September 16, 2024   

Following the torture of a wolf by a Wyoming man, a state panel is seeking a bill to protect the killing of predators with vehicles, but Federal lawmakers are pushing back.

After Cody Roberts in February hit a gray wolf with his snowmobile, taped its mouth shut and brought the injured animal to a bar, he was fined just $250 and an international outcry followed.

The gray wolf was removed from the federal endangered species list in 2021. In Wyoming, it is considered a "predator" and is legal to kill. The state's newly formed Treatment of Predators Working Group approved a bill, which clarified using vehicles to run over "predators," a practice called "whacking," is legal, as long as all "reasonable efforts to kill" the injured animal are then taken.

Elaine Leslie, retired agency chief of biological resources for the National Park Service, said Wyoming "sanctions this kind of behavior."

"The dialogue during that meeting was focused on, 'Oh, we can't identify or articulate the exact meaning of the word humane or ethical. So let's take that out of the bill,'" Leslie recounted.

In an opposing move, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., last week introduced a bill to prohibit the intentional use of motor vehicles to harm wildlife on federal lands, establish a protocol for enforcement and penalties and maintain exemptions for human safety.

The bill is co-sponsored by legislators in North Carolina, Florida and Louisiana but notably none in the Mountain West, where the practice of "whacking" coyotes and wolves is legal in several states, as a practice distinct from hunting.

Leslie pointed out the behavior is likely happening elsewhere, too.

"We have no idea what the extent of this behavior is nationally," Leslie acknowledged. "I think it does need to have national attention and be a national bill right now."

A Wyoming legislative committee will hear recommendations from the Treatment of Predators Working Group Sept. 30.


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