Forest Service Employee Traps, Tortures and Kills Wolf – Photographs It

Idaho state law makes it a crime for a person who “causes or procures any animal to be cruelly treated, or who, having the charge or custody of any animal either as owner or otherwise, subjects any animal to cruelty.” The law also requires that “destruction of animals for population control,” the stated reason for wolf trapping, be carried out humanely.

This particular law has apparently been violated in the alleged deliberate torture and shooting of a trapped wolf in northern Idaho.

The act was carried out by an employee of the U.S. Forest Service.

The trapped wolf was non-fatally shot by people who saw the animal from a nearby road and died later.

Wolves have been stripped of federal protection across five states, including Idaho.  Idaho is seeking to reduce the number of wolves, in a culling effort, from roughly 1,000 to as low as 150.  Idaho’s wolf hunt remains open in the state and so far 350 Idaho wolves have been killed.

The disturbing factor is that the trapped wolf instead of being immediately and humanely killed was caused to suffer multiple shot wounds.  In fact a posted photo shows the Forest Service employee smiling in front of the still-living wolf.  “The big, black male wolf stood in the trap, some 300-350 yards from the road, wounded – the shots left him surrounded by blood-stained snow.”

The incident has triggered calls for both federal and state investigations leading to dismissal of the employee involved.

Common decency, as well as, making it possible for potshots to be taken at a captive animal – and photographing the results – before ending the wolf’s suffering appears to violate any law against cruelty to animals.

Michael Robinson of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, says, “A year ago, that wolf was protected as a member of an endangered species, but last month he was trapped, tortured and killed thanks to an underhanded congressional rider that’s also responsible for the deaths of hundreds of other wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains,” adding that a lack of respect for the balance of nature is leading to a war on wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and that the trapping and hunting of wolves being allowed by the state of Idaho are less wildlife-management techniques than scapegoating of wolves.

Without the safety net of the Endangered Species Act, Idaho’s very clearly persecuting wolves, not ‘managing’ them. It’s brutal and it has to stop.