SUBLETTE COUNTY – Despite hundreds of online threats of violence and hatred posted against a Marbleton coyote derby that took place from midnight Friday to just after dark on Saturday, not a single protestor showed up in person.

The Song Dog Shootout, organized by Amy Busselle and Bill Cowley to help “balance” the local coyote population, resulted in 12 teams signing up for the contest. Cowley and his wife Brandy bought Waterhole #3, the established bar and grill, three years ago.

Busselle, a bartender, said she expected “maybe six” but the online furor brought more to support the Marbleton event, she guessed. No results were available at press time.

Last Saturday, Feb. 22, after the 8 p.m. deadline, no hunters had been disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct. The mood that day at Waterhole #3 was quiet and uneventful with “no problems,” according to Brandy Cowley.

“The (hunters) I’d never seen before were all well mannered and polite,” she said. “That was probably the best thing. I was actually impressed at how well I was treated and respected by the folks who came for the derby.”

Protestors were welcome as long as they didn’t inhibit the Water Hole #3’s business, Busselle had said. “They are welcome to come. They have the legal right.”

Background

Locals had asked Busselle and Bill Cowley about hosting a “coyote derby,” a not-so-unusual rural wintertime hunting contest with enough snow on the ground to track adult animals looking to breed.

In Wyoming, larger “predatory animals” include coyotes, red foxes and gray wolves (outside the Wyoming Game and Fish’s Trophy-Game Management Area in northwest Wyoming). Coyotes in particular are trapped and hunted without a license or a bag limit. Last year’s pups are now adults, Busselle said, and no one hosted a coyote derby last year. So the growing population was encroaching on town corrals and yards.

Brandy said she was not interested – but they could use part of the parking lot as a gathering point. Activists also targeted the Waterhole #3 website and Facebook page and Brandy personally.

“She wasn’t really even very thrilled about having the derby,” Busselle said of her “kind of city girl” friend. “She didn’t want anything to do with the judging, weighing, any of it.”

‘Ethical'

Busselle researched setting up an “entirely legal and ethical” event, with stringent rules for disqualification.

No “mangled” or bullet-blasted carcasses allowed. She counted on her strict set of rules for hunters to follow and if they didn’t, they would be disqualified, “No questions asked.”

Hunters could use snowmobiles to track coyotes but not to run them over, she said. No predator-zone wolves accepted, either.

She contacted the Sublette County Predator Management Board and was told (by a board member she wouldn’t name), “This is an appropriate way to address a situation like this.”

The board member offered prize money set aside annually for three possible coyote hunts, approved unanimously at the board’s December meeting. Board president Pete Arambel and secretary-treasurer Cat Urbigkit declined to discuss it or did not respond.

First sign

The first sign of trouble was when Brandy Cowley received an unintelligible phone call from an irate out-of-state man who screamed at her, she related. The man then posted a video trying to connect the Waterhole’s derby to the 2024 Daniel wolf incident.

He referred 2,000 video viewers to animal advocate Jonas Black’s page, Show Your Teeth, which plans a second “Hogs for Hope” motorcycle rally to Daniel this summer. Black’s post was shared many times with his followers. Black is collaborating with Wyoming Wildlife Advocates’ Kristin Combs on a GoFundMe fund drive for $130,000, which was met and exceeded.

The previous Sunday, people from this country and others began texting and emailing dozens of insults and threats to the Cowleys, Busselle (whose voicemail is still full) and even local acoustic musician Sammy Steele (no relation), who contracted to perform Friday night at the Waterhole #3, and said he received at least 50 threats and insults from animal advocates.

Wyoming Wildlife Advocates posted a video complete with old-time pictures of massive coyote kills, without a direct call to animal advocates.

Community

Weekend events are marked on the Waterhole #3’s calendar months ahead of time, such as Bingo games, fundraising benefits and raffles, the annual pig roast and a special July Fourth celebration.

Back in November, Brandy and Busselle flipped through the upcoming 2025 calendar to pencil in traditional celebrations and holidays, Busselle explained last week. There was a gap after Valentine’s Day – for Feb. 21-23.

It never occurred to them that their small-town event in late February would take place almost exactly a year after Daniel hunter Cody Roberts injured a young wolf with a snowmobile wire and duct-taped its mouth before it slowly died in a Daniel bar. He was fined $250, although steeper penalties were available.

Since then, angry and threatening online comments are constant – continually shining a negative spotlight on Sublette County, consistently trolling the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office website and Facebook. Hardly any online news – even tragic events – escapes their scathing comments.

It never occurred to Busselle and the Cowleys that this small-town coyote derby might draw the same negative attention.

“This is not a celebration of any one-year anniversary,” Busselle said. “This is nothing the same at all. It has nothing to do with killing wolves. This is entirely legal. This is managing the predators to get the right balance.”

‘Brazen’

No one hosted a local hunt last year, Busselle said, so coyotes were growing more “brazen” than usual.

“They usually hang out away from here, out there,” she motioned west toward the Wyoming Range. “We can take just enough so they have don’t have to fight (for food) and they’ll go back there.”

Most local pronghorn and mule deer hunters declined to hunt from the two struggling big-game herds, still recovering from two years of disease and starvation in western Wyoming. As a result, she said, hunters culled fewer coyotes.

This winter, coyotes are encroaching on people’s yards and corrals around Marbleton, Big Piney and settled areas, including Busselle’s home with a 10-week-old puppy to protect. Friends – with chickens and soon baby goats, lambs and calves – also want to protect their pets, kids and livestock from coyotes, foxes and gray wolves in the predator zone, she said.