As an outdoorsman, with environmental ethics, I also respect the wildlife that I have hunted, tracked and trapped. Your policy of allowing, and even promoting, the killing of as many wolves as possible is not wildlife management. Wyoming does not manage wolves or coyotes; your policy is just to allow them to all be killed in whatever manner anyone decides.”

Kirk Beckendorf

Dear Editor,

This is a response to the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission’s (April 16-17) comments that Cody Roberts does not represent the Commission’s values for wildlife and that Wyoming implements the gold standard of wildlife management. That is completely false! What occurred very much fits within Wyoming’s stated goals and “gold standard” of eliminating wolves. Wyoming’s “management” of wolves is not based on scientific wildlife research!

To provide some personal context, I grew up on a ranch in Texas, first moved to Wyoming in 1982, and later trapped in Montana and Alaska, although I no longer live in any of those states I still visit frequently and have spent a lot of time around Pinedale and in the Wind River Mountain Range. I do still live in the mountains, in wolf territory, and was tracking a wolf just last week. I understand the problems that wolves can have on livestock operations. However, I also understand the benefits that they have on ecosystems. As an outdoorsman, with environmental ethics, I also respect the wildlife that I have hunted, tracked and trapped.

Your policy of allowing, and even promoting, the killing of as many wolves as possible is not wildlife management. Wyoming does not manage wolves or coyotes; your policy is just to allow them to all be killed in whatever manner anyone decides. Even the fine assessed by Wyoming, on Roberts, shows that what Roberts did in Daniel is allowed and acceptable by the state’s laws and policies. That is not management! Allowing wolf and coyote bashing. That is your “state’s proven track record,” definitely not a “gold standard.” Allowing unlimited killing of wolves and other predators in 85 percent of your state is not management. Your “management” definitely allows the torture of wildlife as occurred in Daniel.

I hope that the silver lining to Roberts’ torturing of the wolf is that Wyoming residents, the Commission, government officials, politicians, policymakers and wildlife biologists will create and support policies that do actually manage wildlife, not just exterminate them. 

Kirk Beckendorf, North Central, Wash.