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As Earth Sizzles, CO2 in the Atmosphere Accelerates Faster Than Ever
Story by Tom Yulsman
• 1d • 3 min read
The first of several global heating analyses for May is in, and while expected, the news, from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, is still disturbing:
It was the warmest May on record, continuing a record-setting heat streak that has now lasted for each of the past 12 months, going back to June 2023.
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This means global temperatures have been at 1.63 degrees C above preindustrial levels over the past 12 months, according to the Copernicus analysis. Under the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to restrain the increase of global average surface temperature to 1.5 C.
This short-term warming doesn’t mean we’ve breached that threshold – which concerns a longer-term span of years, not months. Nonetheless, “we are way off track to meet the goals set in the Paris Agreement,” says Ko Barrett, deputy-secretary of the World Meteorological Organization. “We must urgently do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions, or we will pay an increasingly heavy price in terms of trillions of dollars in economic costs, millions of lives affected by more extreme weather and extensive damage to the environment and biodiversity.”
Unfortunately, the level of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to accelerate, scientists from NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced yesterday.
Relentless Rise of CO2© Provided by Discover Magazine
Carbon dioxide’s relentless rise in the atmosphere continues: In May it reached its peak for the year at just shy of 427 parts per million – the highest level in millions of years. (Credit: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory)
“Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever,” says Ralph Keeling, Director of the CO2 Program at Scripps, quoted in a release. “Each year achieves a higher maximum due to fossil-fuel burning, which releases pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel pollution just keeps building up, much like trash in a landfill.”
Related video: Climate-warming gas levels rising faster than ever, scientists warn (Scripps News)
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Measured atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, CO2 reached its annual high in May at a little less than 427 parts per million. That’s 2.9 ppm greather than in May 2023. “When combined with 2023’s increase of 3.0 ppm, the period from 2022 to 2024 has seen the largest two-year jump in the May peak in the NOAA record,” according to the agency.
Rays of Hope
The CO2 surge will continue until we more vigorously restrain out gusher of emissions. And here is where we might actually find one ray of hope:
In the last decade, the growth in humankind’s emissions of carbon dioxide has slowly declined. The growth rate between 2013 and 2022 averaged 0.5 percent per year, down from a peak of 3 percent per year, according to Global Carbon Budget 2023, a detailed paper published at the end of last year.
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If you’re wondering how the level of CO2 in the atmosphere can still be accelerating even as our emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere are slowing and perhaps even leveling off, that’s a great question! Part of the answer is likely to be the strong El Niño that began in June 2023 and is only now nearly gone. The climate phenomenon limits uptake of atmospheric CO2 by land ecosystems, according to John Miller, a carbon cycle scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory.
But I suspect there’s more to this, so I’m hoping to explore the issue in more detail in a future column.
In the meantime, it’s important to keep in mind something the authors of the Global Carbon Budget Paper emphasized: While the slowdown in the amount of carbon dioxide we’re pumping into the atmosphere is indeed good news, “global fossil CO2 emissions continue to grow and are far from the rapid decreases needed to be consistent with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.”
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But here, too, there is a ray of hope: In its World Energy Outlook 2023 report, the International Energy Agency projects that CO2 emissions from energy use and industry will peak in the mid-2020s. In fact, pending further analysis of the numbers, the IEA says it may have actually happened last year.
If we can speed up our decarbonization efforts by accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels and curbing such land-use practices as deforestation, we still have time to avoid the most dire impacts of climate change.
Or as author and climate scientist Michael Man has written, “There is urgency in reducing carbon emissions. But there is also still agency on our part in acting.”
Box turtles. Coral. These illegally trafficked animals still need a good home
JUNE 8, 20245:00 AM ET
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Confiscated live animals are temporarily held in what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls their “live room” at an office building near Los Angeles International Airport, while authorities try to find them longer-term housing and specialized care.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
TORRANCE, Calif. — In the back of an office building, in a small room that smells like rotting strawberries, a criminal investigator watches his evidence crawl around on wood chips in five open plastic tanks.
The box turtles, native to eastern North America, were found at a nearby international mail facility in Los Angeles about a week prior, packaged in a series of boxes bound for Asia.
“These guys were being illegally exported,” said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) special agent, who asked to remain anonymous because of his undercover work. “Now it’s an ongoing investigation in terms of who shipped them.”
FWS Inspector Mac Elliot looks over a legal shipment while Braxton, a dog trained to smell heavily trafficked wildlife like reptiles and animal parts like ivory, enthusiastically does his job. Wildlife trafficking is one of the largest and most profitable crime sectors in the world. Estimates of its value range from $7-23 billion annually.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
The 40-some box turtles have a more immediate problem. They’re evidence of a crime and its victims. Distressed, possibly sick, and half a continent away from a home they’ll likely never see again, the turtles need specialized care and a long-term home.
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Seized animals rarely get returned to the wild because it’s difficult to know where, specifically, they came from. They could carry disease.
“What to do with confiscated live animals has been a concern for as long as I’ve been a wildlife inspector because of the quantity, the care,” said Tamesha Woulard, a 36-year veteran of the FWS Office of Law Enforcement. “What happens after they’re here?”
Last year, the FWS and the Association for Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) launched a pilot project aimed at answering that question in Southern California. With wildlife trafficking surging globally, the organizations are now in talks to expand the program to other parts of the country.
“We’re reacting to a crisis,” said Sara Walker, senior advisor on wildlife trafficking at AZA. “It doesn’t do anything to actually reduce demand.”
Some of the confiscated turtles at the FWS office have mottled splotches on their shells, a sign of potential sickness.
The seized shipment of turtles included a mix of Eastern Box Turtles, native to the eastern U.S., and Yucatan Box Turtles, native to Mexico. The Yucatan Box Turtles have pale white heads.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
The illegal wildlife trade is surging
Wildlife trafficking is one of the largest and most profitable crime sectors in the world. Estimates of its value range from $7 billion to $23 billion annually. A recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that more than 4,000 species are being targeted by traffickers globally, to be sold as food, medicine, ornaments or pets. The crimes are causing “untold harm to nature,” said Ghada Waly, the office’s executive director, jeopardizing “livelihoods, public health, good governance and our planet’s ability to fight climate change.”
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An analysis by Moody’s Analytics that used government data from around the world found that from 2018-2021, wildlife trafficking surged 150% globally.
The latest available data from the FWS shows that from 2015-2019, nearly 50,000 live plants and animals were seized or abandoned in the U.S. over that four year period — an average of about 27 individuals per day.
Woulard said the number is definitely higher today.
“To me, what was highlighted after COVID is that people will try to make money using a lot of different methods,” she said. “E-commerce has exploded and there are people that are making pets out of animals that were never pets before.”
Squirrels, skunks, scorpions and snakes.
“But then I started finding ants,” Woulard said. “Ants? Really?”
Top and bottom left: Inspectors Mac Elliott and Ali Ventura look through a shipment. While Inspector Ray Hernandez takes a moment to instruct Braxton (bottom left). Seized animals rarely get returned to the wild because it’s difficult to know where, specifically, they came from. They could also carry disease.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
Illegal trade isn’t always nefarious, she said. Well-meaning pet enthusiasts don’t always know they’re purchasing something that was collected or shipped illegally. Importers don’t always mean to ship something that’s not allowed. Southern California is a hotspot for the legal import of tropical fish and corals, which can be hard to properly identify.
“There is a legal trade,” Woulard said. “What we do is we facilitate the legal trade and we intercept the illegal trade.”
When a live animal is seized by authorities, regardless of the reason, the authorities assume responsibility for the animal and its well-being.
At the FWS office in Torrance, there’s a room with saltwater tanks to house seized fish, corals and clams. The small room occupied by the 40 scurrying box turtles, a few doors down, has housed everything from rare birds to monkey-tailed skinks — “large lizards that don’t play well with each other,” Woulard said.
Their job is to keep the animals alive, she said. “Long enough for them to get to a place with better care.”
Aquatic species need specific water temperatures, pressure and chemistry. Specialized care at the Aquarium of the Pacific is often given by volunteers like Shaw Droker.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
A new approach
In the nine months since the Wildlife Confiscations Network launched, participants said it’s helped streamline the process of getting animals triaged and placed in long-term care facilities.
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It’s also helped law enforcement officers “who are being absolutely inundated with live animals being smuggled,” said Walker, with the AZA.
Since August of last year, the network has helped place more than 1,300 animals at zoos, aquariums and conservancies in the region. The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach has taken in 500 individual corals and clams in the last six months, said Nate Jaros, senior curator of fishes and invertebrates at the aquarium.
Left: The turtle pictured here was confiscated and has been living at the aquarium since the 1990’s. Right: Tropical corals are very popular with aquariasts in the U.S. They’re often confiscated by authorities because they’re misidentified.
Ryan Kellman/Ryan Kellman
“We really don’t harvest any wild coral for this,” he said, pointing to a massive display tank with schools of darting fish and colorful corals. “Mostly in-house propagation and confiscations have been enough to fulfill our coral exhibit needs.”
Animals that can’t be placed are likely to be euthanized. Fortunately, Walker said, since the Wildlife Confiscations Network launched in October that hasn’t happened yet. “But it’s going to happen in the future, I’m sure,” she said. “We’re just running out of space.”
Efforts are underway to launch similar networks in other parts of the country, Walker said, with the goal of creating a national network. The effort is “obviously a reactive initiative,” she said. “We’re reacting to a crisis. It doesn’t do anything to actually reduce demand.”
When animal care providers receive confiscated animals, they’re often malnourished, sick and distressed. Each animal is inspected and triaged to give it specific care.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
American turtles are increasingly part of the illicit trade
For some of the seized box turtles, temporarily housed at the Fish and Wildlife Service office, their long-term home is likely to be a couple hours drive north, at The Turtle Conservancy in Ojai, Calif.
Since 2017, the conservancy, which is closed to the public, has taken in about 500 confiscated turtles, including about 100 box turtles in just the last year.
Left: A Ploughshare Tortoise (center), native to Madagascar, is critically endangered due to poaching from the pet trade. Their rareness adds to their value on the illegal market. For poachers, Liu said, “It’s like finding a gold brick on the ground.” Right: Due to their golden coloration and friendly personalities, the Radiated Tortoise is one of the most heavily poached animals in the world, Liu said.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
The surge in American turtles being illegally collected and trafficked is part of a broader trend, said James Liu, director and head veterinarian at the facility.
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“Now that there’s a lot more wealth in these Asian countries that have always liked turtles — they’ve always valued them as pets, as traditional medicine, as food — they now have the means to buy them from other countries,” he said.
Abby Roeser (left) and Lani Yoo (right), of The Turtle Conservancy, weigh and inspect the confiscated turtles they’ve taken in daily to make sure they’re recovering from disease and malnutrition.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
The U.S. has the greatest turtle biodiversity in the world. That richness, coupled with steep declines in Asian turtle populations — what conservationists have dubbed the Asian turtle crisis — and economic hardships in the U.S. following the COVID-19 pandemic, “have created this perfect storm where now Americans are the people who are poaching and sending them to China,” Liu said.
A single box turtle can be sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars, depending on its coloration, wildlife officials said.
The patterns on box turtle shells are meant to emulate dappled light coming through trees to help the animals camouflage in their native forests of eastern North America. Their bright coloration also makes them more desirable for the pet trade.
Ryan Kellman/NPR
In the conservancy’s quarantine room, where new arrivals are kept for 60 days to be screened for disease and to be nursed back to health, Liu wiped the shell of a male box turtle with a wet rag. Its gleaming shell looks like a Rorschach test of ink black and golden orange.
The conservancy’s staff measured the turtle’s weight and moved on to the other confiscated turtles they had taken in. Their tanks run the length of a wall, stacked three high.
“It’s a quarantine, but really it’s an evidence locker,” Liu said. “Instead of cocaine and other contraband, it’s living creatures. It’s native U.S. turtles.”
Iowa asks USDA for help after 2nd case of bird flu detected in another dairy herd
Bird flu found in Wyoming dairy cows
The location wasn’t disclosed, but Wyoming officials confirmed Friday the state’s first case at a dairy farm. Risks to humans are very low, though officials recommend drinking pasteurized milk.
by Madelyn BeckJune 7, 2024
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Wyoming is now the 10th state where bird flu has infected dairy cows.
State Veterinarian Hallie Hasel said the highly pathogenic avian influenza infection was confirmed Friday, though she didn’t disclose a location.
Still, she said in a news release that the risk to human health was very low and the risk to cattle was minimal.
“The primary concern with this diagnosis is on-dairy production losses, as the disease has been associated with decreased milk production,” she stated.
Three people have been infected with the H5N1 bird flu after contact with infected dairy cows, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One other person was infected after contact with poultry.
Meanwhile, more than 80 dairy cow herds have been infected as of June 7, according to the CDC. Federal agencies and officials continue to track the disease’s movement and analyze how it’s spreading.
“While it is still unclear exactly how virus is spreading, the virus is shed in milk at high concentrations; therefore, anything that comes in contact with unpasteurized raw milk, spilled milk, etc. may spread the virus including other animals, vehicles, and other objects or materials,” the USDA stated.
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A federal order in April requires dairy cows to test negative for the virus before moving across state lines. The USDA also requires 30-day quarantines for dairy cows that have tested positive before retesting the animals.
Biosecurity measures are critical to helping prevent the spread of disease, Hasel said, and those include keeping areas clean, limiting wildlife traffic, segregating infected populations and regular monitoring.
Milk and meat safety
Symptoms of the disease in dairy cows include low appetite, decreasing milk production, abnormally thick or discolored milk, manure consistency changes, and low-grade fever, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association and a press release from the state livestock board and agriculture department.
This strain of the bird flu does cause cows to shed virus in their milk, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported. Pasteurizing milk kills viruses, but it can still exist in raw milk, so the agency sent states and Tribal authorities a letter Thursday urging vigilance, caution and communication about the dangers of raw dairy as it pertains to the bird flu.
While the Food and Drug Administration prohibits interstate sales of raw milk, some states like Wyoming have legalized the products’ sale locally.
“For states that permit the sale of raw milk within their state, use regulatory authorities or implement other measures, as appropriate, to stop the sale of raw milk that may present a risk to consumers,” the USDA wrote. “This may include restricting the introduction of raw milk that may contain viable [highly pathogenic avian influenza] H5N1, for human or animal consumption, within a defined geographic area, or within your state.”
As for meat, the USDA “is confident that the meat supply is safe,” it stated.
“USDA has a rigorous meat inspection process, which includes Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) veterinarians who are present at all federal livestock slaughter facilities,” it stated.
And none of the diseased cattle ends up in circulation for human consumption, Hasel added.
“So as far as ground beef and other meat products, they are totally safe to eat at this point in time with regards to avian influenza,” she said.
Still, the USDA cautioned that people fully cook meat to a temperature that would kill any pathogens.
Coyote “eradicators” killed
NTSB releases preliminary report on fatal plane crash near Forsyth
- AP
- Jun 7, 2024 Updated 16 hrs ago
UPDATE on June 7, 2024:
FORSYTH, Mont. – The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released a preliminary report on their investigation into an airplane crash on May 14 near Forsyth that killed the pilot and the single passenger.
According to NTSB, the pilot of the Piper PA-18-150 was conducting aerial management of predatory wildlife on a ranch property. The pilot was assisted by a county trapper who was on the ground near the hunting area and communicated with the pilot by cell phone.
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The county trapper told NTSB that he received a final phone call from the pilot at about 7:18 am, who reported that they had eradicated two coyotes and had spotted a third. The call then ended.
The county trapper said that about that time, he heard the sound of gunshots, which he attributed to the predator management operations. The county trapper left the area and attempted to call and text the pilot multiple times without answer.
A cattle foreman saw the downed airplane as he was driving on a road past the scene of the accident and reported the crash to law enforcement.
NTSB says it was roughly 7:20 am when the Piper PA-18-150 crashed
According to examination of the crash site, the airplane had impacted with a hill “in an extremely nose-low attitude”. The airplane then came to rest in a nearly vertical position.
NTSB added that all major parts remained secured to the airplane and no visible crash marks were observed on the ground near the wreckage. The airplane sustained major damage to the engine mounts, forward fuselage, and both wings.
The plane was recovered to a secure location for further examination from NTSB. No additional details were provided by NTSB at this time.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A single-engine airplane crashed in southeastern Montana, killing the pilot and the passenger, the Federal Aviation Administration reported.
The Piper PA-18 crashed near Tillitt Field Airport east of the town of Forsyth at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the FAA said. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the cause of the crash.
Rosebud County Sheriff Allen Fulton said they have identified the victims but weren’t releasing their names yet. The crash did not start a fire, he said.
The story has been corrected to show the plane crashed at 4:30 p.m., not 10:30 p.m.
Trapping in North Carolina
Bird Flu (H5N1) Explained: Bird Flu Has Killed Dozens Of Dairy Cows In Multiple States, Report Says
WA Fish & Wildlife Is Trying to Prematurely Downlist Wolves in Violation of the State Recovery Plan
Display of a captured wolf in a Wyoming bar brings outrage
JUNE 1, 202411:06 AM ET
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https://www.npr.org/2024/05/28/nx-s1-4984051/wolf-display-wyoming-bar
Daniel is part of a tight-knit ranching community in western Wyoming.
Caitlin Tan/Wyoming Public Media
Wyoming is home to hundreds of wolves, most live in or near Yellowstone National Park. They’re protected and a big tourist draw.
But elsewhere in the state wolves are still often reviled as predators and a threat to the livestock industry. So killing wolves in most of Wyoming is legal year-round without a license.
But one man who did that recently is now under investigation, after the animal’s death sparked outrage around the world.
Video shot inside a bar in Daniel, Wyo., population 108, in late February shows a muzzled and leashed wolf that looks to be injured, lying on the wooden floor. Bar patrons chatter in the background. Another video shows it attempting to snarl momentarily, but then submitting to a man grabbing its snout and leaning down to kiss it.
Cody Roberts in an image from a video in which he brought a live wolf into a bar in Daniel, Wyo., in February 2024.
screenshot by NPR
That man is Cody Roberts, who’s from a longtime local ranching family. Local media reports say Roberts ran the wolf over with a snowmobile, which is legal in Wyoming if the animal dies.
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But this wolf didn’t die that way. A source who requested anonymity for personal safety reasons says Roberts shot the animal later that night. But it’s what happened at the bar before he shot the wolf that has become a huge story.
Someone at the bar that night reported Roberts to local game wardens. They ticketed him for illegally possessing a live wolf, and he paid a $250 fine.
Global threats
Jackson Hole Community Radio broke the story a month after the incident. In April, videos of the bar incident surfaced and spread online internationally.
Cody Roberts isn’t talking to reporters, but people all over the world are talking about what happened at the bar in Daniel.
“I’ve had death threats from Ireland, Russia, Japan, Australia,” said another man who happens to be named Cody Roberts, but had nothing to do with the incident, is not related to the other Roberts, and lives about 100 miles way in Thayne, Wyo.
“I don’t know how many thousands of messages I’ve had,” he said, exasperated.
Some people have mistaken his Facebook page for the other Roberts.
“Like this one just says, ‘You’re a psychopathic wolf torturer kill yourself,’ ” he read.
People have threatened his family too — sharing his parents’ phone number online and even threatening to “run his grandson over.”
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Roberts said he has responded to every message explaining that he is not the same guy.
“One lady even went and said, ‘I don’t care if you’re not the right one, do me a favor and put a bullet in his head and this will all go away,’ ” Roberts read.
He said he’s also disappointed in what the other Cody Roberts did, but he actually thinks these threats are worse.
“Does he deserve everything that he’s getting? No, I don’t think he does,” he said. “You know, he’s still a human.”
“Boycott Wyoming” has become a trending hashtag. Another graphic circulating shows the Wyoming flag, with the words “Wyoming the animal abuse and torture state” superimposed upon it. The Wyoming Office of Tourism Facebook page is flooded with similar comments. The page normally posts almost daily, but went silent for almost all of April.
Local businesses are also facing backlash, including one-star reviews being left for some businesses only because they are in the same area as the incident.
Local anger
Cali O’Hare has had to write about it as the sole newsroom employee of the local paper, the Pinedale Roundup.
The reporter for the Pinedale Roundup newspaper says she’s faced local backlash for writing about the wolf incident
Caitlin Tan/Wyoming Public Media
“There’s all kinds of letters I’ve gotten. I got one that was like, ‘The world is watching you.’ You know — so no pressure,” O’Hare half-joked. “It’s not only a man’s reputation, his family and their livelihood on the line, but it’s also the reputation of the community — and the perception from the rest of the world.”
In this tight-knit community known for cowboys and sprawling sagebrush, this level of attention is unheard of. Not to mention — everyone knows everyone.
“I mean, I joke, it’s three degrees of separation,” O’Hare said, adding that she knew Roberts before any of this happened. “It is truly one of those, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”
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O’Hare said locals have condemned her for covering the incident. They did not like hearing about an incident that cast a shadow over one of their own, and the resulting global backlash to their community.
One comment she got reads, “Go practice real journalism Cali O’Hare, you b***h on a witch hunt for a man’s family.”
Others asked O’Hare to stop the coverage, one accused her of not being objective or embellishing.
“I’m just doing my job. It’s not personal. And I have great empathy for all of the folks involved in this,” she said.
The motorcycle brigade
On Memorial Day weekend, the local frustration moved beyond keyboards to in-person in Daniel.
For weeks, wolf advocates from across the country, including a motorcycle brigade from Texas, planned to drive through Daniel to raise awareness and money to reform Wyoming’s wolf laws.
Police escort the motorcycle protest brigade through Daniel, Wyoming on May 26, 2024
Caitlin Tan/Wyoming Public Media
On the day of the event, a throng of locals came out, but only a handful of out-of-state advocates. The single-lane highway through town was lined bumper to bumper with trucks, livestock trailers, semis and hundreds of people, mostly locals. The day was peaceful, but tense.
“We have a great community. The people are the best,” said Lonny Johnson, a local farrier wearing a tan cowboy hat and purple silk scarf. “That’s why we’re here. No other reason than that.”
That was the main sentiment: Locals are tired of outsiders giving them a bad name. Many residents said they think Roberts is a good guy, he just made a mistake.
“Boys and booze and wolves obviously didn’t mix up well,” said Pat Johnson “What was wrong about it was bringing it to this d*mn bar.”
But, there were a few Wyomingites who felt differently.
“I’m not too happy with what Cody Roberts did,” said Gary Garlick, from the nearby town of Big Piney. “There’s a lot of ranchers that are upset with him as well. They’re concerned about predator control, but what he did was a little out of line.”
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He said he wished it had not come to this — a national protest in the tiny cow town.
Cattle ranching is important to Wyoming’s economy and culture
Caitlin Tan/Wyoming Public Media
Two women from California stood in front of the Green River Bar, sneaking by the giant livestock semi-trailers blocking the parking and street-side view of the infamous bar the wolf was brought into. They posed with red duct tape over their mouths — just like the tape that bound the wolf’s mouth in one of the leaked images.
“We drove 13 hours to get here,” Holly Smallie said, as a few local trucks blared their horns in the background. “Wolves are magical. We don’t deserve them. We’re no better than them. You live, you coexist, you care about wildlife.”
Smallie did not mince words — she thinks what Roberts did was torture and it needs further punishment.
The motorcycle brigade itself was short-lived. It took about one minute for six motorcyclists and several cars, one with a sign reading, “Stop wildlife cruelty,” to be escorted through town by police.
The local crowd mostly booed, blatantly giving a thumbs down. Some called out, “That’s it?” Another said, “And I canceled church for this?”
But, the wolf advocates said they raised $130,000 that they hope will reform Wyoming’s laws, so that in the future something like what Roberts did would amount to a much higher penalty.
The investigations
Even though Wyoming’s Game and Fish Department said they punished Roberts to the fullest extent of the law with the $250 ticket, the Sublette County Sheriff’s Department is not so sure. They opened an investigation into Roberts in April to see if any other laws could apply to the case. That investigation is still ongoing.
But that isn’t the only investigation. Apparently, there have been an unprecedented number of death threats resulting from the case, said Travis Bingham, the department’s public information officer.
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“Like the Sublette County Library has zero to do with it, but they’re getting them [threats],” Bingham said. “But the list goes on — his family members, citizens and town business owners.”
He added that many of the death threat investigations are not wrapped up yet either.
Additionally, the Sheriff’s Department, which serves a county of less than 10,000 people, has received thousands of frustrated emails, social media comments and phone calls, Bingham said.
“We’ve had them from back East to Texas to California, Washington, D.C., New York, Florida, was the majority,” he said, “We did receive a couple emails from out of the country, like Europe and Australia.”
The calls were clogging up their 911 services, so the department set up a separate tip line. Outsiders, like some at the motorcycle brigade, want Roberts to be arrested, and many are saying Wyoming’s wolf laws should be changed.
“A pretty good compromise”
“An incident like this tars everyone,” said C.J. Box, a popular Wyoming author who has penned dozens of books following a fictional game warden. He has extensively researched Wyoming’s wildlife culture and laws, including those about wolves.
Box said people may not like Roberts — and Wyoming — being attacked by outsiders, but that does not mean they are defending what he allegedly did with the wolf.
“That’s not hunting,” Box said. “Every hunter I know of, if they wound something, will try to dispatch that animal as quickly and humanely as possible. Not take it back, not show it off, not take pictures with it. That’s not the behavior of a hunter.”
He added that he thinks Wyoming’s wolf laws are a “pretty good compromise” — protecting the predator in much of the state’s northwest corner near Yellowstone National Park, and allowing them to be hunted in most of the rest of the state.
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But this incident has state lawmakers looking at making changes. They recently formed a committee with stakeholders, specifically looking at the treatment of predatory animals. Any official changes to state law would come next year during Wyoming’s legislative session, at the earliest.
Meanwhile, wildlife advocate groups have filed a lawsuit to list the gray wolf in the multi-state northern Rocky Mountain region as either endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Currently, the species is protected under the act everywhere but that region. If the plaintiffs win, Wyoming would lose its authority to allow wolf hunting, with regulations being set and enforced by the federal government.
Exposing the Big Game 