The night was Feb. 29, 2024. People were chatting and drinking beers at the local watering hole in Daniel, Wyoming. In walked a man with what he was calling a “dog.”
“Like, that’s a wolf,” said a Sublette County resident who was there that night. “Like, I’m not, am I crazy? Or is that a wolf?”
Local newspaper coverage of the wolf incident. (Caitlin Tan / Wyoming Public Media)
She snapped a video of longtime local Cody Roberts bringing in the live wolf – leashed, muzzled and injured. It laid, tied to a coat rack, in the bar for hours.
“They were, like, petting it, and he lifted it up and kissed it on the face,” she remembered.
The next day, she ran the video by a Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) friend.
“I just wanted to know if what I was seeing was normal,” she said. “And the resounding answer was, ‘No.’”
The WGFD citation to Cody Roberts, originally obtained by Jackson Hole Community Radio and shared with WPR. (Wyoming Game and Fish Department)
WGFD fined Roberts the maximum amount for possession of live wildlife, $250.
The video, and what many considered a measly fine, went viral. That’s part of why WPR is granting this source anonymity.
“It’s actually not the people here that I care about knowing. I’m honestly worried about the keyboard warriors who dig into your life,” she said.
What unraveled over the next few months, and is still a hot button issue today, cast the rural, ranching community into the international spotlight. Outrage ensued over what many deemed “torture” of a wolf and the legalities and culture that allowed the incident to happen.
Thousands of angry calls from across the globe flooded the local sheriff’s office. The office even set up a separate tip line. Vulgar death threats were made to locals who had nothing to do with it. A couple men who shared the same name as Cody Roberts, but of no relation, also received thousands of threats.
Wyoming Office of Tourism’s social media and ads went dark for about a month, inundated with horrified comments, according to WyoFile reporting. Many promised to “boycott Wyoming.”
Then there was a small brigade of wolf advocates from across the nation that drove through Daniel, hoping to spur political and cultural changes in Wyoming.
One of the many graphics circulating online in the aftermath of the Sublette County wolf incident. (Facebook screenshot) / One of the thousands of Facebook messages an unrelated Cody Roberts received. (Cody Roberts)
But a much larger crowd of locals also showed up.
“We have a great community. The people are the best. That’s why we’re here,” said longtime local and horseshoer Lonny Johnson.
Much of the town rallied around one of their own, parking livestock shipping trucks to block the view of the watering hole and shouting at the brigade as it drove by.
Both sides dug in.
Then the political response came. Rep. Liz Storer (D-Jackson) led a workgroup of stakeholders over the summer. The nine-member group was made up of lawmakers, wildlife advocates and agriculture proponents.
They combed through potential changes to Wyoming’s predator laws, but it was tangled.
“What could we have had on the books, on the statutes, that would’ve changed the behavior of this individual?” said former Sen. Fred Baldwin (R-Kemmerer). “I’m honestly not sure that there’s anything.”
Workgroup member Jessi Johnson pushed back. She’s the governmental affairs director with the Lander-based hunting and wildlife conservation group Wyoming Wildlife Federation.
Holly Smallie (left) and Chris Guio of California stand outside the Green River Bar, where a live wolf was brought into. The women are wearing red duct tape, to recreate a photo of the wolf with its mouth bound with tape. (Caitlin Tan / Wyoming Public Media)
“What was the real problem here? It was that the animal didn’t die quickly,” Johnson said.
After months of back and forth, lawmakers landed on upping penalties for cruelty to animals. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed it into law in early March.
Had the law been in place when Roberts walked into that bar, he could’ve been fined up to $5,000 and potentially lost his hunting license.
But many wanted it to go further.
“That issue has given my community a black eye, my county and this state a black eye,” said Rep. Mike Schmid (R-LaBarge) to fellow lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session. “This isn’t going to go away.”
Schmid, a longtime Sublette County resident, wanted to ban the sport of running over wildlife on public land.
“It stops this senseless activity of just using a machine to whack an animal and torture it,” he said.
Schmid’s bill failed. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association lobbied that some ranchers use machines, like snowmobiles, to run down and kill predators to protect livestock.
Some of the locals who were frustrated by the wolf advocates, standing in front of a livestock trailer parked in Daniel. (Caitlin Tan / Wyoming Public Media)
However, other ranchers say differently.
“We never feel we’d need to run them [wolves] over with a snowmobile. We would never do that,” said Tara Miller. She and her husband operate Miller Land and Livestock, one of the largest cattle operations in Sublette County. “It’s just against our beliefs.”
Miller said they’ve rarely had wolves kill their cattle, but if it ever became an issue, they would resort to killing the predators with guns, not snowmobiles.
Outside of the social and political action, there’s also a legal side to the story. There’s still an active investigation in Sublette County, even though Cody Roberts already paid his WGFD fine in March 2024.
“It’s odd to keep a case open this long,” said University of Wyoming’s (UW) associate law professor,
Workgroup member Jessi Johnson at one of the meetings over the summer to discuss changes to Wyoming’s predator laws. (Jaden Bales / Wyoming Wildlife Federation)
Meredith Esser.
Esser also directs UW’s College of Law Defender Aid Clinic. She said she doesn’t know the ins and outs of the case, but has loosely followed it.
“My guess is that it’s remained open more to sort of placate the media and animal lovers and wildlife enthusiasts who are maybe disappointed in the outcome,” Esser said.
The case could remain open forever. That’s allowed for criminal cases in Wyoming.
Some ranchers say running over predators is a tool in the toolbox to protect livestock, but not everyone agrees. (Caitlin Tan / Wyoming Public Media)
Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich told Wyoming Public Radio he still gets concerned emails about the issue. He didn’t comment on why the case remains open, but wrote in an email, “The absence of a statute of limitations does not absolve the State of its obligations regarding a defendant’s due process rights. For example, the State cannot delay filing charges in an effort to obtain a strategic advantage over a defendant.”
As for the anonymous woman who captured the infamous night on video, the incident and its fallout are still an open wound.
A point of contention for some wildlife advocates is that it’s still legal to run over predators with a snowmobile. However, a new law specifies that the person must make “reasonable effort” to “immediately kill” the animal. (Caitlin Tan / Wyoming Public Media)
“I genuinely feel bad that they were harassed by the whole world, like his [Cody Roberts’] entire family, the entire town, the county,” she said, adding that most people in town know she played a role in Roberts’ fine.
The Roberts family didn’t respond to WPR’s request for an interview for this story.
She’s said she’s felt support from some locals and wrath from others. She said a man accosted her and defended Roberts’ actions in February at another local bar.
But she stands by what she did.
“It’s not about never kill an animal. It’s not about don’t eat meat or take their guns – no, it’s not about any of that,” she said. “But just don’t drag a dying animal around. Like, what? That’s some sick stuff.”
A black cow meanders through the sagebrush of Sublette County. The rural, wide open spaces is what the area is known for, and the global attention alarmed many locals. (Caitlin Tan / Wyoming Public Media)
So where do things go from here?
Another wolf advocate brigade is planning to drive through Daniel in June. And a bill in Congress would outlaw running over wolves with a snowmobile on public lands nationwide, but it’s seen little movement.
Editor’s Note: A longer version of this story will be available on WPR’s Modern West podcast this spring. Liz Storer is the president and CEO of the George B. Storer Foundation, which provides a grant to WPR.
