By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
A Texas-based “social media influencer” is reportedly offering a $10,000 reward to anyone providing the names of any hunter who legally kill any member of a Yellowstone National Park wolf pack which recently denned outside of the park in Wyoming.
Cowboy State Daily is reporting that Jonas Black of Austin claims the reward is offered in an effort to protect the predators known as Mollie’s Pack, especially a 12-year-old female known as “Wolf 1090 F.”
The season opens Sept. 15, and Black posted the reward two weeks after it was reported Mollie’s Pack had moved outside of the park, according to Outdoor Life.
Wolf hunting is a sore subject among animal rights activists, while hunters and ranchers favor such hunts because wolf populations have expanded in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, and in Washington, where there is no hunting season for the big predators.
In his post on Facebook, Black wrote, “1090F is one of the oldest wolves still walking Yellowstone. Her and her pack carry a lineage that actually matters for the entire reintroduction of wolves across North America. They stepped outside the park lines, outside the protections, and now trophy hunters are calling it the opportunity of a lifetime.
“This isn’t fair chase,” he asserted. “These wolves are conditioned to people. They don’t run. It’s not a hunt. It’s an execution dressed up as sport.
“So we’re putting a $10,000 protection on 1090F and any member of her pack,” Black wrote. “Anybody harvests one of these wolves during Wyoming’s wolf season and somebody snitches? That snitch gets ten grand cash. And the person who pulls the trigger? We’re going to make them famous. What happened to the guy who killed Cecil the lion is going to look like child’s play next to the heat that comes with this one.”
Wyoming Fish and Game Director Angi Bruce reportedly “denounced” the bounty scheme via an email to Cowboy State Daily. Bruce said state law protects the identities of wolf hunters, as do neighboring Montana and Idaho.
The Mollie’s Pack has taken up residence in the nearby Shoshone National Forest. Black claimed in an interview that shooting one of these animals would be like shooting a domestic dog. The wolves have lived inside the park for decades, and they are allegedly used to getting close to humans, and vice versa. Hunting is not allowed inside the park.
Hunting advocates contend offering the reward is aimed at identifying successful wolf hunters so they may subsequently be harassed and possibly even threatened.
