ROCK SPRINGS — Throughout the rest of this week, members of the Wyoming Wildlife Protection Group will continue to peacefully protest a wildlife killing contest hosted by a local Rock Springs resident where participants meet at a local business.
Buddha Bob’s Bar at the Sands on 9th Street is where those who are participating in the Red Desert Predator Classic on Saturday, February 5, are going to meet. This event is a qualifying event for the Wyoming Best of the Best State Championship. This is also the location where protestors have met and will continue to meet this week.
During the protests, the protestors chant, give out information, and answer any questions those passing by may have about what goes on during coyote killing contests.
“These contests glorify violence against animals and do not have any sound, science-based wildlife management principles which give our hunters and wildlife agencies a bad name,” protest organizer Madhu Anderson said.
During the protest on a cold and breezy Monday evening, Anderson used a megaphone to spread the group’s message.
“These wildlife killing contests are cruel, ineffective, wasteful, and they violate fundamental huntings ethics, such as fair chase,” Anderson said. “This damages the reputation of our hunters. These contests also give the wrong message to our children that killing for fun and cash is okay.”
“I run the contest and I don’t have a comment for them people,” event host Mark Gillespie said about the protestors in an interview with SweetwaterNOW.
Gillespie said, Wing Lew, the owner of Buddha Bob’s Bar, just allows the group to use his building, he has nothing to do with the actual event itself.
Anderson said they are protesting in front of that business because “it’s disturbing to me that a local business would support these cruel and unsporting killing contests, and I wanted to call attention to it.”
“We’re doing nothing illegal. What we are doing is for fun. We’re doing it because we like to hunt coyotes,” Gillespie said.
According to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s website, “Coyotes are defined as predators in Wyoming. There are no license requirements or stamps required to hunt coyotes in Wyoming. There are no bag limits. The only restriction on take of coyotes is you cannot harvest a coyote from any public road.”
Gillespie said one person has already filed a lawsuit against the group back in 2016 claiming that what the group was doing was illegal, and in his opinion, his group won that case in 2017. The case revolved around the legalities of whether or not hunting competitions were considering gambling.
“Our objective is to stop wildlife killing contests statewide, as eight U.S. states have already done, by starting from my hometown of Rock Springs,” Anderson said. “I also hope to start a conversation with producers around the state about how this random, mass killing of our native wildlife does not protect livestock from conflicts.”
Gillespie said it takes a lot of skill to hunt coyotes and it’s just like hunting any other animals, such as elk, duck, and deer. He said the hunters use calls to lure a coyote in, just as they would any other animal. There’s fair chase and fair play involved in these hunts as well.
“We are not doing it to harm the animal, but help with the ecosystem,” Gillespie said.
“The bottom line is that wildlife killing contests are not effective wildlife management and are not based in any sound science; they are just the random killing of our native wildlife for nothing more than cash and prizes,” Anderson said. “As a longtime resident of Wyoming it’s important to me that we preserve our native wildlife species, like coyotes, that are so important to a healthy and balanced ecosystem, and that we respect ethical hunting practices, for our future generations.”
With the event still taking place, the protestors plan to meet in front of the local business on Tuesday through Thursday from 6-7 p.m., Friday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and Saturday from 5:30-8 p.m. Their first goal is for the owner of the business to agree to stop allowing his business as a meeting place for the event. Their second objective it to have all wildlife killing contests banned in Wyoming.
To review the entire findings of fact and conclusions of law Gillespie was referring to, see the document below.
Editor’s note: Attempts were made to contact Buddha Bob’s Bar owner Wing Lew for comment, however, those calls were not returned by deadline.
