Montana Governor Greg Gianforte was warned by wildlife officials after violating state hunting regulations by killing a wolf with a radio leash near Yellowstone National Park without taking the mandatory hunting course.
The three-hour online course shows hunters how to deal with animals ethically and legally.
A spokesman for the Republican governor said that Gianforte “immediately corrected” the error by enrolling in the course this week. He was allowed to keep the animal’s skull and skin.
It’s legal to kill wolves in the state with a valid license, which Gianforte had, said Greg Lemon, a spokesman for Montana’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
THE GOVERNOR OF MONTANA SAYS THAT BIDEN ‘DEGRADED’ WITH A ‘NEANDERTAL’ COMMENT ON THE GOVERNORS OF THE RED STATE
Montana’s then Republican congressman, Greg Gianforte, meets with members of the business and environmental community at Chico Hot Springs, below Emigrant Peak, on October 10, 2018 in Pray, Montana. He took over as governor this year. (Photo by William Campbell-Corbis via Getty Images)
Gianforte arrested and shot the wolf at a ranch owned by Robert E. Smith, director of conservative Sinclair Broadcasting, which has local news stations across the country, Mountain West News Bureau reported. Smith is also a major donor to Gianforte.
“In situations like this, we use this as an educational opportunity and issue a written notice,” said Lemon. “Everything related to the harvest was done well”.
Wildlife officials determined he violated the rule when he took the wolf’s carcass to a state gamekeeper in Helena to report the death as regulations require, Lemon said.
The male wolf was six to seven years old and was born in Yellowstone National Park. It was equipped with a radio collar to track its movements in 2018, park spokesman Morgan Warthin said. The animal was a member of the Wapiti Lake and 8 Mile groups in the park, so he went out on his own to find a mate.
It was the first wolf the governor killed, said Brooke Stroyke, a spokesman for Gianforte.
Hunters have the option of releasing animals with a radio leash so that they can continue to be used in research. The certification course includes instructions on the importance of wolves with a radio collar to monitor the population and control the wolf pack’s attacks on cattle.
“A wolf wearing a radio collar is going to be a terrible trophy, because those collars mess up the fur on his neck,” said Carter Niemeyer, former wolf recovery coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. “And then, symbolically, you have a wolf that researchers spent thousands of dollars on, and then someone killed that animal thoughtlessly when they could have returned it to research – that’s a very bad judgment.”
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Gianforte also illegally killed a moose too young to be harvested in 2000, which he admitted while running for Congress. He was fined $ 70 after reporting the error.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment after hours.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.