An animal-rights influencer in Texas has announced a bounty of $10,000 for the identities of any Wyoming hunters who might lawfully kill gray wolves that venture outside Yellowstone National Park.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department called the bounty an “outrageous” attempt to harass hunters.
Jonas Black of Austin published the reward to Facebook Wednesday. In a post of an AI-generated graphic titled “Wildlife Outlaws,” he offered a $10,000 reward for “information regarding anyone who would harvest [wolf] 1090F or a member of her pack.”
“Anybody harvests one of these wolves during Wyoming’s wolf season and somebody snitches? That snitch gets ten grand cash,” Black wrote. “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.”
Despite seeking information about lawful hunters, Black told Cowboy State Daily that he is not against hunting and that he supports fair chase. He claims hunting wild wolves that have lived inside Yellowstone is like “shooting a dog.” It is illegal to hunt or trap inside Yellowstone National Park, but game can and does leave its legal boundaries every year.
Black posted the bounty two weeks after news broke that the oldest living wolf in Yellowstone, wolf 1090F, and her pack had left the park’s boundaries in late winter. They were captured on trail camera miles from their historic range. Mollie’s pack, as it’s often known, is reportedly the last remaining intact pack from the reintroduction of Yellowstone wolves in 1995 and 1996, when 31 gray wolves were imported from western Canada.
WGFD director Angi Bruce condemned Black’s bounty for the threat it poses to private Wyoming citizens who hunt lawfully.
“Putting an animal before the welfare of a person is outrageous,” Bruce told Cowboy State Daily. “This is the exact reason our legislators put this statute in place — to prevent harassment of our hunters.”
The Wyoming legislature passed a law in 2012 that states “information identifying any person legally taking a wolf within this state… is not a public record” to prevent stalking and harassment of Wyoming hunters. Predator hunting is controversial among the wider public, and it’s not uncommon for hunters to be harassed with hate mail and social media comments that include threats of death or physical violence. Idaho also protects the identities of lawful hunters.
Wyoming’s law only prevents WGFD from publicly disclosing hunter identities, however, and does not prevent a private individual from publishing their personal information obtained by other means.
It is unclear if Black’s bounty is a violation of plain old hunter harassment laws. In Wyoming it is illegal to “interfere with the lawful taking of or the process of lawfully taking any wildlife” if the interfering party has an “intent to prevent or hinder” that taking.
In general, harassing a hunter who has already taken wildlife does not qualify as a violation. Black has posted his reward well before the wolf season opens in September.
WGFD did not immediately provide a response to Outdoor Life’s request for comment about whether such a bounty would constitute harassment.
Yellowstone Wolves and Tensions in Wyoming
Despite strong public perspectives on Yellowstone wolves, there’s nothing scientifically special about Mollie’s pack, WGFD wolf biologist Ken Mills told WyoFile this month.
“When we look at packs across the landscape, a breeding pair is a breeding pair. A pack is a pack,” Mills said. “That’s how we implement our management plan: based on the broader population assessment.”
For the 2026 wolf season WGFD approved just four wolf tags in Unit 1, where Mollie’s pack has been spotted. The agency reduced wolf tags by half this year in response to lower wolf populations in that corner of the state. The 2026 season opens Sept. 15. Statewide hunter success rates are extremely low in Wyoming, at just 2.5 to 3 percent. Each harvested wolf represents nearly 500 days spent hunting.
Black also claimed in his Facebook post: “I recently took down Aaron Snyder, test me fools.” Snyder, a longtime hunter and outdoor media personality, apologized after a video resurfaced that recorded him killing a wounded coyote with a knife. Snyder said the optics of the video were poor, but that he had not broken any laws and that the coyote had been preying on calves.
Black said he became a wolf advocate after a Wyoming resident illegally tortured and killed a gray wolf in 2024.
Related: Activists Are Defining Hunters by One Wyoming Man Who Tortured a Wolf. What Are Actual Hunters Doing About It?
Conservationist and media personality Randy Newberg received plenty of blowback after hunting a wolf on his TV show, Fresh Tracks. He told Cowboy State Daily he’s used to the criticism, since he puts his hunting front-and-center for the public to see. Most private citizens do not, he argues.
“If their information got out there, I can assure you,” Newberg said. “That person is going to undergo a level of threat and intimidation that’s completely out of line.”
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