Three bull elk were shot near Hyattville this October and left in the field to rot. According to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, nobody took the meat, the heads, or the antlers. Officials believe the elk were killed sometime between Oct. 3 and Oct. 10, before hunting season had legally opened there.

Days later, a cow moose wearing a research tracking collar was found dead off Union Pass Road near Dubois. Her collar data suggest she was likely hurt two days before she died on Oct. 17. Game and Fish biologist Aly Courtemanch said losing a breeding-age cow is a serious setback for the Jackson moose herd, which has dropped from about 1,000 animals in the late 1980s to about 300 today.

Some of the angriest voices about these cases belong to hunters. “I don’t need to kill just to be killing,” J.R. Larsen, a regional director for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, told Cowboy State Daily. Paul Ulrich of the ethics group Wyoming Sportsmanship said the lost bulls could have been a young hunter’s first elk.

Poaching isn’t hunting. It takes wildlife that belongs to the people of Wyoming, and it hurts every hunter who follows the rules. State lawmakers have stepped up before, passing a law that punishes people who intentionally drag out a predator’s suffering.

The Wyoming Legislature and the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission should act again. Review and strengthen the penalties for poaching and for wasting game animals, and give game wardens the support they need to find the people responsible.

Sign the petition to stand with ethical hunters and demand real consequences for poachers before another season of Wyoming’s elk and moose goes to waste.