That’s the question at the heart of the matter, and it's the question I keep coming back to: Did God create wolves?
If you are lucky enough to have missed this story, I ask myself this question because of “that” picture: Cody Roberts grinning like an idiot next to a wounded and bound juvenile wolf pup. Cody had chased it with a snow mobile, ran over it, taped the wounded wolf’s mouth shut, put a muzzle and a shock collar on it and dragged it around for a couple of days. He ended up in a local bar, where someone snapped the photo of him, posing with the bound, suffering animal and grinning like he’s a big man.
This photo—and a video—created a worldwide furor because what Cody did was cruel—and because that cruelty is not illegal in Wyoming (and, depending on who you ask, it’s also rather common). His actions are appalling, in part because of what it says about us. But that’s for later. Today, my question is why should we care? Why does that wolf matter?
Did God create wolves? If you’re a Christian the answer is “yes,” because the entire world is God’s creation. God created wolves… God created that wolf, and God cares about that wolf, just as God cares for all of Creation.

That wolf matters to me, because it matters to God. I care because God cares.
If God created wolves, then the question for those who love God is not should we care about wolves, but what does that care look like?
I don’t think it means we have to love them—especially if that “love” means using wolves as a symbol for some political or environmental cause. It doesn’t mean we have to like them, wolves are predators, and predators are not particularly likable.
I think caring about wolves is something more like respect – respecting wolves as part of God’s creation. That doesn’t mean we can’t hunt them, you can respect an animal even when you hunt or kill it. In fact, most hunters I know respect animals more than most people who know nothing about wolves, except what they see on TV.
What respect means might be different things to different people, and I think we should be talking about what it means to respect wolves – and all of God’s creation while we are at it! But, that picture of Cody Roberts grinning like an idiot next to that suffering animal? That’s not respect. Not for the wolf, and not for the God who created it.
What Cody Roberts did to that wolf was spitting in the face of creation. It was spitting in the face of the God who created it.
Did God create wolves? Yes. And that wolf deserved a lot better from Cody Roberts, from the people in that bar, and from the people of Wyoming.