Montana woman given temporary hunting ban after skinning ‘wolf’ which turned out to be domesticated husky

A Montana woman who killed and skinned a domesticated Siberian husky in September has been hit with a six-month deferred hunting ban.

Amber Rose Barnes, who posted a picture of herself with the dead husky on social media, pleaded no contest to a charge of misdemeanor animal cruelty. TMZ reported that the judge in Barnes’s case deferred a six-month hunting ban and banned her from using her hunting rifles for that same period of time.

Barnes will also have to take an online hunter safety class before having her hunting rights restored.

It’s not the worst time to be banned from hunting in Montana – the state’s hunting season doesn’t begin until September, meaning there is little legal hunting Barnes could have done there in the next six months anyway.

Barnes drew attention to the killing of the dog with a social media post in which she mistakenly identified it as a wolf pup.

“So this morning I set out for a solo predator hunt for a fall black bear, however I got the opportunity to take another predator wolf pup 2022 was a great feeling to text my man and say I just smoked a wolf pup. #firstwolf #onelesspredatorMT,” she wrote in the post about the killing.

The post quickly went viral, outraging a number of Montanans both for its tone and what it portrayed. She eventually made another post – offering context for her misidentification of the dog. She then suggested she would have shot it anyway even if she had correctly identified it.

“I purchased my wolf tag prior to leaving for a bear hunt in the event I ran into a wolf in which I came to encounter with what I thought could be a hybrid during this time […] my safety was top priority this animal was growling howling and coming at me like it was going to eat me,” she said.