Vote to be Held on Hunting Wolves (Northern Wisconsin)

Mike Brust is a hunter and, if the state ever approves a hunting season on timber wolves, he will be in line for a permit.

A proposal to establish a hunting season on gray wolves will be up for a vote Monday night at the statewide spring meetings of the Conservation Congress, a powerful advisory group to the state Department of Natural Resources on outdoor sporting issues.

Brust, who chairs the Conservation Congress committee on wolves, said he expects the proposal to pass. If it does, the DNR will probably look more seriously at a hunting season on an animal that, less than two years ago, was still on the federal endangered species list.

Gray wolves, also known as timber wolves, have returned to Wisconsin in healthy numbers after being nearly eliminated from the state by 1957 by hunters who feared the animals were threatening the deer herd. That's the same year that a bounty for wolves, $20 for adults and $10 for pups, was eliminated. Placement of the wolf on the state and federal endangered species lists and a ban on hunting helped encourage the return of the wolf, mostly from healthier populations in Minnesota, to Wisconsin. Last year 's surveys showed between 540 and 577 wolves in Wisconsin, according to Adrian Wydeven, a DNR mammalian ecologist and wolf expert.

The number of wolves in Wisconsin, as well as in Minnesota and in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, reached levels that prompted the wolf 's removal from endangered species designation last year.

Brust said that as wolf population numbers have climbed, depredation by some wolves on livestock, pets and hunting dogs has increased. A wolf hunting season, he said, would not only be a way to keep the population in check, it would also help retain support for the recovery program, especially in Northern Wisconsin. Farmers and others who have to deal with problem wolves were encouraged last year, Brust said, when the delisting of the wolf allowed them to shoot wolves on their land if they are killing livestock. A hunting season would be another important step.

"It's a great success story,'' Brust said of the wolf's return. "If we were to allow them to spread into areas where they don 't belong, it could jeopardize the program. It will give the public a sense that there is a means of control. Landowners have been frustrated but giving them the right to control wolves on their land has eased a lot of opposition."

In addition to a proposed wolf hunting season, the Conservation Congress will also vote Monday on a proposal that would make it legal to shoot wolves on public land if they are threatening pets or livestock. That proposal took on additional meaning last week when the DNR reported that, earlier this month, two wolves in the Chequamegaon National Forest had killed a cocker spaniel that got ahead of its owner during a walk on a forest road.

Wydeven said such incidents do turn people against wolves. He said he has sensed an erosion in support for the wolf recovery program as wolf numbers have climbed.

Still, some are adamantly against hunting an animal whose demise in the state nearly came about because of hunting.

Gena Schroeder is with the national organization Defenders of Wildlife and said the group will be encouraging its members in Wisconsin to attend the Conservation Congress meetings and vote against the wolf hunting plan.

Schroeder said it was just a little over a year ago that wolves were removed from the endangered species list. Too few data exist, she said, on their current populations to justify a wolf hunt.

"We've always been concerned about the long-term survival of the wolf,"Not Schroeder said.

Wydeven, however, said current wolf populations can stand up to a hunting season if that hunt is strictly regulated. Studies have shown, he said, that hunters could kill between 30 and 50 wolves and not harm the population's future. Such studies, he added, take into account that the Wisconsin wolves are actually part of a larger population that extends into Minnesota and Michigan 's Upper Peninsula.

Were Monday 's Conservation Congress to approve the hunting proposal, Wydeven said, the issue would be taken up by the group 's board at its meeting in May and the board would have to decide whether to forward the plan to the Natural Resources Board, which sets policy for the DNR. That board, Wydeven said, would then have to decide whether to direct DNR staff to set up regulations for a wolf hunting season.

Setting up such a season would take months, Wydeven said, and would require more population studies as well as many public meetings for gathering public opinion on the matter. A hunting season on wolves would also have to be approved by the Legislature, Wydeven said.

Wydeven said that, despite wolf numbers that could sustain a hunt, he understands how difficult it might be for some to accept a hunting season. The subject of wolves is emotional, he said, because of the myth and the legend that has grown up around the animal.

"The range of attitudes is so extensive," Wydeven said. "It goes from those who view wolves as saints and gods to those who seem them as devils and demons. Trying to walk a line between those attitudes and find a way to manage wolves is difficult."

UPDATE:

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/281655

Wolf hunt spurs howls at hearing

Tim Eisele
Special to The Capital Times — 4/15/2008 12:54 pm

The potential for a wolf hunting season generated the most interest at the annual Dane County Conservation Congress hearing Monday night at the Alliant Energy Center Exhibition Hall.

The hearing held by the state Department of Natural Resources on specific hunting and fishing rule changes was followed by debate on advisory questions asked by the congress.

An estimated 365 people attended. Votes will be tabulated today.

The gray wolf has made a dramatic comeback and has been taken off the Federal Threatened and Endangered Species list. The wolf population in Wisconsin is predicted to continue to increase if no control methods are implemented.

The advisory question asked whether the DNR, the Wisconsin Conservation Congress and the Legislature should adopt a hunting season and harvest goals to maintain the wolf population within DNR management objectives.

That drew howls of concern from 13 people who objected.

Rob Alexander of Middleton said that he was “concerned with lethal control of wolves because they are social animals, and if you shoot one you will affect the rest of the pack and pups, and that seems cruel.”

Two representatives of the Dane County Humane Society said the organization is opposed to hunting wolves.

Patricia Randolph of Portage also criticized the proposed hunt.

“I don’t understand how reasonable, sane men can think that they can eat hamburger every day but they can’t have a wild animal take a cow,” said Randolph, an animal rights activist who was a Dane County Conservation Congress delegate from 1999-2002. “They can’t have depredation of livestock from those (wolves) that have to eat in the wild.”

Ruth Gundlach of Madison said that she was not opposed to controlling animals by hunting.

“I believe that hunting is a far more humane way of killing animals than stockyards, but I am concerned about the wolf’s social structure, and I don’t know how you could do this without causing problems in raising young wolves,” Gundlach said.

However, Jack Hurst of Madison said it was not too long ago that the gray wolf was considered extinct, and now it has come back more than anyone anticipated.

“The DNR has all kinds of valuable information and I think we ought to let them do their job and manage our natural resources the way they see fit,” Hurst said.

Other issues

An advisory question asking whether people favored action by the Legislature to ban deer feeding and baiting statewide did not draw a single comment.

Questions about a catch-and-release season for muskies north of U.S. 10 and requiring anglers to use artificial lures with barbless hooks brought comments from anglers who were unhappy that the rule came through the recent state budget and not through any public hearing process.

Jim Olson, a muskie fisherman from Madison, said it was poor public policy to have this rule in place and he urged people to vote “no” on the questions.

The other controversial question was about legislation that would require all future Managed Forest Law contracts to allow public access as currently defined in state statute.

Five people asked that the proposal not be adopted.

Karen Meyer Stoebig of Madison said that her family had a small acreage that is in Managed Forest Law and said if this became law, her land would probably pass to a big landowner who wouldn’t let anyone on the land.

Steve Holaday, a DNR forester, said the program is the single-most important one in terms of long-term forest management on privately owned lands. He said the DNR is not in favor of a change because it would greatly discourage participation in the program by private landowners.

The participants re-elected Brad Wagner of Middleton to a two-year term on the congress, and Jayne Meyer of Madison to a three-year term.

Other incumbent Dane County delegates are Joe Caputo of McFarland and Jim Shurts and Al Phelan of Madison.

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