Posted on 03/16/2012 5:14:20 AM PDT by marktwain
Wednesday, the Wisconsin Assembly voted 69 to 25 to concur with Senate Bill 411, sponsored by state Senator Terry Moulton (R-23), which passed in the state Senate by an overwhelming 24 to 9 vote. This bill is now with Governor Scott Walker’s desk awaiting his signature. If enacted, SB 411 will create the first wolf hunting season east of the Mississippi since the wolf’s delisting from the endangered species list.
Like Assembly Bill 502, its companion bill in the Assembly sponsored by state Representative Scott Suder (R-69), SB 411 would authorize the Department of Natural Resources to establish a season for the hunting of wolves in response to the long-overdue federal delisting of the species from the endangered species list.
This delisting recognizes the successful recovery of the gray wolf population in the Western Great Lakes Region. Hunters have served as an essential tool for the management of wildlife throughout this country and SB 411 creates a framework for managing the state’s wolf population using this time-tested method. A scientifically-regulated hunting season will help to insure balance between predator and prey populations.
SB 411 would allow a fixed number of wolf tags to be filled in a given year with half to be chosen by a lottery system and half by “preference points” given to those applicants who applied for but who were not issued a wolf harvesting license in previous seasons.
Thank you to those state Representatives who voted for SB 411 and to our members who contacted them. Please contact Governor Walker and respectfully urge him to sign SB 411 into law.
Governor Scott Walker
E-mail: govgeneral@wisconsin.gov
If you want to be popular in Wisconsin vote for a hunting bill.
Unless there’s an over-population or they’re preying on your livestock, what’s the point of shooting a wolf, or a mountain lion?
Re-Introducing wolves into nature is an experiment that has gone terribly, terribly bad! Ask the hunters in Montana and Idaho.
I failed to add, also asks the ranchers in those states as well as Wyoming.
Mountain lions and wolves are predators that compete with humans for prey. No hunting is allowed unless there is an excess population of the predators. That is what regulated hunting seasons do, they regulate the populations to keep them within desirable limits.
“Balance of Nature” turns out to be wildly varying with far less than optimum population levels.
LSM/Hollywood will start blaming Palin in 4...3...2..1...
Whats the point of hunting a wolf?
A dead wolf.
>>Unless there’s an over-population or they’re preying on your livestock, what’s the point of shooting a wolf, or a mountain lion?<<
First, they do prey on livestock, although not so much yet in Wisconsin, but they will kill your pet/hunting dog in an instant, given the chance.
Second, it’s not so much an “over-population” of wolves that’s the problem as it is that when they’re not hunted at all they soon learn not to fear humans. Animals that are hunted fear humans whether they are carrying guns or not, and go out of their way to avoid them. Wolves in Wisconsin are becoming common enough now that the casual walk in the woods is becoming not-so-casual, and many people are deciding to carry a pistol when doing so, even though it’s illegal to shoot a wolf except in self defense.
And farther north, where they’re more common, they’re getting plenty of blame for cutting into the deer population. Whether that’s true is open to question, however.
Wisconsin Wolf Huntng Bill Goes to Governor ping
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There is already an over-population where wolves are decimating the elk and deer herds and attack domestic live stock in MT, WY and ID, and mountain lions are attacking humans in CA. Regulated hunting seasons in those areas keep their populations in check and ensure they are very wary of any human contact. Neither have any natural predators, so human controls are nessary to maintain the balance of nature else extreme swings in populations of both predator and natural prey will result, with domestic live stock that sustain farm/ranching families also suffering. I will always place the well being of farmers and ranchers well above that of large predators any day, and government payments for livestock losses are just an unjustified tax on the rest of us in any case!
JC
Thanks for the post. Generated great breakfast conversation on WI land and animal management. Mr. Wonderful is thrilled to be able to help thin the wolf herd. :)
And Wyoming who has been left twisting in the wind becasue they refuse to play the politically correct game. A much better question is why introduce predators into beef raising country.
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