Conservation Congress to hold vote on wolf hunt
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin could move a step closer to allowing hunters to kill timber wolves as the state’s Conservation Congress holds a vote on Monday night.
The congress, a citizens’ advisory group to the Natural Resources Board, will ask outdoor enthusiasts at its statewide meetings whether the state should create a wolf hunting season. The question states timber wolves have made a comeback in Wisconsin, they’re no longer under federal protection and the population will continue to grow.
The proposal is expected to pass, said Mike Brust, of Wausau, who chairs the congress’ committee on wolves.
The vote would come about a year after the federal government removed the animals from the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in March 2007 decided the population had rebounded to stable levels in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. The agency removed timber wolves from the endangered list in those states and bowed out, allowing the states to manage the animals.
If the proposal passes, the issue would be taken up by the group’s board at its meeting in May, said Adrian Wydeven, a Department of Natural Resources mammalian ecologist and wolf expert. The board would then decide whether to forward the plan to the Natural Resources Board, which sets policy for the DNR.
That board, Wydeven said, then would have to decide whether to direct DNR staff to set up regulations for a wolf hunting season.
The hunt wouldn’t come any time soon. Wydeven said setting up such a season would take months, and would require more population studies as well as many public meetings for gathering public opinion on the matter. A hunting season on wolves also would have to be approved by the state Legislature, Wydeven said.
Gray wolves, otherwise known as timber wolves, have returned to Wisconsin in healthy numbers after being nearly eliminated from the state by the late 1950s by hunters who feared the animals were threatening the deer herd.
Last year’s surveys showed between 540 and 577 wolves in Wisconsin, Wydeven said.
As the wolf population has increased, so have depredation by some wolves on livestock, pets and hunting dogs has increased, Brust said. A wolf hunting season would be a way to keep the population in check, it also would help retain support for the recovery program, especially in Northern Wisconsin.
The 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.
Not everyone is for the plans. Gena Schroeder, with the national organization Defenders of Wildlife, said the group will encourage its Wisconsin members to vote against the hunting plan.
Schroeder said the wolves haven’t been off the endangered species list for too long and there is not enough information on their current populations to justify a hunt.
“We’ve always been concerned about the long-term survival of the wolf,” Schroeder said.
___
On the Net:
Department of Natural Resources: http://www.dnr.state.wi.us