Four wolves shot in Northwestern Wisconsin
DNR:The problem wolves were permitted to be killed because of the change in status from endangered to threatened.
BY ROBERT IMRIE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
For the first time in decades, timber wolves are being shot in Wisconsin to prevent them from killing more livestock and other domestic animals.
Four wolves have been trapped and killed within the past two weeks in Northwestern Wisconsin, Adrian Wydeven, wolf expert for the state Department of Natural Resources, said Wednesday.
The killing is permitted because the wolf has been downgraded from an endangered species to a threatened species. It was downgraded federally April 1, and the state changed it in October 1999.
“With a healthy wolf population, we feel it is just best to eliminate wolves that have become habitual killers of livestock populations,” Wydeven said.
Until this spring, problem wolves were trapped and relocated within the state, he said. Last year, 17 were relocated.
The four wolves killed so far were captured on two farms in Burnett and Barron counties, Wydeven said. They were then shot in the head, he said.
Wolves have killed at least five calves and four sheep this spring, Wydeven said.
At a monthly meeting of the state Natural Resources Board in Stevens Point on Wednesday, Board Chairman Trig Solberg complained that wolf numbers are getting out of hand, making the animal almost a nuisance, and he questioned the accuracy of the state’s count of wolves.
Another board member, James Tiefenthaler, asked the DNR to prepare a report on what it would take to have the wolf listed as a fur-bearing species, paving the way for it to be hunted and trapped in Wisconsin.
The board took no action on wolf-related issues.
The timber wolf is a native species that was wiped out in Wisconsin by the late 1950s after decades of bounty hunt- ing. Since the animal was granted protection as an endangered species in the mid-1970s, wolves migrated into the state from Minnesota. Their numbers have been growing ever since.
Wydeven said counts indicated there were 335 wolves across the state late last winter — just shy of the goal of 350 — in 94 packs.
It’s probably the most wolves in the state since the 1800s, he said.
The population has been growing by an average of about 20 percent per year since 1985, he said.
Through Wednesday, Wydeven had received 32 complaints alleging that wolves had killed or injured domestic animals or livestock this year.
Before the state could allow the trapping or hunting of wolves, the animal would have to be removed from the threatened species list by both state and federal agencies, Wydeven said.
That is planned, but the earliest both approvals could be given is late 2004 or early 2005, Wydeven said.
The state then determines how to manage the animals, he said.
Also Wednesday, the Natural Resources Board voted to allow limited commercial fishing of whitefish and chubs in two designated areas of Lake Michigan near Manitowoc and Sheboygan from June 28 through Labor Day, said Dave Weitz, a DNR spokesman.
The change allows each license holder to fish with three fish trap nets. It gives commercial fisherman “an opportunity to make a little bit more money,” Weitz said.
Such fishing has been restricted in the past in those areas because of conflicts with rod-and-reel anglers, Weitz said.