Keith Matheny, Detroit Free Press staff writer
After three citizen petition drives, two new state laws and two ballot proposals defeated in Tuesday’s election, the question of whether wolf hunts will continue in Michigan will likely next go before a judge.
Voters Tuesday rejected two proposals that would have affirmed the appointed state Natural Resources Commission’s ability to name wolves and other animals as game eligible for hunting. And that’s significant, even in light of a state law change last August that — at least for now — supersedes Tuesday’s votes and gives the commission that authority, said Jill Fritz, Michigan director of the Humane Society of the United States, which helped put Tuesday’s measures on the ballot.
“The resounding rejection of Proposal 2 is an unmistakable signal to the NRC to terminate any plans in 2015 for a wolf hunt,” she said. “The public does not accept its authority to make such a declaration. It’s now time for lawmakers and the NRC to heed the will of the people.”
Hunt opponents say it is more about trophy hunting than threat control because measures already exist to kill problem wolves killing livestock or dogs. Hunt supporters say decisions on game species should be managed by the state, and accuse opponents of manipulative political advertising and appeals to emotion rather than science.
The nonprofit Keep Michigan Wolves Protected submitted more than 250,000 signatures to put a wolf-hunt proposal on the ballot, then nearly 200,000 signatures for a second proposal after the state Legislature and Gov. Rick Snyder enacted a new law in May 2013 to override the first petition. But a pro-hunt group, Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management, made up of dozens of Michigan hunting organizations, gathered more than 374,000 signatures for its proposal affirming the state’s ability to manage game species for hunting.
The Citizens group’s proposal was adopted by the Legislature and signed into law by Snyder last August, and will take effect next spring. Fritz said Keep Michigan Wolves Protected is preparing to file a lawsuit against the state, challenging the constitutionality of that measure. But proponents said they are confident the law can withstand legal scrutiny.
Bill Germain, a hunter from the Upper Peninsula community of Gladstone, said he supports the wolf hunt.
“We are the ones living with the wolves up here in the U.P. We have them in our backyards,” he said. “As far as we’re concerned, they’re dangerous.”
State Department of Natural Resources officials and hunters don’t want to eradicate the more than 630 wolves living in the U.P., Germain said.
“They just want to control the numbers, control where the wolves are, make them more manageable,” he said.
Ann Arbor resident Robert Mattner said the rejection of the two wolf hunt proposals Tuesday was the most important thing that happened in the election.
As an apex predator at the top of the food chain, wolves play a critical role in ecological balance, culling other wildlife, particularly the sick and the old, Mattner said.
“They are an important link in the chain,” he said. “And if you break the link in that chain, you are asking for trouble.”