Jim Lynch
The Detroit News
A Michigan group fighting the creation of a wolf hunting season will launch a new referendum campaign aimed at overriding state laws passed earlier this year.
Keep Michigan Wolves Protected, a Lansing-based group, announced Tuesday its intention to begin a new ballot initiative — its second in 2013 — aimed at halting the creation of permitted wolf hunts in the state’s Upper Peninsula. Earlier this year, the group delivered more than 250,000 signatures for a referendum that would have given voters the final word on the creation of a hunting season.
That effort was undercut by a new law passed in May that gave the state’s Natural Resources Commission the authority to designate wolves as a game species.
“This second referendum will preserve the impact of our first referendum that has already been certified for the ballot — ensuring Michigan voters have the right to protect wolves and other wildlife matters,” said Jill Fritz, director of Keep Michigan Wolves Protected, in a press release issued Tuesday. “Michiganders deserve to have their voices heard on the wolf issue, and we hope they’ll have an opportunity to vote on two ballot measures next year to do just that.”
If successful, the effort by Keep Michigan Wolves Protected would not impact a potential wolf hunt scheduled for November. The referendum could appear in November 2014 at the earliest.
Gray wolves had been on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species list for almost four decades by the time they were removed in early 2012. Over that span, the population had grown from a handful to nearly 700.
By December, Gov. Rick Snyder had signed Public Act 520 — which gave the Natural Resources Commission the authority to conduct a wolf hunt — something many state residents felt was necessary to curb the growing wolf population.
“This bill is a radical overreach by some state lawmakers, and it’s only fair to allow citizens to weigh in on this important question of wildlife policy,” Fritz said of the law.