ANGIE RIEBE STAFF WRITER
Michigan voters had a symbolic say on the wolf hunt issue on Election Day.
David Kline, International Wolf Center communications director, points out that voters defeated two referendums supportive of hunting wolves.
But it’s all complicated and controversial.
The outcome of the votes is not binding. The Michigan Legislature last August passed a new appropriations law regarding the wolf hunt and, under the Michigan Constitution, an appropriation law is not subject to ballot referendum.
Michigan opponents of a wolf hunt say the symbolic vote on the referenda could help in any court challenge of the wolf hunting season.
Proposal 1 designates wolves as a game special species and authorizes hunting seasons. Proposal 2 gives the same powers to the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, which approved the state’s first wolf hunting season that was held in 2013.
Opponents of a wolf hunting season may now try to use the Election Day vote on the two referenda in a court case challenging the new appropriations law.
The gray wolf was taken off the endangered species list in 2012. Since then, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan have all approved wolf hunt seasons.
And despite those hunts, the gray wolf population in the Western Great Lakes District — Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan — has increased, according to a report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The report shows that the wolf population in the three-state area grew from 3,678 in 2012-2013 to 3,719 in 2013-2014.
David Mech, founder and vice chairman of the wolf center in Ely, has called it “… excellent news for continued wolf recovery in the Upper Midwest and reassurance that state wolf-management policies are working well.”
Here is the criteria used to determine if wolf populations in the three-state area are in trouble:
• A decline that reduces the combined Wisconsin-Michigan winter wolf population estimate to 200 or fewer wolves (excluding Isle Royale and the Lower Peninsula).
• A decline that brings either the Wisconsin or the Michigan (excluding Isle Royale and the Lower Peninsula) wolf estimate to 100 or fewer wolves.
• A decline that brings the Minnesota winter wolf population estimate to 1,500 or fewer wolves.
All three states’ populations are considerably higher than that.
Minnesota — which is in the third year for the DNR-managed season — allowed 500 more licenses for this year’s two wolf hunts.
The DNR said there are 3,800 hunting and trapping licenses for this season, allowing the killing of 250 wolves, which is 30 more than last year.
The first of two Minnesota wolf hunts, which critics contend are immoral and disrupt the packs’ social order, began on Nov. 8 and will run through Nov. 23. The second hunt is scheduled for Nov. 29-Jan. 31, 2015. The seasons will close earlier than scheduled if the kill quotas are reached.
The 45-day 2013 Michigan wolf hunt season that ended on Dec. 31, 2013, resulted in 22 animals killed.
Wisconsin wolf hunters and trappers harvested 257 wolves during the 2013-14 season, which was a 119 percent increase from the 2012-13 season when 117 wolves were killed.