Senate committee weighs state wolf hunting season
Written by Louise Knott Ahern
Less than one year after Michigan’s gray wolves were removed from the federal endangered species list, a new fight is emerging over whether the animals should now be hunted or returned to protected status.
The Senate natural resources committee met Wednesday on a proposal to designate wolves as a game species — meaning they could be hunted.
Wolves were taken off the federal endangered list in January after four decades as a protected animal. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources estimates there are roughly 700 wolves in the state today, up from just six in 1973. The vast majority are in the western part of the Upper Peninsula.
Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, said he hopes to get a bill passed this year that would allow the state’s Natural Resources Commission to create a traditional hunting season or a regional harvest of wolves as soon as next year. He’s working with a fellow Upper Peninsula lawmaker, Rep. Matt Huuki, R-Atlantic Mine, who introduced a wolf hunting bill in August.
Both lawmakers say a hunt can’t happen too quickly for people in their districts who have suffered from the rising number of wolves.
“In the farming community, they’re losing their livestock, their livelihoods,” said Casperson, who chairs the Senate natural resources committee. “There is no response quick enough to help them out. They feel like their hands are tied. They’re being told how precious the wolf is, but they think their livestock is precious.”
Lawsuit planned
Casperson’s hearing, however, came just days after the Humane Society of the United States announced it plans to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — which oversees endangered species — to have Great Lakes gray wolves returned to protected status.
The reason behind the suit: Wildlife advocates say the proposed hunt in Michigan, as well as hunts already approved in Wisconsin and Minnesota, prove the Great Lakes states are not responsible enough to be trusted with the management of their wolf populations.
“There is a war on wolves going on,” said Jill Fritz, Michigan director for the Humane Society. “There is no justifiable reason to start the recreational killing of wolves right away. When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to delist wolves, they did it based on promises and commitments the states made that they would have responsible management of wolves, but they’ve proven with the laws already passed that they are not enacting responsible wolf management.”
Wisconsin’s wolf season started Monday and would allow 200 animals to be killed out of the state’s estimated 850 wolves. Four wolves have already been reported killed.
Minnesota’s hunt begins Nov. 3 and would allow the harvest of 400 animals out of an estimated 3,000 wolves.
One tool
The Michigan DNR supports the hunting option as one of several tools to control the wolf population, said Trevor VanDyke, the department’s legislative liaison.
The DNR oversees the state’s wolf management plan — a 100-page document compiled a few years ago with input from many, including farmers, hunters and wildlife advocates. The plan calls for the state to maintain a viable wolf population but to minimize wolf-related conflicts.
The plan allows the killing of wolves already in certain circumstances. Fifteen farmers who have suffered loss of livestock in the past have been issued permits this year to kill wolves, said Adam Bump, a wildlife biologist on the DNR’s wolf team. Ten wolves have been killed so far in 2012.
Seven other wolves have been killed this year because the law allows the taking of any wolf caught in the act of preying on or attacking livestock, Bump said. Eight others were killed by the DNR because of fear for human safety.
Benefits, concerns
“While the wolf population offers benefits, it also poses significant costs and concerns to some Michigan residents,” VanDyke testified Wednesday. “This would be another tool that would allow for proper management and implementation of the wolf management plan, and we think we’d use this as a tool to reduce those negative impacts and conflicts with livestock and humans.”
But some people who helped draft the wolf management plan and agreed with an eventual hunting option say the move by Huuki and Casperson is too much, too soon.
A poorly managed hunt could have a cascade effect on the wolf population and result in more animals dying than just those taken in a harvest, said Nancy Warren, Great Lakes regional director for the National Wolfwatcher Coalition and a member of the wolf roundtable that drafted the management plan.
Ripple effect
For example, she said, if a hunter took a male wolf who has pups in the den, the pups could either starve to death or force the female wolf to seek the easiest sources of food — livestock. The female wolf could then be taken by a farmer with a permit. Over time, those kinds of ripple effects could once again threaten the entire wolf population, she said.
“There is no scientific evidence or research to support the need for a recreational hunting season,” Warren said. “The DNR already has many tools to manage conflicts. We allow lethal control by wildlife services, when nonlethal are ineffective. Livestock producers get compensation for verified losses. Landowner permits allow landowners to kill wolves if they have suffered depredation. It’s only been nine months. Let’s give the plan time to work.”