By Don Davis
St. PAUL — A federal court recently outlawed Minnesota’s wolf hunting and trapping seasons, but wolf supporters are not ending efforts to redraw state laws in the animals’ favor.
Three bills were introduced in the Minnesota Legislature on Thursday, including one that would require wolf trappers to obtain permission from a landowner to use the property. A second bans snaring, which is the use of a cable that the organization Howling for Wolves calls a noose.
“People celebrate the value of wolves,” Sen. Charles Wiger, D-Maplewood, said about why he is backing the wolf package.
Wiger said that 300 contacts he has had about the wolf situation is the most of any legislative issues in the past three years.
The third main wolf-related bill calls for more money in a fund used to pay farmers whose livestock are killed by wolves. Livestock kills likely will rise after the federal court ruling because it stopped a Minnesota provision that allowed farmers to shoot wolves who were after livestock.
A House committee last month heard that protecting livestock from wolves is one of the most important issues for farmers in parts of the state where wolves live.
The state pays farmers when wolves kill livestock, but state Agriculture Department officials said that fund has been depleted.
“As the wolf population has expanded and recovered, the number of farms experiencing (livestock) depredation has increased,” Blane White of the department told the House Mining and Outdoor Recreation Policy Committee.