Recovery of wolf could endanger its image on license plates
Will the whooping crane take its place?
By LEE BERGQUIST
As the gray wolf rebounds, could we be losing it at the same time?
A wolf in profile has graced the state’s endangered species license plate since 1995.
But this week’s announcement that the U.S. Interior Department was planning to remove the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened species in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states is forcing state officials to re-think the look of the special plate.
Officials are wondering whether the state could legitimately use the wolf to support a program when it was no longer an endangered species.
“We are discussing a possible change,” said Signe Holtz, director of the endangered resources program for the state Department of Natural Resources.
It’s premature to say whether the wolf will get the hook, however.
The endangered resources program promotes biological diversity, and, “the wolf certainly remains an important part of this,” Holtz said.
And then there is this matter of the wolf’s bank-ability.
Last year, about 23,000 motorists paid an additional $25 for the plate. Proceeds are earmarked for endangered and threatened plants and animals.
The wolf plate is the state’s second-most popular specialty plate, trailing only the Wisconsin sesquicentennial.
Endangered resources plates generated $559,000 for the $1.2 million annual budget of the program, Holtz said.
“For many people, the wolf is an icon of Wisconsin’s wilderness, and many people want that image on their car,” she said.
Wolves returned to Wisconsin from Minnesota in the 1970s, and their latest population estimate is 425 to 455.
There are dozens of candidates to replace the wolf, but compounding the problem is that the most likely successor, the bald eagle, is also in the process of being removed from its protected status.
Thus, could we see a Higgins’ eye mussel gracing the backside of a Volvo?
Or what about a Butler’s garter snake on a Subaru?
For a state that loves its fishing, would a license plate emblazoned with a gravel chub or a pugnose shiner hold the same cache as the gray wolf?
“I think that a bird would be a very good choice,” Holtz said. “Bird watching is a growing wildlife-related activity. Anything tied to birds would be a good choice.”
A logical choice is a bird that’s making a comeback: the whooping crane.
Whoopers were re-introduced to Wisconsin in 2001.
Whooping cranes were nearly extinct in the 1940s. Today, there are only about 300 birds in the wild, with about one-fifth of the population spending their summers in Wisconsin and winters in Florida.