Wolf attacks drain money set aside to reimburse state farmers for losses
By TOM HELD
Wolves preying on calves, lambs and hunting dogs in northern Wisconsin have wiped
out the funds the state set aside to reimburse farmers for their losses
and made the wolf reintroduction in the state a costly success.
The state Department of Natural Resources sets aside roughly $36,000 each
year to reimburse farmers for animals killed by wolves, but officials
expect that money to be long gone before the fiscal year ends in June.
Reimbursements totaled $75,668 in the last fiscal year and $62,560 the
year before, said Signe Holtz, director of the DNR Endangered Resources
Program. The funding shortfalls were covered with state tax dollars
shifted from other DNR programs.
“We’re thinking that we’re going to have to look for other sources of
money to pay claims, but we don’t know exactly where that will come from,”
Holtz said. “This year, we’ve made a commitment to pay people who have
losses, but we have to work over the next eight months to develop a
long-term plan on how we’re going to manage the situation.”
The money has now become a part of the ongoing debate over wolf management
in the state, pitting farmers and hunters against advocates who applaud
the success of the wolf reintroduction.
Wolves were hunted into extinction in the state in the 1950s, then began
to return with their endangered species protected status over the past
three decades.
Now flourishing in 94 packs, the wolves have returned in numbers that
frighten and anger their farming neighbors.
“You cannot raise livestock with wolves in the same area,” said Eric
Koens, a director with the Wisconsin Cattlemen’s Association.
Koens and his group want the DNR to take steps to reduce the wolf
population in the state, now estimated at 335. That will be a long battle,
but in the short term, they plan to pressure officials to keep the state
from “weaseling out” on the reimbursement payments promised in the wolf
management plan adopted in 1999, Koens said.
“They’re going to have to come up with the money,” he said. “And frankly,
I don’t care where they get it.”
Waiting for reimbursement
One of Koens’ fellow farmers, Judy Antczak, is waiting for her
reimbursement for four calves killed on her farm near Rice Lake in April
and May. She has asked for $700 each, what she considers the fair market
value for the young beef cattle.
Antczak has lost at least six animals from her herd of 65, including two
calves killed in 2002. Another two calves have disappeared in that same
time period, but the carcasses were never found and the state won’t
reimburse farmers unless the wolf attacks can be confirmed.
But, Antczak said, “If you’re in a wooded area and they drag it off, your
chance of finding them is nil.”
The attacks on farm animals in Wisconsin have increased right along with
the wolf population, which grew from 50 in the early 1990s to 335 late
last winter.
From January through September this year, federal agents verified 29 wolf
attacks that killed 14 calves, five lambs, six hunting dogs, three pets and one penned
white-tailed deer.
In just those nine months, wolves attacked nearly five times more domestic
animals than they preyed upon from 1990 to 1994, according to the Wildlife
Services division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That agency is expected to spend $400,000 in the current fiscal year
investigating wolf attacks and trapping and killing nuisance predators.
Wolves killed
Since April, federal agents have trapped and killed 17 wolves, including a
pack of eight that preyed on cattle in Bayfield County. Wolves suspected
of attacking farm animals were also captured and killed in Barron,
Burnett, Price and Taylor counties.
Only government agents are allowed to kill wolves, given their status as a
threatened species, under authority of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Farmers such as Koens and Antczak are pushing government authorities to
remove the wolves from the threatened list and allow them to use lethal
methods to protect their farm animals.
“I suggest that we be able to shoot them when we’re hunting in this area
or when they’re causing problems,” said Antczak, who hears wolves howling
near her house at night.
The DNR held hearings last week on a proposal to remove the wolves from
the threatened list in the state, but that would be a largely symbolic
move until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service takes the same step. At that
time, the DNR would take authority of the wolf management, and the
Legislature could authorize a hunting season.
Marian Kiggens of Prairie du Sac told DNR officials at a meeting in
Rhinelander that she fears that removing the wolves from the threatened
list would be premature, given the short amount of time their packs have
flourished.
And killing the wolves would prevent them from serving as a predator
helping to strike an ecological balance, she said.
“Let them live out their lives and do what they were put here to do,”
Kiggens said.