Commentary: Waiting for responsible Wisconsin wolf management? Don’t hold your breath

I understand the frustration expressed by Mr. Prudlick in the Aug. 8 issue of Wisconsin Outdoor News about why the Wisconsin Trappers Association was not “granted” a seat on the new DNR wolf committee. After all, during the last regular fall wolf season, approximately half the wolves were harvested by trappers.

Not to mention the fact that the Wisconsin Trappers Association has worked for years with the DNR to develop and refine a trapper education program for the DNR. Also shunned was the Wisconsin Bowhunters Association that, too, has worked with and supported the DNR on many of the agency’s youth and archery programs. Besides their 4,000-plus active members, Wisconsin Bowhunters Association would have represented tens of thousands of bowhunters (and gun hunters) who try to hunt a deer population that has been decimated by wolves in a large part of the state.

As for the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, that group certainly belongs on the committee. Many bear hunters with dogs have given up the sport they love because each year wolves kill several of their trailing dogs while they are pursuing bears. Bird hunters, too, lose their dogs to wolves, with many bird hunters now abandoning Wisconsin and traveling to other states to hunt and spend their money, just to avoid the wolves.

Although the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation represents a number of hunting groups, they also represent a wide range of other types of conservation groups. Which is also true of the Conservation Congress.

MORE WOLF COVERAGE FROM OUTDOOR NEWS:

Commentary: What can ranching tell us about wolves and whitetails?

Commentary: The Voyageurs Wolf Project’s perspective on wolf hunting and trapping

Streams of Thought: U.S. House bill to delist wolves clears committee; what’s it really mean?

If it’s any consolation to Mr. Prudlick, the trappers, the bowhunters, the deer hunters and others who want to see wolves managed at a reasonable and sustainable population level – which the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has agreed is about 350 wolves statewide – understand that it’s not going to happen, even if your representative was on the “committee.”

The committee, by design, has been heavily weighted with wolf protectionists and avowed anti-hunters, so that almost all outcomes have already been predetermined.

Take the two “at large” members, who ironically have more votes than the single true hunting group. One is a wolf advocate with the Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance. The other says he is a hunter, but was “embarrassed” by the most recent February wolf hunt where he said “the wolves didn’t stand a chance,” and then supported canceling the following wolf season.

Apparently, he is unaware that hunters harvested only 9% more wolves than the DNR’s prescribed harvest goal, and that if we truly only had the 1,100 wolves across the whole state as the DNR claimed, the few hunters and trappers who drew harvest permits would have been the ones who didn’t stand a chance of even seeing a wolf in 2½ days.

The tribes, that say they oppose any hunting or trapping of wolves, have four representatives on the committee. And of course, the Sierra Club, the Timber Wolf Alliance and the Timber Wolf Information Network also have representatives.

It’s all a moot point anyway. Many seem to believe that if wolves are ever again removed from the federal Endangered Species List, our DNR can then manage wolves to a reasonable and sustainable population. Sorry, the DNR has already made sure that isn’t going to happen through its new wolf plan.

You see, this isn’t the first committee to be skewed against responsible management of wolves. In 2022 the DNR hand-selected and convened a committee to “revise” the long-term wolf management plan that called for a population goal of 350 wolves statewide. With the addition of the tribes, that committee was so heavily weighed against wolf harvest that the hunting and trapping representatives were effectively powerless.

Of course, that committee then ELIMINATED the idea of having a population goal, and instead installed a vague reference to the large number of wolves we already have. So, even once wolves are again delisted, no meaningful hunting or trapping seasons will occur.

So why even have a wolf committee? Well, for starters, the DNR can now say that all “stakeholders” are involved. Unfortunately, all stakeholders are not affected equally.

On one side you have numerous protectionist groups raking in huge sums of money by convincing sympathetic citizens that these “majestic” animals are on the verge of extinction due to blood thirsty hunters and trappers, and only through their donations can these wolves be saved.

On the other side you have farmers fighting night and day to protect their livestock, pet owners afraid to let their pets out in their own back yards, hikers carrying pistols for protection and thousands of deer hunters no longer buying licenses because there are so few deer remaining in much of northern Wisconsin.

One thing this new wolf committee will eventually determine are the future harvest quotas, as required by law, once wolves are federally delisted. The data from other states shows human caused mortality of 30% to 40% of the total wolf population, each year, is necessary to affect a reduction in the continuing population.

Western states are struggling to control wolf populations, even with very liberal hunting and trapping seasons. However, based on the make-up of this new DNR wolf committee, there is little hope of meaningful control of Wisconsin’s wolf population in the foreseeable future.

The irony of all this is wolves have NEVER been endangered, or even close to it. There have been, and continue to be, very robust and healthy populations of wolves throughout Canada and Alaska, not to mention northern Europe, Russia and Scandinavia. Wolves have been returned to the Endangered Species List because groups making millions in donations have convinced a few biased judges to absurdly rule that wolves need to be returned to their original range – which includes Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee and virtually all of the continental U.S.

Mike Brust, a life-long hunter and trapper from Marathon County, has been involved in several hunting groups, as well as having spent 32 years on the Conservation Congress, where he chaired the first Conservation Congress Wolf Committee. Brust has been directly involved in Wisconsin wolf management since the early 1990s and has spent hundreds of hours serving on almost every DNR wolf committee since they began.