Running Dogs on WI Wildlife Ten Months Out of the Year: A Barbaric Culture

Every year starting on July 1 to May 1 baying hounds and the screams of terrified animals ring throughout the woods in WI.

Life for Northwoods WI residents, including wolves, is not quiet because ten months out of the year dogs are allowed to run on wildlife. I’ve seen Hounder’s trucks parked along the rural roads and had to dodge dogs in the middle of the road. I’ve listened to the baying of lost hounds and seen terrified deer with fawns. It’s not quiet in WI’s Northwoods. Hounder’s slogan is “Run the Woods” and it’s barbaric and has no place in a civilized society.

Every July WI bear Hounders train thier dogs.

Hound hunting dogs tangle with alpha female wolves defending their three to four month old pups. This results in dead dogs and thier handlers are reimbursed up to $2,500.00 per dog killed by a wild WI wolf. #BanHounding #KeepWolvesListed

screen shot from a MI video of hound hunting dogs attacking a wounded coyote

Conflicts continue between wolves and hound hunting dogs even though wolves are back on the Endangered Species Act as of December 2014.
Hound hunters believe it’s thier right to run dogs on wildlife. Read more on this in a previous blog: http://wolvesofdouglascountywisconsin.com/2015/02/01/hound-hunters-right-to-run-dogs-versus-land-use-ethics/

For two years wolf Hounder’s chased down wolves during WI wolf trophy hunt and it’s no wonder a federal judge ordered Great Lakes Wolves back on the ESA for this abuse of a once endangered species!

Young male wolf killed by use of dogs 2014 WI wolf trophy hunt

Concern over whether hound hunter’s dogs caused the wound on this beautiful 80 pound male wild WI wolf (displayed in the above photograph) led me to call this into the WDNR violation hot line on Wednesday 12/03/14. My response at first glance of this dead wolf displayed on social media sent me into, first immediate shock, next deep sadness, then spurred me into action. Read more on the horrible death of this young male wolf in a previous blog: http://wolvesofdouglascountywisconsin.com/2014/12/08/wolf-killed-wdnr-violation-hotline-follow-up-leads-to-questions-of-ethics/

Irresponsible wolf management in WI.

Although wolves are federally protected since December 2014 there are several anti wolf bills in congress right now calling to delist them and give management of wild wolves back to the states. WI allowed the use of dogs to chase down wolves with little or no enforcement causing conflicts between wolves and dogs is not responsible.

Running dogs on WI wildlife has become a culture of violence. Just how violent is it?

It is a legal practice to place wild animals in an enclosure and set hound hunting dogs on them. The training method called penning is legal in WI (more comming about penning at a later date)

a wild coyoted trapped in a pen for the purpoise of training hound hunting dogs

I’ve spoken with an ex hounder that told me he witnessed a hound hunter’s pack of dogs tearing apart a wild bear and killing him.

Every WI citizen should be appalled by this practice of torture and butchery happening ten months out of the year in WI’s woods.

One Reply to “Running Dogs on WI Wildlife Ten Months Out of the Year: A Barbaric Culture”

jjschwartz says:

May 30, 2015 at 4:20 am

Pretty disgusting. So running down wildlife is considered sport. I really would like someone to defend using dogs to run down wildlife as being a sport. Where is the ‘sport’ in this? Ah, the thrill of killing! Isn’t it great? Life is good! Whose life?. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the rural west and it is the right and even the duty of anyone witnessing dogs, especially packs, running wild to be shot on sight. (And the very idea of my tax money being used to reimburse ‘sportsmen’ for their killed dogs I find a gross misuse of my tax dollars.) All of what I’ve said is just background ‘noise’ to the use of dogs to chase wolves. The use of dogs to chase down wolves is barbaric. (But then I don’t think much of ‘hunters’ sniping at deer from a tree stand either. Fact: Deer don’t look up.) Just because an activity is deemed legal does not make it moral. Since I’m on a roll here … The fallacious argument that wolves ruin deer hunting just proves to me that those that offer this argument to blatantly kill wolves know nothing about the predation habits of wolves in maintaining a healthy, balanced deer population.

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