Point counter point:
The newest debate on the fate of America’s wolves comes in the form of a letter…”The 18 November (2015) letter, sent to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), is intended to support the federal government’s position that wolves in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan are fully recovered and that states should now manage the species.” Science Insider
The letter from 26 scientists states that wolves have recovered enough in the Great Lakes region and do not need protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Recovery of wolves has made great strides over the last four decades in the region with a population of over 3,700 wolves.
That is until 2011 when wolves were officially delisted in the Great Lakes and states like Wisconsin rushed to enact emergency legislation that mandated a wolf hunt…”Department authority. If the wolf is not listed on the federal endangered list and is not listed on the state endangered list, the department shall allow the hunting and trapping of wolves and shall regulate such hunting and trapping as provided in this section and shall implement a wolf management plan. In regulating wolf hunting and trapping, the department may limit the number of wolf hunters and trappers and the number of wolves that may be taken by issuing wolf harvesting licenses.” 2011 WISCONSIN ACT 169
States caved in to the pressure from sportsman and agricultural special interest groups. Wolf recovery ended and trophy hunting of wolves began.
Wisconsin was the worst, even allowing the use of dogs to track and trail wolves proving it cannot be trusted to protect an endangered species…
“Out of all the states that hunt wolves, only Wisconsin allows hound hunters to use unleashed packs of dogs to hunt wolves. Wisconsin, quite literally, throws “dogs to the wolves.”” Fact Sheet: Wisconsin, quite literally, throws “dogs to the wolves.”
Wisconsin went as far as to stack wolf management in favor of hunting interests.
The majority of the seats on Wisconsin’s Wolf Advisory Committee consisted of hunt clubs. (WI Bear Hunters Association and WI Bow Hunters Association to name a few).
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary, Cathy Stepp, admitted that wolf advocacy groups were booted…
“Stepp confirmed what her critics have alleged: that wolf hunting opponents were by and large kicked off the committee…When we’re charged to manage and to implement a hunt, coming in and telling us, ‘Don’t hunt wolves,’ is not a productive way to run a committee, frankly,” said Stepp. “That’s just the candid way to lay it out. We had to have people who were willing to work with us in partnership, and be willing to help us and advise us along the way in implementing state law.” Wisconsin Public Radio
Is this an example of how Wisconsin protects an endangered species? Can states be trusted to manage wolves?
I think not and many other scientists agree that individual states cannot be trusted to manage wolves
“John Vucetich, a wildlife ecologist at Michigan Technological University in Houghton and a signer of the February letter, sees things differently. “The problem is that the recovery criteria don’t meet the standards of the ESA,” he says. And “if wolves are threatened by peoples’ hatred, then the ESA requires this threat to be mitigated.” He predicts that if the wolves are taken off the federal list, “every one of these states will have a wolf hunting season, ending any further expansion of the gray wolf.” Science Insider
Science not hatred must be the deciding factor in the fate of America’s wolves.
That’s why (January 2015) the Humane Society of the United States, along with other wolf advocacy groups signed on to a letter sent to Secretary Jewell asking to downlist wolves from protected to threatened status. This is a compromise that would allow farmers and ranchers to address any concerns but not allow the hunting of wolves.
“Wolves of Douglas County Wisconsin signed onto this proposal. WODCW believes this threatened status will give non-lethal opportunities to address concerns regarding wolves with livestock producers and maintain the health of wolves. WODCW believes wolves should remain healthy, wild and not harassed from trophy hunts.” WODCW Blog January 27, 2015
Threatened status was rejected by Secretary Jewell proving states are not interested in a compromuse that would protect wolves.
Wolves must remain under federal protection until individual states, such as Wisconsin, can learn how to protect an iconic species. Scientists have just begun to understand how essential wolves are to maintaining healthy ecosystems.
Hunting wolves as a management tool only serves special interest groups bent on eradication.
Will individual states be trusted to protect wolves?
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Image: John E. Marriott
This is the email I sent to one of the “scientists” who signed that letter:
Greetings,
Of course many Wisconsinites, including knowledgeable citizen scientists and researchers, would disagree with the
letter you signed suggesting that the wolf should be delisted (i.e., no longer protected as an endangered species) in the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I will tell you why I do not agree with the arguments proffered in that letter.
It suggested wolves need to be hunted because an (assumed) increase in killing of dogs and farm animals by wolf packs would occur if wolves remained protected — and because such depredations (supposedly not caused by any other species) would surpass a “socially tolerable” number of such occurrences.
I imagine the argument in support of the above is based on the premise that Wisconsin’s wolf packs would run out of natural prey in the northwoods?
By the way, I consider the news that the Wisconsin DNR is going to reevaluate its deer management plan to be very interesting (and long overdue). Obviously, wild deer health and Wisconsin’s wolf population are interrelated issues. Continued protection of wolves is a
necessary prerequisite, as is the banning of cervid farms, if we wish to support recovery of wildlife and of the natural balance that once prevailed among all creatures living together in the Great Lakes region of North America for thousands of years…until now, that is.
Please see my research (attached). It is in the form of a comment regarding the DNR’s management of a once-healthy wild deer population in Wisconsin.
I look forward to hearing from you in this regard, if that would be agreeable to you. I believe the citizens of Wisconsin will have a lot to say in any open, public conversation regarding any necessary reforms that are both reasonable and scientifically supported if we hope to create a society where humans and domesticated animals can live as neighbors with wildlife again, in a way that is mutually respectful.
There are no socially tolerable levels, in my humble opinion, of the kind of barbaric trophy hunting and torturing (by hunting dogs and their “owners”) of trapped wildlife, including wolves, or the running down of wolves by dogs, or the baiting of wildlife by hunters. And Finally, the DNR’s apparent lack of effective deer health management practices has decimated the wild deer population.
Wisconsin’s 600 or more deer farms are implicated in the destruction of the state’s wild deer population and should probably be banned in the future.
The wolves need to be protected until we can treat all animals and each other with respect — and we humans have a long way to go before accomplishing that. I look forward to your response. Thank you for your kind attention.
La Mer Riehle
Great letter!
Reblogged this on Sherlockian's Blog.
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul.
Reblogged this on Wolves of Douglas County Wisconsin and commented:
WODCW archive written In 2015.