Source Daily Press (Michigan)
EDITOR:
Gov. Rick Snyder signed another law authorizing the trophy hunting and commercial trapping of Michigan’s wolves, even though residents rejected an almost identical measure in a landslide vote in 2014. In fact, 250,000 more voters supported wolf protection than voted for Gov. Snyder that year.
Science shows that hunting wolves is ineffective at preventing livestock conflicts, which continue to be extremely rare in Michigan. Wolf attacks on people are virtually non-existent, except in the movies. By controlling deer densities, wolves can reduce deer-auto collisions and browsing on commercially valuable forests — impacts that are in the tens of millions of dollars every year.
Michigan has not conducted wolf hunts since 2013, yet its wolf population estimates continue to decline. These facts didn’t matter to some Michigan legislators determined to deliver a wolf trophy hunt to their special interests.
By signing a measure that had previously been resoundingly rejected by voters and the courts, Gov. Snyder enabled a legislative process that is nothing more than an elaborate game of voter circumvention.
It’s an abuse of power that every Michigan resident should oppose.
Lydia Sattler
Michigan state director for The Humane Society of the United States
River Junction