Here & Now’ Recap: Peter David…

Here’s what guests on the Oct. 15, 2021 episode had to say about the wolf hunt, …

With Wisconsin’s controversial wolf hunt set to begin in a little more than three weeks, six Chippewa tribes want a federal judge to halt the hunt, explains a wildlife biologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission. Here & Now reporter Will Kenneally explains.

Peter David
Biologist, Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission

Wisconsin’s controversial wolf hunt is scheduled for Nov. 6. Days before the start, though, a federal judge in Madison will consider a lawsuit brought by six Chippewa tribes calling to halt the hunt following an early spring harvest that blew through harvest quotas.
Wolves, or ma’iingan, as Ojibwe tribes know them, are sacred, culturally important animals.
Hunter Nation, which successfully sued to get the state to conduct the February 2021 wolf hunt, and is threatening new litigation over harvest quota numbers for the November hunt, was invited to join the program, but declined.
David: “The February hunt was certainly an unprecedented event compared to wolf hunting in human history. You know, that impact was entirely nested into the heart of the wolf’s breeding season, and so we were far from even understanding the biological impact from what happened in February. And yet we’re proceeding here with another hunt that’s really unconscionable.”
David: “It’s understood that the wolf is an animal that the tribe’s fate is intertwined with, and the relationship is really one of a brotherhood. This is literally like coming into your family and killing family members to traditional Ojibwe people. So it’s that raw and it’s that close to home, and you can imagine how this feels to tribal people, especially when the justifications given for this event really don’t hold up to any scientific scrutiny.”