Regulations implementing the ESA define harm to include “habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering. Or running dogs through an endangered species habitat where their young are kept. Such has been the case with Wisconsin’s Gray wolves and bear hunters. Does it harm wolves, as an endangered species? ” Thus, running dogs in pursuit of bears through sites that contain wolf pups could potentially cause harm. Someone seems to think so, as they (conservative politicians) in the Trump Administration want to change the ESA’s definition of harm.
For decades, Hunters using dogs in pursuit of bears in the northern woods of Wisconsin have run their hounds right through wolf rendezvous sites (where wolf pups are kept). Wolf pups are only about three months old when hunters begin running their dogs on bear. Despite WDNR sending out alerts to avoid those areas, this conflict continues every summer in Wisconsin’s north woods, setting the stage for a never-ending battle between bear hunters and wolves.
States are coming under fire about how they manage their Gray wolf populations.
Recently, a judge ruled the FWS must reconsider relisting wolves in the Rocky Mountains under the Endangered Species Act. A federal judge in Missoula on Tuesday, August 6, 2025, vacated the federal government’s determination that gray wolves in the Western United States do not need increased federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. Ultimately, a Federal judge agreed with the plaintiff’s arguments that Fish and Wildlife did not adequately consider the future of the gray wolf under the most drastic human-caused mortality scenarios, nor the political climate that could add pressure to states to continually increase hunting and trapping opportunities. Those changes could lead to the species requiring federal protection again. This on-and-off ripple is the effect of the ESA is the direct effect of how states manage thier Gray wolf populations. This includes the state of Wisconsin and how it manages its wolves.
The future of the gray wolf is under the most drastic human-caused mortality scenarios under state management.
There is a law, Act 169, on the books in Wisconsin that mandates a hunt when gray wolves are not on the Endangered Species List. This law has triggered four hunts, with one as recently as February 2021, and with Gray wolves just fresh off the list. This is an example of how little regard there can be by states for a species just off the list. Year after year, a conflict between bear hunters and wolves takes place every summer in Wisconsin. Wolves are a federally protected species under the Endangered Species Act. But it all depends on political whims
It’s no secret that Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association members want wolves gone, as they have lobbied for hunting and want the wolf population capped at 350.
Every summer, the conflict between bear hunters and wolves takes place in Wisconsin’s northwoods.
Hunters using dogs in pursuit of bear in the northern woods of Wisconsin run their hounds right through wolf rendezvous sites (where wolf pups are kept). Wolf pups are only about three months old when hunters begin running their dogs on bear. They run hounds through known wolf caution areas, even though WDNR sends out alerts to avoid those areas. In 1982, Wisconsin started a wolf depredation program. Wolf depredation program pays $2,500.00 per hunting dog. In 2016, thirty-seven bear hunting dogs were killed in the pursuit of bears. Several bear hunters received multiple wolf depredation program payments, and even ones with criminal charges, such as poaching a black bear.
It’s a mystery as to just how many dogs in pursuit of bears are running through the woods during training & hunting.
In 2015 Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association (WBA) worked at loosening regulations for bear hunters using dogs in the pursuit of bears. It’s a mystery as to just how many dogs in pursuit of bears are running through the woods during training & hunting. Why is this a mystery? Because a change in regulations took place that removed the Class B bear training & hunting license. Because of that change, it’s impossible to know just how many dogs in pursuit of a bear are running through the woods.
It’s all carefully crafted propaganda to make the wolf look bad.
Here we have several anti-wolf politicians making claims to distort the public’s view of wolves; wolves are decimating the White-tailed deer herds, attacking livestock, and killing hunting dogs. Let’s set the record straight: wolves do hunt White-tailed deer, have killed some livestock, and killed 37 bear hunting dogs in 2016. But in reality, is there a big-bad wolf here? Let’s get the facts before we sanction the killing of an endangered species.
Image found on Wisconsin Wolf Hunting’s Facebook page.
During the 2016 Wisconsin bear hunting season, 37 hunting dogs were lost in the pursuit of bears. A few Wisconsin legislators claim these deaths were due to the high wolf population of 866 in 2016, but there’s a whole lot more to this story than meets the eye. Adrian Wydeven, former Wisconsin DNR Head Wolf biologist, wrote in an opinion editorial: Numbers don’t add up in wolf-hound debate, written on November 12, 2016, and suggested that: “Do wolf numbers correlate with wolves killing hounds? The evidence suggests this might not necessarily be the case. In 2012, only seven dogs were killed, and yet there were nearly as many wolves in 2012 as there were in 2016 (815 wolves in late winter 2012).”
I started working on the Wisconsin wolf recovery program as a volunteer Winter Wolf Tracker in the year 2000. I lost track of how many “no-wolf” bumper stickers were encountered in a day of tracking in the the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. This conflict between bear Hunters and wolves is decades-old.
In the 1960s Wisconsin started allowing the use of dogs in the pursuit of bear. At that time there were maybe a handfull of wolves in Wisconsin if any. Wolves were not a threat to bear hunters because they were all but wiped out of Wisconsin by the 1960s. It all changed for bear hunters when Wisconsin Wolf recovery began in the late 1970s.
Watch the following video by Wisconsin Public Television, 2010
Wolf Depredation Reports and Maps
Wisconsin’s wolf depredation program began in 1982, and soon afterwards, bear hunters running dogs in pursuit of bear began receiving payouts. The payouts for wolf depredations were paid in an effort to help compensate hunters, livestock owners, and residents living in wolf recovery areas.
In 2017 $99, 400.00 was paid for hounds killed in pursuit of bear, 2016 training & Hunting season, according to the Wisconsin annual wolf damage payment summary. Did the Wisconsin wolf depredation program reimburse bear hunters who knowingly ran their hunting dogs through WDNR wolf caution areas?
“When wolves attack dogs in hunting or training situations on public land, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will create wolf caution areas to warn hunters that a specific pack has attacked a dog or group of dogs. Bear hunters are urged to exercise greater caution if they plan to train hounds or hunt bear with hounds near any caution area, especially if near an actual kill site.”
The following is a spreadsheet of wolf depredation program payouts to bear hunters using dogs in pursuit of bears in 2016:
Harassment is the act or an instance of harassing, or disturbing, pestering, or troubling repeatedly; persecution according to Webster’s dictionary. Let’s add the topic of harassment or harm towards an endangered species, such as Wisconsin’s wild wolf.
Considering the decades of conflict between bear hunters and wolves, is this becoming harassment of an endangered species? Isn’t this illegal? Does it cause harm?
According to the NRDC, the outlook for endangered species doesn’t look too favorable under the Trump administration. The Trump administration has proposed changing the protections under the Endangered Species Act that would rescind the current, science-based definition of harm.
Since its passing in 1973, the act has stated that it is illegal “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” an endangered species. Regulations implementing the ESA further define harm to include “habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering.”
Under the ESA, not only is the species protected, but it also protects the habitat they depend on for survival.
Eliminating protections for habitat would make it easier for developers to clear-cut forests, bulldoze over important habitats, and mine, drill, and pollute the places that endangered wildlife call home. And does removing it also mean hunters in pursuit of bears would have free rein to cause harm to Gray wolves?
Take action, make the call to your representatives in DC.
Protect the Endangered Species Act and don’t let the Trump Administration make changes to the definition of harm under the ESA regulations.
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