Wisconsin DNR Refuses Request To Implement Immediate Wolf Hunt

Saturday, January 23rd, 2021 -- 9:55 AM

The state Department of Natural Resources policy board narrowly refused Republican legislators’ request Friday to implement a wolf hunt immediately, citing concerns that the department can’t move that fast and Wisconsin’s Native American tribes haven’t been consulted as per treaty rights.

According to the Associated Press, the decision marks a setback for farmers who say they’ve been struggling with wolves preying on their livestock for years. 

Then-President Barack Obama’s administration delisted Great Lake wolves in late 2011. Republican legislators passed a law the next spring requiring the DNR to hold a hunt every fall. The department ran three hunts from 2012 to 2014 before a federal judge put the animals back on the endangered species list.

Former President Donald Trump’s administration removed them from the list earlier this month. DNR officials had said in December they planned to resume a hunt in November. That wasn’t soon enough for a group of GOP lawmakers led by Sen. Rob Stafsholt and Trieg Pronschinske; they sent the DNR board a letter on Jan. 15 demanding the department launch a hunt right now.

According to department estimates, the number of wolves in the state has grown from 815 in 2012 to 1,034 last year. The DNR estimates 256 packs roamed the state in 2020.

Greg Kazmierski authored a motion that called for starting the hunt by Feb. 10 and using quotas from the 2014 hunt. But he lost momentum after DNR attorney Cheryl Heilman pointed out that he was setting quotas without consulting the state’s tribes as required by a 1983 federal court ruling. The ruling clarified treaties Ojibwe tribes signed in the 1800s ceding a huge swath of northern Wisconsin to the state.

The board voted 4-3 to reject Kazmierski’s motion and then adjourned without any further remarks about the hunt.

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