Wisconsin’s second wolf hunting season is
underway, lasting until the end of February. However it is still surrounded by controversy,
since the removal of wolves from the endangered species list in 2011. Nearly
half the quota for the season was killed with a few days last week.
Debates are still going strong as to
how to manage wild wolf populations in Wisconsin, among wolf campaigners,
sportsmen and the Department of Natural Resources.
Approximately 24 members of the wolf
campaigning group, Friends of the Wisconsin Wolf, assembled recently in Madison,
protesting for an end to the hunting. Melissa Smith, a member of the group,
states, “There is no legitimate reason to be hunting wolves in Wisconsin."
The group argues that the state’s management plan is based on false
information; scientific research, they claim, shows the wolf population as
threatened. "The wolf hunt is not
something supported by the public," Smith states. "This has become a
politically-based, not a science-based, issue."
The state management plan came under
similar criticism last year, when the state’s native tribes strongly opposed
the idea of managing the wolf. The wolf is part of their culture and tribal
creation story and is highly respected by the tribal members. The story is the
Great Spirit warned man that if the day came when the wolf no longer had a safe
place to retreat and be removed from existence, then humans would follow.
The protests were on the same day DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp released an article
defending Wisconsin’s wolf management plan. According to this article, hunters
in Wisconsin are able to cull 275 wolves this hunting season, reduce the state’s population by only 13
percent, making the population closer to the state’s goal.
Stepp states, "The DNR
strives to balance many of the social aspects of wolf management with the
need, and the department’s responsibility, to manage the state’s wolf
population."
