Last month, 216 wolves were killed in a hasty, court ordered hunt in Wisconsin, despite calls from state authorities requesting time to properly consult with native groups and calculate appropriate quotas.
History is repeating itself. Following removal of ESA protections for wolves in 2012, hunts carried out in Wyoming, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin decimated the populations, and just two years later, the species was once again given protections under the ESA. Once again, we are witnessing this cycle of protection, recovery, delisting, and massacre.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services delisted the gray wolf on January 4, 2021, and states with wolf populations were champing at the bit for the chance to, once again, kill wolves. Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had not planned to hold its wolf hunt until November 2021 so that it would have adequate time to update its wolf management plan in light of the delisting, including calculating a wolf hunting quota. However, an out-of-state hunting group, Hunter Nation, filed a lawsuit demanding that Wisconsin hold a wolf hunt this winter, taking advantage of a state regulation requiring an annual wolf hunt between November and February if the species is not protected under the ESA. The Wisconsin circuit court sided with Hunter Nation forcing Wisconsin’s DNR to hold a hunt immediately.
This hasty assault on wolves drastically exceeded the quota number of 119. More than 216 gray wolves were killed in just three days, prompting the DNR to close the wolf hunt four days early. In addition, Wisconsin regulations allow hunters to use bait and use hounding dogs to track, trail, and chase wolves as well as night hunting. All of these practices are cruel, and the use of a continuation of “fresh” hounding dogs chasing a wolf to exhaustion adds further to the wolves’ suffering.
Born Free USA CEO, Angela Grimes, said: “This appalling series of events just goes to show that, without protection under the ESA, it is a free-for-all on wolf lives. While we are opposed to the wolf hunts being carried out at all, the fact that even the moderate and reasonable request by the state to be given time to properly consult with native groups and calculate quotas was ridden roughshod over by the interests of the hunting lobby demonstrates the need for strict federal control.”
Leaving wolf management up to the states does not work. Only strong federal protections will ensure the restoration and expansion of wolf populations – and end the senseless slaughter of these iconic North American beauties. Born Free USA will continue its fight to, once again, give wolves their due protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Julie
