Wildlife Team Update

The Wildlife Team has had a busy start to the year! Here are the things that we have been focused on in 2024 so far and actions you can take to protect Wisconsin’s wildlife: 

Opposing the WI Hounding Expansion Bills - These bills would expand hounding (the practice of using dogs to chase down animals during a hunt) and hound training. Currently, hounding is not allowed in the northern part of the state from May 1 to June 30, a fragile time for many animals. 

• Concerns: 
  • Allowing hounding during this critical time would harm countless wildlife. Ground-nesting birds, elk calves and deer fawns, bear cubs, wolf pups, bobcat kittens, and others are being born at this time. These animals need this quiet period for birthing and raising young. 
  • Hounding is destructive to the public lands where dogs are running off-trail. Currently, hounding is usually paired with ATVs and other motorized vehicles that add to the damage on our ecosystems. 
  • Additionally, expanding hounding during this time would increase instances of trespassing in the region. 
  • This is the time of the year when wildlife biologists trap and collar wolves for research purposes. If hounding was allowed during this time wolves would not be able to be collared.
     
• Status: State Assembly Bill 512
  • Passed both the WI Senate and State Assembly
  • Currently sitting on Gov Evers’ desk (as of 2/20/2024) 
     
• Take Action: Please tell Governor Evers to VETO these bills using our pre-drafted email or call his office directly at (608) 266-1212. 

Opposing the WI Wolf Population Bill - Members of the Wisconsin Legislature have introduced a bill that would force the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) to establish a numerical population goal for wolves. 

• Concerns
  • This is in direct response to the WDNR’s multi-year analysis, stakeholder engagement, scientific research, and public comment processes that they have undertaken. 
  • These bills would undermine what the WDNR has determined as the best way to manage Wisconsin’s wolves. The WDNR has established that it is  best to NOT have a population goal in order to ensure an adaptive management strategy that allows wolf management based on the best available science and ecological considerations.The WDNR publicly spoke in opposition to this bill addressing the WI Legislature directly on the problems this creates. 
     
• Status: WI Senate Bill 139
  • Passed both the WI Senate and State Assembly
  • Currently sitting on Gov Evers’ desk (as of 2/20/2024) 
• Take Action: Please tell Governor Evers to VETO these bills using our pre-drafted email or call his office directly at (608) 266-1212. 
  • More Info: Wolf Population bill from WI Examiner

Wolf Management Rule that accompanied the newly approved Wolf Management Plan. The Wolf plan was approved by the Natural Resource Board on Oct. 25, 2023. The plan itself is much like a vision statement of where the state is going with wolves in the future. The wolf rule package is legally enforceable by Conservation Wardens and requires sign off by the Senate Committee on Financial Institutions and Sporting Heritage. 

• Concerns:
  • Any modifications to this rule that would weaken the improvements made during the WDNR’s multi-year analysis, stakeholder engagement, scientific research, and public comment processes that they have undertaken. 
  • Specific concerns to watch for in requested modifications include: reduction of Tribal subzones that have low wolf quotas that were established at the request of the Tribes, expansion of Hound training, and reduction of improved wolf hunting regulations.  
     
• Status (Clearinghouse Rule 23-047) Relating to gray wolf harvest regulations.
  • On January 30, 2024, According to the senate journal, the Senate Committee on Financial Institutions and Sporting Heritage requested a modification to the rule and passed 3-2. 
  • The rule is now back with WDNR who has to meet with the Committee to discuss what modifications they would like to see.
  • Any modifications to the rule will need to be approved by the Natural Resource Board again, as it was before on Oct. 25, 2023. 

USFWS Endangered Species Act Updates from Feb. 2, 2024: (Press Release here)

• Bad news: 
  • The wolves in the Northern Rockies were not relisted.
  • This was a huge disappointment given the extreme anti-wolf actions states like Montana and Idaho have taken, even killing many beloved Yellowstone wolves. 
  • This is being legally challenged by the Sierra Club and others! Read about the legal challenge here. 
• Good news: 
  • The agency also announced it will keep the endangered and threatened status of other gray wolf populations unchanged and will draft a new national recovery plan for the species - for the first time ever!!
• Bottom line: 
  • Our Wisconsin wolves remain federally protected as endangered species. 
  • This will keep our wolves safe from being managed by the state and no recreational wolf hunt will take place  

White-tailed Deer Population in WI Northwoods

• Background: 
  • Deer populations fluctuate annually due to many factors including:
  • Winter Severity Index - this is the number one factor influencing deer populations and last winter was exceptionally bad for deer due to the extreme snowfall. 
  • Disease - Chronic wasting disease has now been found in 44 counties bringing the total Wisconsin counties that the DNR considers CWD affected to 62 of 72.
  • Effects of past hunting seasons - in 2022 deer harvest in the Northern Forest Zone was up by 19.3%
  • Predators also affect deer populations, but they are not the main factor.
  • Wolves help keep the deer herd healthy, by removing the old, weak and sick. In fact, according to Doug Smith, the former Project Leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Project, wolves could be the single best way to stop the spread of CWD.  
• Concerns:
  • Politicians are blaming the low 2023 deer harvest season on wolves and mismanagement of deer population by the WDNR.
  • Wolves have once again been politicized for the benefit of politicians as the reason the deer hunters had a poor harvest in the Northwoods.
  • The wolf population is not exploding as some would suggest. It has actually stabilized in Wisconsin, and research has documented that the average litter size is 5 pups with only 29% of wolf pups making it to adulthood. In other words, the majority of wolf pups die before their first birthday.
  • The Wisconsin state legislature introduced a bill that would prohibit hunters from killing antlerless deer in northern Wisconsin for four years.
• Bottom line:
  • Wolves are NOT decimating deer herds. 
  • For more information:
    • Are Wolves to Blame?
    • Wisconsin Green Fire Report: Meeting Wisconsin’s Deer Conservation Challenges 
• Take Action: Please share the truth with your network and consider writing a letter to your local newspaper. Here is an opinion piece on this issue from MN.  Consider writing a letter-to-the-editor using our guide here.