For years,
we have worked together to safeguard the natural resources we hold
dear, striving to ensure that the state - as the guardian of the public
trust - adheres to science-based, ecologically sound management
principles with respect to our shared waters and lands. This ethic must
be applied equally to the management of our state's wildlife species
because, without it, environmental stewardship falls prey to politics, a
scenario that places all of our shared resources and natural places in
jeopardy of mismanagement.
Case in point is the recently enacted wolf hunting and trapping law. Rushed through the legislative process with no notice to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wildlife experts, no input from the state's Wolf Science Advisory Committee and no tribal consultation, the law prescribes a first hunting season for wolves. The law is drawing significant opposition from scientists, mainstream hunters and conservationists alike, owing to an excessively long, 4½-month season that allows hunting of breeding females and to the array of hunting and trapping methods viewed as out of line with traditional values of fair pursuit and public safety considerations.
What's more, the law authorizes people to hunt wolves using dogs, a proposal that not only raises the specter of Michael Vick's animal fighting but makes Wisconsin the only state in the nation to sanction a hunting method so certain to lead to cruel and deadly confrontations between dogs and wolves. Is this a Wisconsin we're proud of?
Further, the first season quotas and harvest zones proposed by the DNR are anything but conservative, both in comparison to other states and in their continued failure to take into account accurate cumulative totals of other significant causes of wolf mortality, in particular, illegal killings.
Worse still, we've recently learned that DNR, for years has demonstrated a chronic lack of enforcement concerning the over-hunting and trapping of Wisconsin's wildlife. According to public records, licensed hunters and trappers in Wisconsin have repeatedly exceeded the agreed upon biological quota for fisher, otter and bobcat. DNR's compromised ability to control excess harvests provides another reason that greater caution - not less - should be exercised regarding the quotas proposed for this year's hunting and trapping season for wolves.
Nevertheless, it is evident that some within our state government and DNR are misinterpreting the wolf management plan, 13 years old and overdue for revision, as recommending a population cap of 350 wolves - an arbitrary number originally intended as a population goal, not cap.
Even so, on the basis of this outdated plan, there is a true risk that the department will proceed with hunting and trapping seasons that eventually will reduce the wolf population to the 350 number or below - irrespective of the current availability of sophisticated scientific modeling and peer-reviewed research, which casts serious doubt on our ability to manage wolves sustainably at a population size that small.
We must hold the DNR, and our state, to wildlife management based on sound ecology and best available science. We cannot afford to hold our state's wildlife resources to any lesser standard or, as in the case of our state's recently delisted wolves, at the mercy of an outdated wolf management plan or a small group of unprincipled hunters. If we do, if we allow sound science and DNR professional expertise to be overridden by politics, it will only be a matter of time before the remainder of our shared natural resources receive like treatment. The slippery slope does, in fact, start here.
Jodi Habush Sinykin is senior attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates.
source
Case in point is the recently enacted wolf hunting and trapping law. Rushed through the legislative process with no notice to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wildlife experts, no input from the state's Wolf Science Advisory Committee and no tribal consultation, the law prescribes a first hunting season for wolves. The law is drawing significant opposition from scientists, mainstream hunters and conservationists alike, owing to an excessively long, 4½-month season that allows hunting of breeding females and to the array of hunting and trapping methods viewed as out of line with traditional values of fair pursuit and public safety considerations.
What's more, the law authorizes people to hunt wolves using dogs, a proposal that not only raises the specter of Michael Vick's animal fighting but makes Wisconsin the only state in the nation to sanction a hunting method so certain to lead to cruel and deadly confrontations between dogs and wolves. Is this a Wisconsin we're proud of?
Further, the first season quotas and harvest zones proposed by the DNR are anything but conservative, both in comparison to other states and in their continued failure to take into account accurate cumulative totals of other significant causes of wolf mortality, in particular, illegal killings.
Worse still, we've recently learned that DNR, for years has demonstrated a chronic lack of enforcement concerning the over-hunting and trapping of Wisconsin's wildlife. According to public records, licensed hunters and trappers in Wisconsin have repeatedly exceeded the agreed upon biological quota for fisher, otter and bobcat. DNR's compromised ability to control excess harvests provides another reason that greater caution - not less - should be exercised regarding the quotas proposed for this year's hunting and trapping season for wolves.
Nevertheless, it is evident that some within our state government and DNR are misinterpreting the wolf management plan, 13 years old and overdue for revision, as recommending a population cap of 350 wolves - an arbitrary number originally intended as a population goal, not cap.
Even so, on the basis of this outdated plan, there is a true risk that the department will proceed with hunting and trapping seasons that eventually will reduce the wolf population to the 350 number or below - irrespective of the current availability of sophisticated scientific modeling and peer-reviewed research, which casts serious doubt on our ability to manage wolves sustainably at a population size that small.
We must hold the DNR, and our state, to wildlife management based on sound ecology and best available science. We cannot afford to hold our state's wildlife resources to any lesser standard or, as in the case of our state's recently delisted wolves, at the mercy of an outdated wolf management plan or a small group of unprincipled hunters. If we do, if we allow sound science and DNR professional expertise to be overridden by politics, it will only be a matter of time before the remainder of our shared natural resources receive like treatment. The slippery slope does, in fact, start here.
Jodi Habush Sinykin is senior attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates.
source
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