No jail for wolf figure, almost $1,900 in fines ordered against farmer accused of leaving cattle vulnerable

A decrepit barbed wire fence on John Koski's Matchwood Township cattle farm Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013. The 68-year-old, who has a second cattle farm in Bessemer, has the highest number of reported wolf attacks in Michigan. Koski supports the upcoming Upper Peninsula wolf hunt. (Cory Morse | MLive.com)

By John Barnes on May 09, 2014 

A central figure in Michigan’s first wolf hunt pleaded Thursday to a reduced charge involving animal neglect.

John Koski, 69, an Ontonagon County farmer in the western Upper Peninsula, will not serve time in jail if he satisfies his probation. He will have to pay almost $1,900 dollars in fines, legal costs and reimbursement for expenses related to taxpayer-provided “guard donkeys” intended to ward away wolves.

Koski pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor count of abandoning or cruelty to an animal, reduced from several counts. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but it is treated as such by the court.

Nancy Warren, a leading wolf advocate in Michigan, said Koski told Judge Mark Wisti
his plea “is not right, but it is something I have to do.”

Koski's court-appointed lawyer, Matt Tingstad - the son of a judge who had a brief permit to shoot wolves on Koski’s farm - has said his client is “stressed” and needs to move on. Matt Tingstad did not immediately return calls for comment on Thursday.

John KoskiCory Morse | MLive.com

Two donkeys allegedly died in Koski’s custody and a third allegedly had to be removed for neglect, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Koski says the animals were weak when he received them.

Koski has had more cattle killed and attacked than any other farmer in Michigan due to wolves, more than 100. Critics accuse him of poor animal husbandry, leaving dead cattle afield, drawing wolves. More than $200,000 in state and federal taxpayer aid were spent to investigate wolf attacks, reimburse his losses, and efforts to reduce them, records show.
Koski has said he was a victim of rampant wolf predations on a non-residential farm about 45 miles east of where he lives.
An Ontonagon County district court manager said Koski has two months to pay his $1,867 penalty.

HOW KOSKI CAME TO BE CHARGED

Here is a synopsis of farmer John Koski’s dealings with wildlife officials over the donkey incident. • 2010: Officials help place “guard”donkeys Koski obtained on his Matchwood Township farm in Ontonagon County. Attacks stop. A month later the donkeys disappear. Attacks resume.

• 2011: Officials provide three taxpayer-supplied guard donkeys and fencing totaling $2965.73. Federal wildlife agents also help Koski get his well working, and place flashing lights around a small pasture. The measures are to reduce access to calves.

• Summer 2012: The measures reportedly work until the donkeys' hooves became so overgrown the animals have trouble moving.
• February 2013: Two donkeys are found dead; another has to be removed. The fence is missing.

• May 2013: Three unburied cows are found on Koski’s home farm near Bessemer. The law requires disposal within 24 hours. A DNR employee gives Koski a week. Brian Roell, a DNR wildlife biologist, "was not happy" with the extension, according to a state veterinarian's memo. No charges are brought.
• October 2013: Reporters find a months-old cattle carcass in an open air barn. A pickup bed filled with deer legs, for wolf bait, is left exposed.
• November 2013: The Ontonagon County sheriff requests animal cruelty charges, eight months after the donkey deaths, and two days after MLive’s series begins. Charges are approved a month later.

Koski has two farms. He is selling the one in Ontonagon and removed about 150 cattle. Koski has another farm, where his family has resided for 110 years, in neighboring Gogebic County, where a much smaller number of cattle remain.

Koski was a subject of an MLive.com investigation into the justification behind the 45-day wolf hunt that began Nov. 15. Twenty-two wolves were killed, an intentionally conservative number by the DNR, and about half of what officials had wanted; 1,200 licenses were sold.

A second hunt, this year, has not yet been set.
Wolf-hunt opponents and supporters have generally disavowed Koski. Some say the hunt was necessary to reduce wolf attacks. Others say non-hunting measures, lethal and non-lethal, are successful and point to vastly reduced wolf attacks in 2013.

There are an estimated 636 wolves in Michigan, according to the most recent state census. That is a slight decline from 658 in 2013, and a statistical wash, officials say. As recently as the late 1980s, there were just a few of wolves in the state.

So far, almost $2 million has been spent by groups to protect or kill wolves in a hunt. As many as three ballot proposals could face voters in November, but it is possible the legislature could sidestep all of that this summer, and pave the way for a second hunt.

Jill Fritz, director of the anti-hunt group Keep Michigan Wolves Protected, blamed the DNR for letting the situation get out of hand. “Today’s plea agreement by Upper Peninsula farmer John Koski is really an indictment on the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for allowing the abuses to continue for so long," Fritz said in a prepared statement. "Internal emails show the DNR was aware that Koski was not properly disposing of dead livestock on his farm - thereby attracting predators to the property— yet they provided ongoing assistance and compensation payments in violation of their own guidelines, and allowed incidents at that location to skew statistics on wolf-livestock conflicts across the U.P."

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