After being eliminated from this state in 1950 wolves began to come back in the late 1970s. The State DNR wolf promoters claim that this was a result of natural migration from Minnesota. This is also being claimed for the dozen Lincoln County which appeared shortly after Larry Gher of Gresham, WI turned over that same number of wolves over to the USFWS for release in the wild in 1977. So it remains a fetish of the WDNR to claim that all Wisconsin wolves are here because of migration. However if problem wolves are trapped and released somewhere in Wisconsin they are at that release site as result of reintroduction. There is no other way of looking at this.

The WDNR held statewide meetings on wolves in 1986. The goal was to have 100 in northern Wisconsin. People were told that this was a hard goal to reach and that these wolves only wanted to avoid people and would stay in the northern areas without roads. It was also claimed that there was no record of a wolf attacking a human in North America. At the Park Falls meeting it was pointed out to these wolf promoters that in two different issues of the 1982 Outdoor Life there were stories of wolves attacking a person. As it turned out most of the things that people were told about wolves at these meetings were false.

It only took ten years and there was wolves all over northern Wisconsin and also in what is being called the northern forest west of Wisconsin Rapids. Today there is a Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan that has a goal of 300 to 500 wolves. However removing only problem wolves is not a wolf number controlling measure as the Minnesota experience shows.

Talking about wolf numbers does not make sense without people hunting or trapping them to keep their numbers down. Wolves are at the top of natural food chain with food supply and diseases their natural number control. People need to control their numbers or they will keep increasing and expanding their range or kill off all prey and start to starve. This did actually happen in a large part of Minnesota and is so documented in a March, 1985 National Wildlife article by Dr. Mech. With the entire public wolf educating that has gone on never were the people told this.

From 1979 through 1998 an average of $21,481 State and $59,959 Federal was spent on the Wisconsin wolves. An additional $694,000 was spent on a Hwy 53 wolf migration bypass. UW Stevens Point participated in this Hwy 53 wolf migratory bypass study and implementation and received much of this funding.

UW Stevens Point owns and maintains the Treehaven facility outside of Tomahawk. WI. Treehaven is the site of some yearly wolf study sessions conducted by various people some of who are on the UWSP and WDNR payrolls. In these sessions only the usual wolf promoting is given and none of the negative aspects of wolf restoration are gone into. PAW's request for equal time at these sessions has been turned down. Although the participants pay for their board and room, this really does not pay for total cost of these wolf study sessions.

The present Wisconsin wolf situation is best shown by what took place at the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board hearing on the wolf plan at Hayward August 25, 1999. People from all over the state came to tell their wolf story. Included were accounts of uncompensated livestock losses, accounts of uncompensated deer farm losses, the fact that it will take aerial gunning to ultimately control wolf numbers and that wolves are really not an endangered species. There were also wolf lovers telling their side. But the WNRB showed most interest in a professor's theory that wolves do control their own numbers if left alone in spite of the well known fact that this is not working in Minnesota. Later in the week the WNRB issued a statement that they learned from the meeting that they have to ask the USFWS for another $100,000 to pay for wolf damages. If that is all they learned then things are really in sad shape.

The WNRB held another wolf meeting in Madison two months later. It was not open to comments from those attending. Protestors were on hand to protest the wolf hunt that was in the wolf plan. Still they were not told what I stated before about wolves being the top of the line and need for control of their numbers. It seems that the WNRB and WDNR want to remain politically correct and not say what in needed to the wolf promoters.

Wisconsin continues to build on the USFWS endangered wolf and the wolf restoration money that goes with it. There is a Wolf Management Plan in place that does this. Under this plan there is Wolf Advisory Group made up of WDNR people and others that are very much in favor of Wisconsin wolf restoration. They have the total say on wolves in Wisconsin. There is also a Stakeholders Group on which PAW is represented. Here some hard questions are asked about what goes on with this Wisconsin wolf restoration.

There is a large group of wolf supporters that track wolves and try to get the best possible numbers for wolf pack sizes and territory. A wolf monitoring report is issued quarterly on these activities. The USFWS has set 100 for a total number of wolves for the combined area of Wisconsin and Michigan as a requirement for delisting to take place. Currently there are about 250 wolves in Wisconsin, and also 250 in Michigan, to the delight of the wolf lovers. This has led to Wisconsin spending $48,423 State and $210,251 federal money for a total of $258,674 spent on these wolves last year. In a recent special meeting of a DNR committee on wolf depredation, more money was asked for. Of course the Wolf Management Plan tells you that an average of $81,000 per year covers this, when the fact is that last year $258,674 was spent.

The time is at hand for looking into why there are these additional problems and costs associated with having the 250 wolves when 50 are all that we have to have. This is the view that PAW puts out at these meetings. Hopefully the Bush Administration will do what PAW has been asking them to do in changing federal wolf policy, and bring an end to a lot of this foolishness, which is really a fleecing of America. Wolves, which they do not need and are better off without, are being forced in on people. Their money is being spent on these wolves without their having any choice in this.

The above pictures show what happens when archers leave their once in a lifetime trophy for a while after the shot, before they start looking for it. Sometimes darkness closes in and this has to be done the next day. Wolves can find it first and begin feeding. This was a buck that was shot at the end of the 2001 Wisconsin archery in Taylor County. It had a 19 inch inside spread. This is just another consequence of there being too many wolves.

Under the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan now being followed, we have a huge number of wolves estimated at 250. There are supposed to be two wolves in Taylor County, but it looks that there are at least 20. The only solution to this situation is for the Wisconsin Legislature to act, and force a change as they did in Minnesota. The federal government will stand in the way, but common sense has to prevail, and this endangered wolf stuff has to be brought to an end. It has to be possible to manage wolves as coyotes are managed.

Eventually the state hunters acting through the Wisconsin Conservation Congress will take control of wolf management and set things right. Common sense will ultimately prevail as the Clinton wolf-loving foolishness gets stamped out of the USFWS. As it is wolves are not being considered in deer managing for 2000 and beyond. This is in spite of what wolves have done to Minnesota deer hunting. Wolves are really nothing more than an anti hunting gimmick, and people are not aware of how effective it is. Check the Minnesota section of this web page for the facts on this.

PUBLIC WOLF ACCEPTANCE IS QUESTIONABLE

As seen on Dave Carlson's TV 9 Outdoors Program, the WDNR wolf promoters claim that what is now going on with Wisconsin wolves is being accepted by the public. This involves treating wolves as if they were an endangered species and must be tranquilized and relocated if trapped while doing damage to livestock. Actually this so called public acceptance is seeing that nothing can very easily be done under the USFWS wolf policy with the incredible fines for killing a wolf and a WDNR Wolf Management Plan in place building on this.

If the USFWS does downgrade wolves to threatened wolves can be killed for doing livestock damage but only by a federal agent. This is still not what is needed

The public can easily be educated to see that wolves are not an endangered species and never were. If we have 300 or 500 or none at all in Wisconsin makes no difference in the total North American wolf population when all of the over 60,000 Canadian wolves are considered.

To do what is needed in Wisconsin wolf management it is first necessary to change the State Statutes so that they do not force a duplication of federal endangered classifications. Then complete wolf delisting can be brought before the Endangered Resources Board by a petition with only three signatures. Of course as things now stand the ERB of the WDNR can exercise a conflict of interest and refuse the petition. This is something that the Wisconsin State Legislature needs to change.

It is a long and tedious process but possible. It involves getting enough people informed and involved. But if you really want to do something about the Wisconsin wolves, this is what it will take.

There have been many indications of the public trying to get the DNR to do something about there being too many wolves out there. On Jan 24, 2002 protestors from all over the state came to Wausau to tell the Wolf Advisory Board of the problems that they have with these wolves. After listening to this for a short time, the Wolf Advisory Board went into session to continue business as usual with refining the DNR Wolf Management Plan. Nothing was done to deal with the problems that these people told them of. Trapping and relocating these wolves, as they now do, does not do enough to solve these problems. But how to keep doing this is, and getting federal money to pay for it, is all they were really interested in.

Following this, the Stakeholder Group met at Wausau on April 13^th. Here the protestors were not allowed to start the meeting by telling of the wolf problems that they are experiencing. Instead there were small cards on which people were supposed to write their problems and put them on the bulletin board. Then at the end of the meeting, these were to be taken up. Well, it just did not happen. Nearly all of the comments were ignored. Sure, there was page on which people were supposed to tell if they were heard. But it was not distributed to the people that were sitting in the gallery, only to the Stakeholders seated at the table. Thus the DNR wolf promoters running the meeting stifled opposition to what went on.

According to that wolf plan, this was supposed to be a meeting that the Wolf Advisory Board gets inputs as to how things are going. Instead it was a further continuation of the wolf plan. They did tell that there are now 320 wolves out there. There was no consideration of seeing that this is too many wolves. Of course the wolf plan calls for 350 before this is considered. The USFWS is not to be given any indication of the problems that there are with these wolves until there are 350 of them.

Neither was the fact that Wisconsin needs to do as Idaho did to solve this problem, given any consideration. There they got the USFWS to declare their wolves to be non-essential experimental population allowing property owners to kill and remove wolves as they choose. This is exactly what is needed in Wisconsin. People need to start telling their legislators this. Of course this would mean the end of all that federal money to pay for wolf depredation and restoration. The same would happen if wolves were made a big game animal. There is just not enough money to pay for all these 350 wolves in any other way. That is why the DNR is so opposed to these ideas.

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