LETTER: Lack of management let wolf population get out of control

To Ozaukee Press:

Last week’s Ozaukee Press editorial, “How the Wisconsin wolf hunt led to a bloody mess,” asked, “What happens when political advocacy organizations, legislators and judges take over wildlife management?” The only problem with that question is that it got the players wrong.

It was an Obama administration decision to remove the gray wolf population in the western Great Lakes region from the endangered species list (as mentioned in the editorial). In 2012 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped federal protection for wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin and handed over management to the states.

For three years, Wisconsin responsibly managed its wolf population through the  same structure that the editorial called not “properly organized.”

In 2014, the Humane Society of the United States filed a lawsuit to relist the wolves in the western Great Lakes as endangered and U.S. District Judge Beryl
Howell in Washington, D.C. ruled in their favor. For the next six years, there was no wolf management except those killed through the wolf depredation process.

As the editorial stated, “wolf numbers need to be managed at a stable level that is sustainable yet controlled to avoid overpopulation.” Yet for the last six years there has been no management of the wolf population until this year, which allowed the population to increase to the point where it caused what the editorial referred to as “unacceptable contact with humans and their domestic animals and pets.”

The real problem is that when wolf management began, the socially acceptable population of wolves in Wisconsin was discovered to be about 350 wolves; now it is thought to be not much higher than 500 animals. Without hunting as a management tool, the population has grown to an estimated 1,300 wolves.

The tolerance level of the wolf population differs between residents living in northern and southern Wisconsin and will somehow need to be agreed upon as we move forward with wolf management.         What cannot happen is having “political advocacy organizations, legislators and judges take over wildlife management” once again.

Chuck Lanser
Port Washington