It’s time Wisconsin’s wolf-haters and wolf-huggers lower their picket signs, lay down their smartphones and lock themselves into a padded cell until agreeing whether wolves are demons, angels or hybrids of the two.
I kid, of course. That jury is forever hung.
Either way, the gray wolf never sought such attention. As Minnesota’s legendary wolf researcher David Mech wrote in 2012, “The wolf is neither a saint nor sinner except to those who want to make it so.”
True, but most folks want a break from the endless shriek-outs and fundraising freak shows that wolves incite. The latest example is a full-color, mass-mailed cardstock from Hunter Nation that shows a wolf stalking a blonde preschooler dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. The mailer shouts a lot, too:
“Stop the Slaughter in Wisconsin!”
“You can help stop this madness.”
“Warning: The information inside is disturbingly true!”
“By voting, you can end the slaughter!”
“Liberal, pro-wolf politicians are destroying hunting! Now our pets are being killed. Our children are next!”
Sheesh, HN. Take a breath.
People face bigger threats. A study by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research documented 26 fatal wolf attacks worldwide from 2002 to 2020, including one in Canada and one in the United States. For perspective, the National Library of Medicine reports 30 to 50 dog-bite fatalities annually in the U.S. And according to the Centers for Disease Control, lightning strikes killed 444 U.S. residents from 2006 through 2021.
Voters might also wonder which “liberal, pro-wolf politicians” to oppose to save hunting. Every presidential administration from Bill Clinton through Joe Biden tried to remove wolves from the federal Endangered Species List. Federal judges, not state or federal policymakers or wildlife agencies, overturned delistings by the Trump administration in 2021 and the Obama administration in 2012.
And although Hunter Nation wouldn’t accuse Congressman Tom Tiffany, a Republican, of being a liberal wolf-hugger, what about Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat? Baldwin consistently supports delisting wolves, and in June 2023 introduced a bill to remove Great Lakes’ wolves from the ESL because “science shows the population has recovered in (this) region.”
Meanwhile, only apologists claim wolves are harmless. Wolves often kill or scavenge deer, elk, beavers and snowshoe hares, as well as livestock and house pets. In fact, from 1985 through 2023 the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources paid $3.38 million in sundry veterinary bills and abatements to cover 750 calves, 450 hunting dogs, 270 sheep, 235 chickens, 150 adult cattle, 150 domestic turkeys, 65 pet dogs, 25 horses or donkeys, and other livestock injured or killed by wolves.
The DNR, however, doesn’t track or write abatement checks for cats, dogs, parakeets or other suburban pets picked off by foxes, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, hawks or bald eagles. Good thing. Imagine the drama of politicians demanding the DNR hold those evil-doers accountable, too.
Still, folks routinely urge the DNR to ship wolfpacks to southern Wisconsin. Some want Madisonians and Milwaukeeans to see what they’re missing, while others insist wolves can scrub chronic wasting disease from our deer herd.
Hmm. Eye roll. Where to start?
Consider this: How did wolves from the wilds of northern Minnesota re-establish packs across Wisconsin’s Northwoods and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during the 1980s and 1990s, but still haven’t repopulated our central and southern farmlands, even 25 years later? After all, the hike from Ely, Minnesota, to Marquette, Michigan, and Wisconsin Dells, is roughly the same, 350 vs. 375 miles.
It’s not as if wolves don’t try. Dispersing wolves have been road-killed near Johnson Creek in 2001 and Madison in 2002, and one was shot between Detroit and Kalamazoo in January when mistaken for a coyote.
The DNR has even documented a small pack trying to live north of the Wisconsin River near Portage, but it keeps “blinking out.” Likewise, the Minnesota DNR documented a wolfpack failing 15 miles northeast of the Twin Cities from 2014 to 2017, even after peaking at 11 adults in 2016.
Why? Wolves don’t mesh with vast agriculture and lots of people. Purposely and accidentally, people kill enough of them in farm country to destroy their packs. Maybe that will change in the decades ahead, but maybe not. Despite 50 years of protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, wolves haven’t established breeding packs outside our northern and central forests, even in the Driftless Area’s big woods.
Therefore, it’s silly to suggest the DNR should trap and relocate wolves across Wisconsin’s farmlands to control wildlife diseases, and unleash them on our suburbs to annoy pet owners.
Those who think wolves can be the whitetail’s “meat inspector” haven’t thought things through. Chew on this: Based on 2023 CWD sampling and registered hunter harvests in southern Wisconsin, my crude estimates indicate the region holds about 60,000 sick deer. Further, research suggests we must remove 50% to 80% of sick deer annually to reduce CWD infection rates, which means killing 30,000 to 48,000 sick deer for starters.
But how? UW-Madison’s top deer expert, Professor Tim VanDeelen, estimates the average adult wolf kills 17 to 20 deer annually. So, let’s say each wolf kills 20 sick deer annually. Southern Wisconsin would need 1,500 to 2,400 adult wolves to eat nothing but sick deer to scrub CWD from the landscape. But for every wolf that kills a healthy deer, we’d need a more qualified wolf to make up for it, boosting wolf numbers further.
In other words, the DNR would need to catch all of its estimated 1,000 wolves from our central and northern forests, trap roughly 500 to 1,400 more from Congressman Tiffany’s best guess of the forests’ “actual” wolf population, and then unleash all of them on southern Wisconsin.
Next, the DNR would need to train each wolf to stay on its designated farm; never cross busy roads and highways; never show itself to over-eager coyote hunters; never step into a coyote trap; and promise to never ever touch anyone’s cows, calves, steers, pigs, sheep, chickens, llamas, horses or household pets.
Sigh.
Even though the DNR hires the best and brightest hunters and naturalists from Wisconsin’s top colleges and universities, wolves won’t heed their advice.
They’ll just keep doing the same wolfy things they’ve taught themselves the past 400,000 to 1 million years.
Wisconsin’s gray wolves have hunted this region for over 400,000 years. They’re neither saints nor sinners, nor liberal or conservative. — Snapshot Wisconsin photo
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