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Nearly double Wisconsin’s wolf hunt quota killed in abbreviated hunting and trapping season

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Wisconsin hunters took nearly twice the number of wolves than the Department of Natural Resources was hoping for during an extremely brief 3 day wolf hunt this week.

DNR Wildlife Administrator Keith Warkne said the agency to close the season nearly as fast as it opened.

“As of 3 p.m. today 216 wolves have been reported in GameReg. The harvest breakdown was 86% taken by dogs, 5% taken by trappers, and 9% by other hunting methods,” Warnke said. “We monitored the reported harvest constantly. The decision to close zones was made using the best available harvest data, and, following the law, we issued a 24-hour notice of closure.”

The total kill was 82% above the state-licensed goal, according to Department of Natural Resources data released Thursday. Licensed hunters and trappers had a harvest quota of 119 spread across the state, excluding Native American reservations.

“By Tuesday, we announced the closing of the first three zones at 10 a.m. followed by announcing the closure of the remaining three zones at 3 p.m. that afternoon. Those zones then closed 24 hours after the announcement,”  Warnke said.

A court ordered the wolf hunting and trapping season – just the fourth in state history – to begin this week following a lawsuit from an out-of-state hunting group. Legislative Republicans claimed that the DNR was trying to delay it until wolves were put back on the federal endangered species list.

 

WMC sues the Department of Natural Resources over expansion of PFAS rules

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The state’s largest business lobby is suing the Department of Natural Resources over new PFAS regulations.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and an Oconomowoc dry cleaner want a court to stop the D-N-R from enforcing new rules regarding PFAS cleanup. W-M-C says that the D-N-R doesn’t have any legal right to tell businesses to test for PFAS contamination as a part of cleanup efforts, and that the courts need to stop the state from expanding their list of contaminants without legislative approval.

Those so called forever chemicals have now been found at over 50 sites statewide, mostly linked to firefighting foam spills.

Wisconsin wolf hunt already over, just days after start

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Wisconsin’s wolf hunt has already reached its quota, just a few days after it started.

That hunt opened up on Monday with a total of around 120 wolf tags available to regular hunters, and another 80 ceded to the state’s tribal nations. The DNR will be closing the hunts by Wednesday afternoon.

The wolf hunt was a matter of contention between Republican lawmakers and the Natural Resources Board, with a court ordering the hunt to take place.

Senator Johnson claims leftists, anarchists are to blame for attack on US Capitol

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At Tuesday’s Senate Homeland Security hearing on the January 6th riots at the US Capitol, Senator Ron Johnson claimed that the attack was carried out not by Trump supporters but by leftists and anarchists.

Johnson said that the people who attended President Trump’s rally that day were peaceful.

“Many of the marchers were families with small children, many were elderly, overweight or just plain tired or frail. Traits not typically attributed to the riot prone. Many wore pro-police shirts or carried pro police black and blue flags. Plainclothes militants, agents provocateurs, fake Trump protesters, and then disciplined uniformed column of attackers. I think these are the people that probably planned this.”

Criminal charges against those who have been arrested paint different pictures, with many of those arrested being longtime Trump supporters, and members of radical groups like the Proud Boys or other white nationalist organizations. 

Johnson also read an excerpt from an article that claimed that lack of action by the Capitol Police was to blame for the severity of the attacks. 

“‘When we crossed 1st Street Northwest and entered the Capitol grounds where the Capitol Police have jurisdiction I noticed no police at all. Several marchers expressed surprise. The openness seemed like a courtesy gesture from Congress, which controls security.'”

Testimony from the hearing painted a different picture, where miscommunication between federal agencies led to a lack of preparedness by the police force.

UW-Madison expert says simply increasing public defender pay is not enough to fix criminal justice issues

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Last week in Milwaukee, President Biden said he’d like to increase the funding available to public defenders across the country.

John Patrick Gross with the UW-Madison Public Defender Project says it will take more than just more money to help balance criminal justice in the country.

“People like to sort of tongue-in-cheek say that ‘Freedom isn’t free.’ Well, neither is justice but we treat it as if we can always skimp on Justice.”

Gross says throwing more money at the issue won’t stop the root cause of not having enough attorneys to represent people. “We should be taking a hard look at the policies, the practices, the funding discrepancies that have gotten us to the point where we leave the world in per capita incarceration.”

Gross says that most people who enter the justice system don’t have the money to hire attorneys as it is, so having public defenders needs to be treated like an integral part of the system.

AG Kaul joins multistate push for federal student loan forgiveness

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Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is joining a multi state push for federal student loan forgiveness from the Biden Administration.

Kaul says the issue is a matter of equality and justice, especially when loan agencies and for-profit schools have abused the federal student loan system.

“To hold accountable for-profit colleges that have engaged in predatory tactics and to try to secure a debt forgiveness for people who were victims. And we can make a real difference with people who are stuck with in some cases very significant loans and sometimes a degree that’s not worth much more than the paper that it’s written on.”

Kaul says existing loan forgiveness programs are slow to act, and that most people who qualify for the programs are never granted acceptance. 

“This is a benefit that would immediately be extended to people, it could lead to immediate relief in people’s lives.”

The pair of resolutions in Congress would call for President Biden to forgive 50-thousand dollars of federal student loans, something that Kaul and the other Attorneys General say is entirely within the President’s power to act on.

Senator Johnson blames Dem policies for increased security at US Capitol, damage to Texas power grid

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Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson says Democrats are trying to paint Republicans in a bad light following the January 6th riot in Washington DC. On Fox News Sunday Morning Futures, Johnson continued his objections to the increased security measures at the US Capitol. 

“As I’ve been saying that this is, the seven or eight foot fence with concertina wire is really meant to create a narrative that the 74 million Americans who supported and voted for President Trump are suspected domestic terrorists or possible armed insurrectionists that the capital needs to be protected against. I don’t think anything could be further from the truth.”

Johnson originally backed a protest against the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral votes, but lifted it following the assault on the Capitol Building by Trump supporters. 

Johnson also says that this week’s power failures in Texas due to extreme cold are the fault of renewable energy sources.

“What we saw in Texas certainly shows what folly the Green New Deal would be, how unreliable wind and solar power generation really is and how he needs fossil fuel backup. We’ve also learned how vulnerable our grid is to, again, the unreliable green energy, but also potentially to geomagnetic disturbance from the Sun, solar winds, and also EMP attacks.”

Texas is on its own power grid, and most of its power comes from coal or gas plants, many of which were not protected from the cold and either shut down or were turned off to prevent damage.

Biden calls for unity and increased COVID-19 spending at Milwaukee town hall

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A socially distanced crowd got to ask questions of President Joe Biden last night at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee as part of a CNN town hall meeting.

The appearance was President Biden’s first major political trip of his term, and President spent about an hour fielding questions about policy from a crowd of Wisconsinites. President Biden says that there has to be work done to heal the political divide that was exposed during the Trump administration, but that it’s not as severe as some people think.

“The nation is not divided you go out there and take a look and talk to people you have fringes on both ends but it’s not nearly as divided as we make it out to be.”

When asked how he would raise support for a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage in the Midwest, Biden said that raising wages will mean more money in the economy for everyone, which would be going right back to businesses. 

“I do support a $15 minimum wage. I think there is equally as much if not more evidence to dictate that it would grow the economy in the long-run and medium run, benefit small business as well as large businesses.”

Kerri Engebrecht from Oak Creek told the president that she’s been having trouble getting her son with a lung condition vaccinated, and what he’d do to help prioritize who gets the vaccine. President Biden said that determination was still up to the state. 

“I can’t tell the state you must move such and such a group of people up but here’s what I’d like to do. If you’re willing I’ll stay around after this is over and maybe we can talk a few minutes and see if I can get you some help.”

Biden says that he’s pushing for a robust recovery package to continue dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and that people need to continue doing their part to help slow the spread of the virus while everyone gets vaccinated.

UW-Madison offers a build at home solution for better fitting face masks

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UW-Madison is offering up a do it yourself solution to help your face mask fit better.

It’s called the Badger Seal and it can be made at home with a few simple supplies. Lennon Rodgers with the College of Engineering says using the Seal along with your regular mask is about 15 times more effective at trapping particles. 

“We’ve all seen people, especially when they start talking, the mask starts slipping down their face, they have to readjust it. And so one of the nice things about a mask fitter and the the Badger Seal in particular is that it keeps the mask more in place.”

Rodgers says the Seal is very effective at helping stop the spread of COVID-19

“The Badger Seal plus a 3-ply disposable mask which you can get almost anywhere increases the performance by 15 times.”

The seal comes in three styles, and all of the parts can be easily found at your local hardware store. Find out more online from the UW’s Maker’s page at https://making.engr.wisc.edu/mask-fitter/  

DNR sturgeon chief accused of taking part in illegal caviar scheme

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The man in charge of the state’s sturgeon fishery is being accused of obstructing an investigation into DNR staffers illegally selling eggs to caviar processors.

The DNR and staff from the US Fish and Wildlife Service say that staff in the fisheries department have been providing sturgeon eggs that had been collected from spearers as ‘research samples’ to processors in exchange for gifts and cash.

Wardens say that sturgeon fisheries chief Ryan Koenigs confessed to taking part in the scheme, after allegedly lying to investigators during the process. A former fisheries supervisor says the scheme has been going on for years.