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No Mow May may grow on you

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No Mow May is something you may want to consider for your yard this month.  Communities suspend enforcement of long-grass ordinances for the month, That allows owners to promote pollinator-friendly habitat early in the growing season.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like ‘no shave November’ for your yard,” said Mark Konlok, Director of Horticulture at Green Bay Botanical Garden, who explains that bees and other pollinators can really benefit, from leaving it be.

“And when we mow our lawn, if we have weeds and other things like that in there, we cut off all those flowers. Even dandelions are used by these newly emerging insects,” Konlok said.

Appleton adopted No Mow May last year, and is joined this year by De Pere, Fort Atkinson, Fox Crossing, Hortonville, Kaukauna, Oshkosh, Stevens Point and Wausau.

Konlok said that in addition to being good for beneficial insects, No Mow May can encourage us to think about our lawns.

“And start to think about, maybe we should transition some of that lawn to more plants, maybe native plants or things we don’t spend so much resources, time, energy, carbon dioxide, emissions, mowing, and maybe transition our yard to more of a habitat than just a turf grass area.”

When Appleton adopted Now Mow May last year, increases in bee populations and diversity were documented in the yards of participants.

DNR awards over $6 million in clean water grants to local groups

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The Wisconsin DNR is awarding over 6 million dollars to local groups in order to help clean up and maintain lakes and rivers.

DNR Lakes and Rivers Team Leader Alison Mikulyuk says nearly 250 groups will be working to restore Wisconsin waters. 

“Grants are available to groups that want to take on projects to protect and restore lakes, rivers and wetlands, and help control invasive species. Together we can ensure we have healthy waters far into the future”

Among the projects are trout habitat restoration in Forest County, watershed management near Lake Winnebago, and multiple projects to reconnect wetlands to streams and rivers. 

Mikulyuk says this is part of the Department’s overall approach of keeping Wisconsin’s waters clean at the local level. 

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.

Natural Resources Board sets quota at 200 wolves for February hunt

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Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Board has set a quota of 200 wolves for the rapidly-organized winter hunting season.  The board met online Monday, unanimously supporting the Department of Natural Resources recommendations.

DNR Division Administrator Keith Warnke says application for permits will begin at the DNR’s Go Wild website at 12:01 am Tuesday, February 16th and close Saturday, February 20th at 11:59 pm. “Customers who win in the drawing will be able to review the results on February 22nd. Drawing winners can begin hunting and trapping when they have purchased their license and printed their carcass tag. The season will run through February 28th.”

Warnke says the online applications for the November hunt will open March 1st, and he says applicants can apply for preference points without seeking a harvest tag.  Permits cost $10.00 and if applicants are drawn for a license, wolf harvest tags cost $49.00.  Hunters and trappers can begin harvesting wolves Warnke also says DNR will forego carcass testing for the winter hunt.

DNR Program Supervisor and carnivore specialist Dave MacFarland told the board the 200 quota figure along with other human-caused wolf mortality figures is a figure that stabilizes the wolf population.  Board member Greg Kazmierski asked if that is the goal. “I’m not sure that should be our objective, and maybe that’s what the biologists were asked to do is come up with a quota that stabilizes the population, but the current population is almost four times what our population goal is.”

Board Chair Dr. Frederick Prehn appreciated the efforts of DNR and the board since Thursday’s Jefferson County court ruling. “We have a job to do and I think we completed it, but we completed it with what we believe (is) good science from the department, all politics aside.”

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Bennett Brantmeier ruled Thursday, February 11th the DNR violated existing state law by refusing to schedule a winter 2021 gray wolf hunt.  He scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, February 16th to get DNR’s update on complying with his Thursday order.

Livestock growers have had increased depredation problems since the last wolf season in 2014 including nine confirmed and 36 unconfirmed wolf kills in 2020.

Larry Lee, Brownfield

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.

WILL sues DNR to demand Wisconsin winter wolf hunt

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The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Natural Resources.

WILL deputy counsel Anthony LoCoco said the agency needs to hold a gray wolf hunting or trapping season this winter.

“The legislature’s already addressed the issue. It enacted statutes that say that so long as wolves aren’t listed on the federal or state endangered species list, there must be a hunt every year from November through February, period.”

The grey wolf was officially removed from the Endangered Species List, effective January 4. But last week the state Natural Resources took no action on an immediate hunt.

“Some people might say ‘well what’s the rush,'” LoCoco said. “I would respond to that what have they been doing for the three months since the wolf was actually delisted, and the two years since the federal government actually proposed delisting the wolf.”

The suit filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court on behalf of Hunter Nation Inc., a Kansas-based hunting advocacy group, claims the DNR violated state law and the state constitution’s guarantee of a right to hunt. A DNR spokesperson had no comment.

Alliant Energy prepares to close its last coal power plant in Wisconsin

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Alliant Energy says it’s planning to shut down its last coal power plant in Wisconsin.

The company announced on Tuesday that the plant in Columbia County would be shut down by 2024.

The closure would affect around 110 jobs, but many of those workers are nearing retirement, and Alliant will work to find the other staff jobs throughout the rest of the company.

Alliant is working to expand its renewable energy power generation, and is set to open up a large scale solar array by the end of 2023.

Natural Resources Board takes no action on February grey wolf hunt

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The state Natural Resources Board on Friday heard from proponents and opponents of an immediate wolf hunt in Wisconsin.

Luke Hilgeman is a former legislative staffer who founded the hunting rights organization Hunter Nation. “For the Department of Natural Resources and the Evers’ administration to claim that this is somehow rushed, just doesn’t make sense in fact,” Hilgeman said.

“We’re dealing with some really unknowns that we’ve never dealt with . . . if we’re allowing our harvest to occur in the middle of winter, and the use of hounds extensively across the state that we’ve never done before,” said Adrian Wydevan, a former wolf biologist with the DNR who now chairs of the Timber Wolf Alliance Council.

A wolf hunt is scheduled for this November, but proponents of a February hunt fear the Biden administration will put the wolf back on the federal Endangered Species List. The wolf was official delisted in early January.

Republican legislators have also demanded the immediate hunt, but the board voted 4-3 against that on Friday.

The DNR’s most recent estimate put the number of grey wolves in the state at 1,034.