Wisconsin News and Sports
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.
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
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.
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 Wisconsin DNR does not have the discretion to determine whether to follow state law when it comes to scheduling a gray wolf hunt,” said Anthony LoCoco, WILL deputy counsel.https://t.co/Hle8lGD1jp
— WILL (@WILawLiberty) February 3, 2021
“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 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.
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.
Wells downstream from the La Crosse airport are now showing PFAS contamination.
Those wells are on Paris Island, which sits downstream from La Crosse Regional.
All but one out of 100 wells tested showed some levels of contamination, while 40 wells have levels above DNR safety standards. One well was over 160 times higher.
The DNR is continuing to test to see how far the contamination has spread since it was first detected in 2016.
A destructive invasive species has seen a rebound in Wisconsin this year. Gypsy moths can damage trees and shrubs by eating away their leaves.
The annual trapping program conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) caught 83,720 moths this year, up from 52,396 in 2019.
It’s an increase attributable in part to variations in winter weather. Last year was a historic low after two harsh winters.
“Weather conditions were relatively mild across Wisconsin compared to the previous two years,” said Michael Falk, DATCP’s gypsy moth trapping coordinator. “Winter temperatures were not low enough to kill gypsy moth eggs, and spring conditions did not support the fungal and viral diseases known to kill gypsy moth caterpillars. As a result, gypsy moth populations rebounded after two consecutive years of population decrease.”
Get ready for a fantastic night time spectacle as two of the solar system’s planets join to create a once in a lifetime sight.
Jupiter and Saturn will be right on top of each other on Monday night in what’s known as a conjunction.
UW-Stevens Point astronomy professor Sebastian Zamfir says the show starts just after sundown.
“If we are patient, we’ll see that in about maybe 20 minutes, half an hour, it gets dark enough for the two planets to become visible. They will stand out because they are very bright.”
Zamfir says astronomers have tracked these events all the way back to the time of Jesus.
“Some of the good candidates, as natural phenomena that would be related to The Star of Bethlehem were this kind of conjunctions, planetary conjunction. An even more spectacular one in terms of brightness happened in 2 BC and that one was between Jupiter and Venus.”
The last time Jupiter and Saturn got this close together in the night sky was over 800 years ago, making this a once in a lifetime opportunity.
PFAS advisory (WRN image)
A new state action plan recommends preventing pollution from “forever chemicals” classified as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as well as finding ways to reduce their use.
The Evers’ administration released the plan Wednesday after a yearlong study involving the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and numerous other state agencies and the University of Wisconsin.
PFAS chemicals have been linked to cancer, liver disease and reproductive health disorders in humans. They have been in use for decades in variety of applications, including firefighting foam.
The report includes 25 action points centered on environmental justice and health equity, as well as pollution prevention. Many of those would require support from state legislators.
