Even as the state wolf hunt continues, some question its necessity. “Wolves should only be taken if they’re causing depredations,” said Howard Goldman. He’s Minnesota state director of the Humane Society of the United States, and member of the Wisconsin DNR’s wolf stakeholder’s group. “That should be the goal of the DNR’s Wolf Management Plan, to resolve wolf-human conflicts, not to establish a basis for a recreational hunt of wolves.”
Goldman said the USDA and landowners may now shoot problem wolves – but that it’s too soon to allow a hunt, as both Wisconsin and Minnesota have now done. “Let’s see what the effects of the delisting are. Let’s further study the wolf, before we take any steps like this.”
Goldman contends that more than half Wisconsin’s wolf population could fall victim, when wolves poached and shot due to depredation are factored into hunting and trapping numbers. “We don’t have any idea what the impact of these changes will be on the population, and we’re saying there is no rush to hunt wolves in this state.”
The Humane Society has filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seeking to place Great Lakes wolves back on the Endangered Species List. “We don’t believe that the wolf has recovered, under the definitions in the (Endangered Species) Act,” said Goldman. “The wolf only occupies five percent of its historic range. We see the wolf seasons in both Minnesota and Wisconsin as really irresponsible.”