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.