10 elements in Wisconsin's already-degraded Big, Basic Supply Chain

We are hearing about problems in the supply chain.

Goods are tied up in ports, on ships, and through component and labor shortages.

Not to minimize any of that.

And I would argue that Wisconsin, and others, continue to abuse and further jeopardize an even more-critical supply chain - the clean air, fresh water and life-giving lands we should be guarding and repairing to improve, attract and ensure life here itself.

A lot of what is tied up in the transportation and manufacturing supply chain isn't going to be worth much if people buying these products don't have clean water, fresh air and adequate open space to enjoy and live their lives. 

And unless we pay closer attention to this Big or Basic Supply Chain we'll have less of what has given definition and meaning to Wisconsin and its antecedents because selfish special interests aided by complicit government are increasingly breaking, paving, filling, polluting and otherwise handing it over to the rich and powerful for their control and narrow benefit.

Here is a quick list of 10 foundational and interwoven elements of The Big, Basic Supply Chain which needs our fuller attention.

The grandkids are already watching.

Feel free to add more:

1. Clean air. SE Wisconsin's smoggy air would not improve with the nearly 800 annual tons of pollutants quickly awarded Foxconn.

2. Safe rural groundwater. Kewaunee County and the Central Sands water continues to be toxified by nitrate-laden CAFO discharges.

3. Lake Michigan water. Foxconn still has the right to a massive daily draw of Lake Michigan water. Wisconsin continues to award diversion requests while the other Great Lakes states remain mute. And Wisconsin is so used to diverting Great Lakes water that the latest effort began without the required prior authorizations. Who is surprised?

Lake Michigan north of Milwaukee. @James Rowen photo.

4. Urban well water. Eau Claire's is contaminated, for sure. Madison's wells have their problems, too. The so-called 'forever contaminants,' know as PFAS compounds, are ubiquitous and Wisconsin legislative Republicans are obstructing rules and regulations that are the legal antidotes.

5. Clean Rivers. The Menominee River could become a mining pollutant-laden supplier of drinking water because Wisconsin intentionally weakened its mining controls.

6. Wetlands. Foxconn has the right to take and fill wetlands more or less as it pleases.

7. Public land. Popular Kohler Andrae State Park may will see acreage inside and at its entrance handed over to a golf course developer. What kind of precedent is that?

8. Endangered species. More Milwaukee County Grounds public green space is slated for 'development,' threatening the sliver of Monarch Butterfly habitat which is all that's left to help this species hang on to a tenuous migrating site here.

9. Threatened species. The state's recent science-snuffing-wolf-killing binge is an abomination. Wolves are the most important forest predator which keeps the natural order in balance. Trapping and shooting the adults during breeding season after teams of dogs have been set against them as was sanctioned by the state less than a year ago was pure cruelty.

10. Respect for elder, Native cultures. You can't miss the pattern of what's under pressure and outright attack - whether it's the vital Menominee River, ancestral artifacts and burial mounds inside Kohler Andrae State Park, or at the expense of wolves considered sacred by Ojibwe tribes who had spent years protecting from seizure their treaty rights to walleye and life-affirming wild-rice estuaries. 

You could de-congest all the ports and unload Wisconsin's share for super fast delivery to businesses and homes in the Badger State, but Wisconsin and our future as the climate crisis unfolds will continue to degrade until policy-makers put Public Trust water, air, land and wildlife first. 

WI hunters keep throwing hounds to wolves in Bayfield Co.

Every summer and fall, it's the same nasty story:

So-called 'hounders' - presumably releasing their GPS-collared hunting dogs as training for the fall bear season  - keep running some of their dogs despite warnings posted online by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources straight into the jaws of wolves in Bayfield County where known wolf activity is mapped and posted online

Between July 9 and August 13, five hunting dogs have been killed - four of them Walker hounds like this one - 

- and two additional Black and Tan hounds were injured by wolves, according to WI DNR data and maps.

One reason for this gory sloppiness: 

A unique Wisconsin state reimbursement program wherein the owner of hound killed during hunting training by a wolf - even if killed in known wolf territory, or released into a fatal encounter with a wolf by an owner who has done so in the past and is even a scofflaw has even run afoul of the law - is entitled to a $2,500 state check.

I have written often about this shameful state-subsidized wolf-dog carnage; a sample post put up nearly two years ago to the day is here -

2 more WI hounds thrown to wolves. Total DNR reimbursements to owners will exceed $800k

Life continues to be cheap for too many Wisconsin hunting hounds, but their sacrifice sure is remunerative to their owners, even to repeat state check applicants. Even to scofflaws....

Two more hunting dogs have been reported killed by wolves during this summer's continuing bear hound 'training season' - - a two-months period during which bears and wolves are needlessly chased, harassed, and traumatized, while anyone out in the woods not running hound packs gets no relief.

That brings to twelve the number released off-leash this summer to their deaths by owners now eligible for $2,500 state reimbursement checks. That's $30,000 down the drain, too.

- And this state-enabled practice and payment plan operates in a state that otherwise outlaws dog fighting and cruelty to animals. Talk about your double-standard, as I noted in 2014:

In Milwaukee,  a man involved in dog-fighting for money got five years in prison....

Elsewhere in rural Wisconsin - - right now - - other dogs are being allowed to chase bears as part of hunting dog training.

And should a dog get killed by wolves in the bear-hunt training, even if the dog was let loose in a known wolf activity area - - not to worry - because the same state and taxpayers now housing the Milwaukee dog-fighting perpetrator will pay the hunter who let his dog get torn apart by the larger wolves up to $2,500 - so the hunter can go get another disposable dog.

This Wisconsin DNR chart shows that state payments for so-called wolf 'depredated' dogs is approaching $850,000 since the program began decades ago.

The state, as the chart shows, also pays farmers for wolf-related livestock losses and pet dog owners for animals killed by wolves, too.

More about the whole sad, sick and worsening Wisconsin FUBAR wolf 'policy' is here, as I wrote Friday:

Another Wisconsin wolf policy announcement came by email Friday, below. 

It needs close examination because:

1. The state's Natural Resources policy [sic] board - chaired by a Walker appointee who refuses to relinquish his now-expired appointment, influence and seat - just arbitrarily threw out a DNR staff recommendation for a fall wolf kill of 130.

2. And substituted instead - against the recommendations of DNR staffers, scientists, Native American and allied advocates - the authorized and unprecedented science-free wolf-slaughter of 300 wolves. It's a number pulled from a Republican special interests' grab bag of bloody treats that echoes the winter, 2021 all-too-predictable Wisconsin quota-busting overkill, so...

I urge the DNR and the WNRB to add this simple disclaimer to future invitations for public participation in decisions which effect the people's water, land, clean air and wildlife:

*Note: Any decision by the Department of Natural Resources or its oversight body Wisconsin Natural Resources Board is subject to partisan tampering, special-interest manipulation or outright cancellation regardless of documentation, facts or other pesky evidence and/or commonsense.

A census of ghouls, fools and tools

Some of the 2020 Census data is out, and Wisconsin retains its eight US House seats, and with two Senators, 10 electoral votes.

Remember that this is the Census which the defeated administration repeatedly tried to skew against big cities like Milwaukee with their immigrant - and legally countable - populations, so I expect we will see in subsequent data releases an official loss of population in Milwaukee which surely be an undercount.

I have some familiarity with the census procedures, having served during the Norquist years as the city's 1996 census liaison, and I know that even in the best of times (thus not with the Stephen Miller/White House-led campaign of anti-immigrant intimidation) there is understandable reluctance in neighborhoods and households with undocumented residents to open doors and speak with government officials who want to and can only legally count people, not turn them in to law enforcement.

But Wisconsin's census-related political problem with the number of Congressional seats we have - other than the overall transfer of power to the GOP-dominated south and West that strengthens an already-unfair and disproportionate Electoral College edge with it - has less with what we have and more to do what we do with them, and in particular with how heavily gerrymandered Republican incumbents abuse and devalue the majority of seats they've latched onto.

And these Three Fools and a Tool have had themselves quite a month of April - heaping on top of its long-acknowledged cruelty a toxic layer of cringe-worthy stupidity not seen in Wisconsin since Joe McCarthy showed the nation that indeed he had 'no sense of decency.'

Some April 2021 lowlights from the Three Fools:

* Grothman

The Oracle of Glenbuelah adds rap and dance to his expansive canon

* Tiffany

Ignored racism, enslavement and other American realities

* Fitzgerald

With Tiffany, Smeared top Biden health nominee.

But unsuccessfully, apparently.

* And then there's the [Russian] tool - Ron Johnson, who also had himself a high-profile and even more highly-embarrassing April.

Ron Johnson's new embrace of 7,400 COVID is nothing new

Because, remember: He even considered the deaths of 11 million Americans from COVID19 as an acceptable price for others to pay. 

GOP Senator Upbeat Coronavirus May Kill ‘No More Than 3.4 Percent of Our Population’ 

* And there's this one leading the Wisconsin State Assembly who displays elements of his more senior party leaders, so could easily blend in if he took a promotion to Congress as have The Fools: 

WI science foe Vos now expert on immunology. Also "The Matrix."

They want Lincoln's mantle, but without the character to claim it

Republicans are responding from their privileged perches to the intertwined pandemics of racism and Covid-19 with words and behaviors that are intentionally misleading or screamingly ignorant - and which add only hurt and further regression instead of solutions or leadership. 

For example:

* On Friday, defeated ex-WI Gov. Scott Walker took to Twitter with a clumsy but familiar GOP claim to Lincoln's mantle while overlooking decades of Republican states' rights racism, dog-whistling, Nixonian 'southern strategizing,' voter suppression, cuts to public education, wage-depressing union busting and other accelerators of intentional inequality: 

...the Republican Party was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin in opposition to slavery, Abraham Lincoln was the 1st Republican President, and Republicans fought for the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.

And note, Walker will appropriate any historical figure - Reagan, even FDR - for his aggrandizement.

How misleading and pathetic it is that Walker has to go back to the 1860's and fabricate fake relevancy - using the unusually brilliant and empathetic President Lincoln who is the complete opposite of the worst Republican whom Walker helped put in the White House, reliably shills for and whose re-election effort in Wisconsin he co-chairs. 


And here are two far more current representations of the Wisconsin GOP by contemporary Republicans who openly displayed zero connection with Lincoln:

* A taxpayer-paid aide to a Wisconsin GOP State Representative drew a blank on whether the Ku Klux Klan even exists. The aide did this on Facebook. 

* Another WI GOP State Representative on Facebook - sort of the Republicans' 2020 upgrade of a certain talk at Gettysburg - circulated a racist meme, and GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Friday couldn't be troubled for comment.

The post shared by [Ron] Tusler (R-Harrison) features a photograph including of a group of people, primarily African Americans, who appear to be entering a store through a broken window. It reads, "LOOTING: When free housing, free food, free education, and free phones just aren't enough."

Side note: Right-wing Republicans, like WI GOP Congressman and reliable poor-basher Glenn Grothman, have a thing about 'free' phones they use to fuel a very effective race-based politics of fear and resentment - in Grothman's his own words.

But I'm sure Grothman and the other Republicans in Congress who have tried to end phone subsidies for low-income workers or parents (though public subsidies of all kinds for Foxconn and other elites and their businesses through grants, loans and tax breaks are fine) have no idea that the "Lifeline" program was founded by then-President and Republican icon Ronald Reagan. 

Lifeline was created under President Reagan in 1985 to subsidize landline phone service, and it expanded to cover cell phone service in 2005 under President George W. Bush. Lifeline grew during the Obama administration, and critics took to calling it the "Obama phone" program. Scott's announcement said he intends to end the "Obama-era free cell phone program."

* Back to Vos, who wasn't anxious to wade into another uproar about Republicans and their grubby eagerness he so easily-displayed by disrespecting and demonizing minorities in Wisconsin struggling disproportionally with Covid--19:

Vos blames Racine Covid-19 victims' immigrant 'culture' for their suffering

Noted Racine County GOP legislator, cultural affairs humanitarian and disease expert [sic] Robin Vos -
- echoing State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roggensack's Covid-19 pandemic pandering on behalf of "regular folks" who miraculously remained symptom-free - says unapologetically that the persistently steep disease curve in his home county for which he is unaccountable is due to immigrant culture.

“I know the reason at least in my region is because of a large immigrant population where it’s just a difference in culture where people are living much closer and working much closer,” the Rochester Republican said of an outbreak in Racine County.

And since it's the victims' own fault, there was no reason for Vos and his GOP colleagues to come up with a virus prevention plan other than 'just say no to three families in a one-family rental' after Team Vos got a friendly and similarly reckless State Supreme Court to end the science-based approach Gov. Evers had used to successfully tamp down the pandemic - even though the experts said 'Safer-at-Home orders had helped slow the virus's toll:

Health experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease specialist, have credited the lockdowns with saving lives and have said the death rate could march higher if the restrictions are eased too quickly.

And back to Walker's strained and embarrassing invocation of Abraham Lincoln.

Does he know there is an Abraham Lincoln Center for Character Development founded by Lincoln College in neighboring Illinois?

Which is dedicated to spreading and instilling Lincoln's values, such as compassion and empathy? 

THE PRESIDENT REFUSES TO SIGN TWENTY-FOUR DEATH WARRANTS.

A personal friend of President Lincoln says: “I called on him one day in the early part of the war. He had just written a pardon for a young man who had been sentenced to be shot, for sleeping at his post, as a sentinel. 

He remarked as he read it to me:  “‘I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of the poor young man on my skirts.’ Then he added: ‘It is not to be wondered at that a boy, raised on a farm, probably in the habit of going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall asleep; and I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act.'”

This story, with its moral, is made complete by Rev. Newman Hall, of London, who, in a sermon preached after and upon Mr. Lincoln’s death, says that the dead body of this youth was found among the slain on the field of Fredericksburg, wearing next his heart a photograph of his preserver, beneath which the grateful fellow had written, “God bless President Lincoln!”

From the same sermon another anecdote is gleaned, of a similar character, which is evidently authentic. 

An officer of the army, in conversation with the preacher, said:   “The first week of my command there were twentyfour deserters sentenced by court martial to be shot, and the warrants for their execution were sent to the President to be signed. He refused. I went to Washington and had an interview. I said:  “‘Mr. President, unless these men are made an example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is cruelty to the many.’

“He replied: ‘Mr. General, there are already too many weeping widows in the United States. For God’s sake, don’t ask me to add to the number, for I won’t do it.'”

From Lincoln’s Life, Stories and Speeches by Paul Selby

And remember that Walker in his eight years as the embodiment of an un-Lincolnesque Governor never set foot inside any of the prisons he financed and expanded - and to which tens of thousands were sentenced during his 'tough-on-crime' career:

Walker’s biggest victory in this area was the state’s “Truth-in-Sentencing” legislation, which ended parole opportunities for many categories of prisoners, and increased prison time for others. “The time has come to keep violent criminals in prison for their full terms,” Walker said in 1996 as he advocated for the bill. Later, as chair of the state assembly’s Committee on Corrections and the Courts in 1998, Walker shepherded the legislation into state law.

At the time, Walker openly credited the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for Truth-in-Sentencing’s success. “Clearly ALEC had proposed model legislation,” Walker told American RadioWorks in 2002. “And probably more important than just the model legislation, [ALEC] had actually put together reports and such that showed the benefits of truth-in-sentencing and showed the successes in other states. And those sorts of statistics were very helpful to us when we pushed it through, when we passed the final legislation.”

Though during his eight years of governing he never issued a single pardon.

Worse, perhaps, is that Walker was warned by a judge in writing that youth offenders in a state facility on his watch were being abused, and did nothing about it for years. 

In a terrible bit of irony, the facility is named "Lincoln Hills," which is about as close to Lincoln as Walker regrettably will ever be.

The Center is now part of the Lincoln Heritage Museum, in Lincoln, IL.

The character qualities of Abraham Lincoln encouraged at the Abraham Lincoln Center for Character Development are honesty, empathy, humility, perseverance, courage, intellect, vision, responsibility, and leadership.  Explore this site, or contact the Center to see learn more about these Lincolnesque qualities, and how you can live them out in your life.

I can't imagine Lincoln identifying with any of the characters making up the modern-day Wisconsin or National Republican parties who abuse and distort his memory.

But I can think of a few who'd do well to visit the Lincoln museum and center - even online - to emulate and elevate him.

Trump to make acceptance speech in Jacksonville-named after slave owner

Remember when Trump upended the plan to put underground railroad hero Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill to replace the slave owning Andrew Jackson?



Well, Trump's connection with Jackson is about to get tighter.

Begin with, a) Trump loves Andrew Jackson, b) despite Jackson's brutal history of slave-owning -

Records show he beat his slaves, including doling out a brutal public whipping to a woman he felt had been “putting on airs.” And when slaves ran away, he pursued them, putting them in chains when they were recovered. In a newspaper advertisement for a runaway slave, he offered an extra $10 for every 100 lashes doled out to Tom, a 30-year-old slave who ran away in 1804. 

- and destroying Native American ancestral lands, culture, tribal identities and lives:

African-Americans weren’t the only people Jackson felt should be subservient to wealthy white men. His presidency is perhaps best remembered for his cruelty to Native Americans. A proponent of “Indian removal,” Jackson wanted to clear newly acquired territories of the Native Americans who lived there so that white settlers could claim the land as their own.  

Jackson’s Indian Removal Act resulted in the forced displacement of nearly 50,000 Native Americans and opened up 25 million acres of Native American land to white settlement.... Tens of thousands died during forced removals like the Trail of Tears in what is now Oklahoma; languages died out as Native Americans were forced to assimilate; and Native Americans who were forcefully displaced still struggle with poverty and intergenerational trauma.  

So, naturally, c) the White House has moved Trump's GOP convention nominating acceptance speech this summer to...Jacksonville, which, d) was named after Andrew Jackson, the city tells us:

The year 1821 marks Florida’s entry to be a U.S. territory. Plantations had become important economic centers along the St. Johns River. Two settlers donated land on the north bank of Cowford to establish a “proper” town in 1822 and the site was renamed Jacksonville, in honor of the territory’s first provisional governor, Andrew Jackson, who never set foot in the town, but went on to become the seventh U.S. President.

So at this moment in US history, what location for Trump's coronating speech could be more fitting? 

Ron Johnson again plays the demagogue. And a sweet insider's hand.

Our Trump-loving senior Senator serves up a special blend of hypocrisies, red-baiting and self-interest :

"I'm not a socialist," says the Wisconsin GOP pol in his tenth year enjoying millions of dollars annually in publicly-paid salary, free travel, staff budgets, and access to other perks obscure and treasured:

Federal legislators are permitted to park for free at Reagan National, in garages and lots used by passengers. Records obtained by the I-Team under the Freedom of Information Act show members of Congress used the free parking benefit hundreds of times in 2015, costing taxpayers more than $132,000. 

"While it may not seem like a major perk, it is still one of the coveted benefits of being a member of Congress," said David Williams of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

And had run a private business (in which he retains some interests) which twice received millions in publicly-subsidized low-interest loans.

And which also received a public grant to build a rail line to the business:

...a separate $75,000 federal grant...went to the company that was the precursor to Pacur. Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supplies Inc. received the money in 1979 to build a railroad line to the company, which was renamed Pacur several months later.

And let's not forget Johnson's more recent vote

that saved Trump's tax 'reform' plan after a successful bargaining stance which The Washington Post had framed this way:

Sen. Johnson is a ‘no’ on the tax bill. He says it hurts businesses (like his own).

And throw in his empathy-free penchant for cruelty and you've got a worthy competitor to tail-gunner Joe McCarthy as Worst Wisconsin Senator, Ever. 

A 'ho-hum' state should give its architects the heave-ho

Cap Times Editor Emeritus Dave Zweifel nails what the GOP has done to Wisconsin:

So now we live in what I call a ho-hum state. Our big businesses get most of what they want — more loopholes, lax regulation, income tax credits. As a result, we've fallen from the days we were once called a "shining star" among state governments to just another member of the pack.

I've used the term "backwater" to describe where we're at, and why - - here and here, for example - - 

Walker, WI GOP backwater boosters ahead of curve

and more recently, here:

Vos & Fitzgerald like their backwater state

This one-party governing-by-cruelty-and-obstruction will keep Wisconsin in the grip of petty hacks and business bellhops smugly content to keep the state stuck in a backwater while the country moves ahead.

Call it the elitism of the mediocre, a win for the dullest, lowest common denominator.

Electric vehicles are on their way in big numbers: the GOP can't think of anything to do about that except adding extra fees on electric and hybrid cars and resisting broad expansion of charging stations. 

Vos and Republicans bear heavy responsibility for blocking regional transit authorities and killing passenger rail in southern Wisconsin big populations centers. These legislators, willing captives of the road-builders and fossil-fuel interests, don't have to care about transit: the Legislature covers their mileage to and from the Capitol in per-diem payments established by leadership, and pays for their driving around their districts, too.

And as a party, Republicans have been between disinterested in and hostile to solar and wind power, again sending a message to younger workers, families and entrepreneurs that this is the wrong place to put down stakes.

Only a backwater state will say 'yes' to assault weapons and 'no' to transit and green energy, but that's the way Vos and Fitzgerald like it because they've figured out a way to keep their hands on the controls.

Back to Zweifel, as the clear conclusion to his column - -  

Wisconsin did succeed in getting rid of Scott Walker — at least for now. But a new governor with a Legislature that continues to thumb its nose while the rest of the country passes by can't do it alone. - - 

- - is that a turnaround lies with voters come election time. 

Zweifel says Vos and his GOP allies have made Wisconsin a "ho-hum state." The answer is to give them the 'heave-ho.'

New US anti-cruelty law likely won't end WI-subsidized hound-wolf fighting

Glad to see that animal cruelty is finally a Federal crime.

Trump signs a sweeping federal ban on animal cruelty

However, the fresh legal protections will probably not prevent the continuing release of hounds to their deaths in known Wisconsin wolf activity areas because the new Federal law, as reported in Washington Post piece above, has exemptions for "recreational activities," including hunting, and other "animal management activities," as indicated in the above Washington Post story.

Needless to say, the hundreds of bear-chasing hounds that have been thrown into fatal jeopardy by their owners in recent decades did not find their violent deaths a matter of recreation or sound animal management. 

Not to mention the damage regularly inflicted on wolf dens which nurture the highly-structured wolf packs - - that, in turn, help cull weak or sick deer and otherwise contribute to healthy forests, science has shown. 

And additionally left in place: the stress on bears being harassed, chased and treed by packs of bear hounds running free during legal, bear-hunt 'training.' 

Also see this updated WI DNR website, then the FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions] tab.

And while the dead hounds' Wisconsin owners get paid routinely and handsomely by the state (us) for their (dogs') trouble, it's worth asking again if this only-in-Wisconsin dead-hounds-for-cash plan is a matter of sound fiscal management, too:

2 more WI hounds thrown to wolves. Total DNR reimbursements to owners will exceed $800k 

The number of hounds killed in this homegrown, state-sanctioned and subsidized fashion is well over 300, and counting, according to this DNR reimbursement chart - - with more wolf-dog encounters sure to kill more hounds because this year's bear hunting 'training' season runs through Aug. 31. 

That's a lot of hunting dogs who had no say in the matter, and $800,000+ in public funds not available for public purposes. 

And while the state encourages these fatal wolf-dog fights and pays off the hounders, dog-on-dog fighting statewide is a felony.  

What kind of sick double standard is that? 

Both of the most recent subsidized kills were Redbone hounds, perhaps like this one:

Science affirms cruelty of state-sanctioned WI wolf-dog fighting

Readers of this blog know I track the annual state enabling that reimburses hunting hound owners who let their dogs chase wildlife off-leash and right into violent encounters with wolves.

21st WI hound since 7/7 sent into fatal fight with wolves. Check, please.

The last seven hunting hounds sent to their violent deaths in what amounts to state-sanction-and-subsidized wolf-dog fighting in Wisconsin were all Plott hounds, perhaps like this one.

So I thought this interesting piece in The Washington Post shines another needed bright light on the unethical thoughtlessness that underpins this only-in-Wisconsin throwaway dog program as it closes out its 34th bloody year: 

What makes dogs so special and successful? Love.

Clive Wynne, a psychologist and founder of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University, has a new book that walks readers through the growing body of dog science. In it, he argues that what makes dogs remarkable is not their smarts, but their capacity to form affectionate relationships with other species — in short, to love. 

I’m not saying human and dog love are identical. I’m just saying there’s enough similarity between how dogs form strong emotional bonds and how people form strong emotional bonds that it’s fair enough to use the love word.... 

If you show dogs in MRI scanners objects that remind them of either food or the presence of their owners, you can see how their brains light up. And the reward centers of the brain light up more strongly to signals that say “Your owner is nearby” than to signals that say “You’re going to get a piece of sausage.” That’s really strong evidence inside the brain that the presence of a beloved human is rewarding to a dog in itself.

More off-leash bear-chasing hounds killed by wolves. Hounders get fat WI reimbursements.

[Updated] In Wisconsin, a hunting dog can be the owner's best friend, or a free $2,500 state check if the dog is sent to a violent death while chasing bears through wolf territory.

A state-issued license to run hounds against bears as training for e hunt is no longer required, so the hounders during a two-month summer training period can release their dogs at will.

The Wisconsin DNR has reported the 13th and 14th hound deaths by wolves during the legal, July-August bear hunt training season. This is the period during which owners release hounds off-leash and may apply to the state for a $2,500 reimbursement per dog killed by wolves which den and rendezvous where some hounders insist on running their dogs.

The actual bear-hunting season takes place from September 4-October 8;  something above 3,500 bears will be killed by around 13,000 licensed hunters out of roughly 125,000 license applicants.

It's worth noting that what the DNR's bear plan is regulating - - here is its recently updated plan - - is wildlife which belongs to all the people of the state and not to any group or portion of the population.

Yet hounders are legally permitted to release their packs of dogs to harass and tree bears, along with the wolves which are biologically-equipped to fight back.

One of the hounds in the latest DNR report on dog-wolf encounters Friday was a Redtick, similar to this one:

I track this only-in-Wisconsin payment program, and wrote a few days ago - - as I have often over the last few years - - that the number of dogs lost in this state-sanctioned animal cruelty in total exceeds 350, at a cost in public funds sure to pass the $800,000 mark this year.

That’s a lot of money which could be spent on public purposes. Could these northern counties, towns, and villages use these thousands of dollars instead for their local parks, fisheries, roads, schools, law enforcement, home care workers, and so on?

Payments to the hounders may be obtained by scofflaws, repeat claimants and careless handlers who release their dogs in or near known wolf pack territory, or bear baiting deposits which can also attract wolves.

The DNR posts warnings and maps, but some hounders obviously ignore them.

08/14/2019

Burnett

1 Hunting dog killed (Bluetick/Walker mix, 8-year old male)

Burnett depredation location map [PDF]

As I wrote in 2016 - - and regrettably only the numbers change:

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources records show that 28 bear hounds have died in this gruesome fashion this year, and a stunning 25 of these hounds have been killed just this month.

The reimbursement program was created by the Legislature in 1985 and is backed by powerful hunting lobbies, and the relationship between the payments and the dog death toll has been noted over the years. 

A recent study found that Wisconsin has a higher dog casualty rate than Michigan, which also allows their use in bear hunts. The lead author, a Michigan Tech wildlife ecologist, speculated that Wisconsin’s compensation program creates "an incentive for abuse" — that is, hunters who deliberately put their dogs at great risk.

Note also this 2015 blog post on many of the same issues: 

Enabled by a powerful lobby, the State of Wisconsin has eased some bear hunting rules to facilitate another seasonal "harvest" kill in the thousands.

Scroll down to the Wisconsin DNR's explanation:

The past six seasons have ranked as the top six bear harvests in Wisconsin history, and this trend is likely to continue with a record number of permits made available in 2015 (10,690). Wisconsin consistently ranks as one of the top bear harvest states in the country...

Bear hunters should be aware of a few important changes to bear hunting regulations in 2015. State law was recently changed to eliminate the Class B bear license; a Class B license is no longer required to bait bears, train dogs to track bears, act as a back-up shooter, or assist hunters with pursuing bears (provided that a person does not shoot, shoot at, capture, take or kill the bear unless acting as a back-up shooter). Any individual may now participate in bear hunting and training activities without a Class B bear license any time those activities are permitted and in compliance with applicable regulations...

In 2014, hunters harvested 4,526 bears - the third highest harvest in state history...

Gun hunters harvested 3,776 bears in 2014, while bow hunters accounted for 695 bears. A majority of bears were harvested using bait (3,395), but the use of both dogs and bait (995) and neither dogs nor bait (69) was also successful. 

Various DNR webpages reference the "thrill" of bear hunting or its "quality experience," and the agency's large carnivore expert told the Wisconsin Bear Hunter's Association in a pre-hunting season missive that the state provides a "high quality bear hunting experience."

Speaking of bear hunting and dogs, another DNR webpage discloses that in the last few weeks, nine dogs training against bears have been killed by wolves... 

For three years earlier in the decade, wolves were removed from federal protection and hundreds were killed in Wisconsin, principally through heads shots delivered to trapped animals in a hunting season which allowed the use of dogs in the seasons' last few days.

That bloodshed was stopped by a federal judge because states like Wisconsin were 'managing' the hunts with lax and ineffective 'regulation,' as I wrote in December, 2014:

Despite the obvious, WI DNR lets hounders kill out-of-quota wolves

The carcasses of eight wolves shot and killed last week in Wisconsin - - six of which were chased down by packs of hunting dogs, records show - - could have been figuratively deposited at the doorstep of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources because the agency treated them as disposable, special-interest trophies.... 

As the 2014 Wisconsin wolf hunting season approached its DNR-established quota of 150 kills last month, it became clear that permissible delays in kill-reporting could push the total above 150 quota - - unless the agency moved pre-emptively to close the season...and data received...from the DNR through an Open Records request lets you plot how that overkill to 154 from 150 took place, with six of the final eight wolf killings occurring with the "aid of dogs" - - an only-in-Wisconsin practice.

Northern WI GOP GOP Rep. Sean Duffy is promoting fresh removal of federal wolf protection.

This is the sparse method through which the DNR reports these hound deaths on a web page:

08/22/2019	Marinette	1 Hunting dog killed (Plott, 5-year old male)	Marinette depredation location map [PDF]
08/23/2019	Price	1 Hunting dog killed (Red Tick, 6-year old male)	Price depredation location map [PDF]