Ugly Wisconsin Wolf Hunt Ahead

The legislature - - thank you, Joel Kleefisch - - and the DNR are rushing to set up a wolf hunt in Wisconsin, abandoning reason, science and fairness - - so what else is new under Walker's extreme governance?

Ron Seely at the State Journal finds the right language to lay out the dirty truth:

It was a foregone conclusion that the Natural Resources Board last week was going to approve beginning the process that will end, sometime in mid-October, with a rifle shot and a recreational hunter legally killing a wolf in Wisconsin for the first time in many years.

The board, which sets policy for the state Department of Natural Resources, was bound by action in the state Legislature that mandated such a hunt.

What was perhaps less apparent to those not at the board meeting was the discomfort of some board members with the hand they had been dealt by the Legislature and the politicians who cooked up most of the details of the hunt -- details the Natural Resources Board has to live with...

Despite the claim of wolf hunting proponents that politicians heeded the advice of scientists in putting together the wolf hunting plan, there seems scant evidence that that is truly the case. Most suspicious is the complete absence of the DNR's leading wolf authority, Adrian Wydeven, from any of the legislative hearings. Nor was he at the Wednesday board meeting.

So, as was clear from the comments of some board members Wednesday, the result is this: The state's leading natural resource science agency will rush to patch together a hunting season on an animal it has worked so hard to restore and protect, forced to allow the use of hunting techniqes, such as baiting and night hunting, that even experts say are questionable and not befitting the fair pursuit of such a noble creature.