While a Journal Sentinel editorial wants the proposed Wisconsin wolf hunt green-lighted with policy outcomes autopsied after the fact, environmental legal advocate Jodi Habush Sinykin makes a good case that the hunt is being hurried to a cruel and sloppy start this fall.
Is Wisconsin going to remake its wolf license plate by putting a target over the head? Endangered resource? No kidding.
On, Wisconsin?
Count me out.
Is Wisconsin going to remake its wolf license plate by putting a target over the head? Endangered resource? No kidding.
Writes Sinykin, who notes that Wisconsin, unlike all other states, will allow dogs in the hunt:Endangered resources license plates
Rushed through the legislative process with no notice to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wildlife experts, no input from the state's Wolf Science Advisory Committee and no tribal consultation, the law prescribes a first hunting season for wolves. The law is drawing significant opposition from scientists, mainstream hunters and conservationists alike, owing to an excessively long, 4½-month season that allows hunting of breeding females and to the array of hunting and trapping methods viewed as out of line with traditional values of fair pursuit and public safety considerations...
Is this a Wisconsin we're proud of?The editorial board wants to give the benefit of the doubt to the state.
No one will know how successful the DNR's rules will be until they're put into practice and, even then, probably not until the season is over. It may be that adjustments will have to be made in the rules and perhaps in the law itself. Perhaps the season - now slated to run from Oct. 15 to the end of February - is too long. Perhaps hunters should be barred from using dogs, as is the practice in other states where wolf hunting is allowed. Maybe there should be further restrictions on night hunting and the use of lights.
But most of those fixes would have to be done by the Legislature, and it makes sense to see how the first season goes to see what adjustments are needed.'Seeing how it goes' means wolves caught in traps or killed after confrontations with dogs.
On, Wisconsin?
Count me out.
"During their period of courtship, the alpha male and female will become very close to each other. They stay with each other almost all of the time, even while they are sleeping, and act quite affectionate towards each other. The alpha male and female have a strong relationship all year, but it becomes stronger as they prepare to mate. Once they are established as a breeding pair, they often stay together for life, although infrequent changes in partners may occur. It is untrue that wolves always mate for life, though wolves typically only have one mate at a time. Serial monogamy is not uncommon, whereas polygamy is rare. The male and female often mate several times before the female's heat period is over."
ReplyDeleteThe truth is that any hunter using dogs or hunts at night is nothing but an immoral savage whose own skills as a hunter are extremely suspect. This isn't hunting! It's ignorant revenge against animals that are superior hunters.
ReplyDeleteAnother sell-out by the JS editorial board! It has lost all common sense.
ReplyDeleteWhat killing methods are proposed that really need a try-out? Shooting wolves with guns? No, that ends up with a dead or mortally wounded wolf. Trapping wolves? No, that ends up with a dead wolf too, one that has died a torturously painful and needlessly long death. Hunting with dogs? That one ends up in the wolf being shot and the tattered dog having to be put down.
If the wolf population is really too high--and that is debatable itself--wolves should be taken HUMANELY by DNR sharpshooters and not by blood-lusty hunters hunting wolves out of sight and out of sound of regulators. The JS should know better.
I think the trapping method should be tested on out on the family dogs belonging to the JS Editorial Board. Let's see how that "plays out."
ReplyDeleteSure, after stalling a wolf hunt as they multiplied to destructive levels let's raises the charge that the DNR is rushing the wolf hunt. It will give the pack more time to feast on the elk herd that fter decades is not gaining much traction due to wolves. Who cares how long the season is because there are only a small number of tags will be given out.
ReplyDeleteThe DNR is rushing the hunt...because the Legislature ordered the hunt for this fall, so it's proceeding under "emergency" rule-making.
ReplyDelete