Tuesday 4-15

Can we have one species of animal that we don't hunt here in Wisconsin? I ask this because sportsmen across the state voted last night on beginning the process to establish a wolf hunting season here in Wisconsin. While the vote totals won't be known until later this week, just the fact the vote was held makes us look bad.

Until a couple of years ago the wolf was a protected species--having worked its way off the endangered list. And how did it get on the list? Over hunting by humans. So now that wolves are off the endangered list, we here in Wisconsin can't wait to get back to killing them.

In the interest of full disclosure, I like wolves. I was one of those people who helped fund their re-introduction to Wisconsin by having one of those "endangered resources" wolf license plates for several years--until some jerk in Milwaukee literally stole it off my Jeep about four years ago. I got those plates to help an effort to restore balance to the state eco-system. Wolves were here before we were and play an important role in controlling the populations of other wildlife. Maybe we wouldn't need zone T hunts or earn a buck if we let the wolves get at more deer.

The question on the wolf hunt last night was worded to make it seem the human hunting season would help "control" the wolf population in Wisconsin. It says nothing about what that population would be. Are we going to keep the wolf numbers just barely above the "threatened" level? Will we "accidentally" hunt them back into extinction?

I have no problem with farmers being allowed to trap and kill wolves who have become dependent on killing their cattle to survive. But as for the rest of the state, let's just let nature play out its natural cycles of life and death and see where we stand a few decades from now.