Poynette: Today, the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation applauds the US Fish and Wildlife Service for their decision to delist the wolf from the Federal Endangered Species List for the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. The rule removing the gray wolf from the list will be published in the Federal Register on November 3, 2020 and will take effect 60 days later, on January 4, 2021.
The Federation is a strong supporter of scientifically-based professional management of fish and wildlife species. The professional wildlife biologists in the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Departments of Natural Resources in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota all have concurred that the wolf population in those states have fully concurred and have met the Federal and State wolf population recovery goals. The wolf was removed from the Wisconsin Endangered and Threatened Species List in 2004
The population goal for wolves in Wisconsin as established by the Federally approved
Wisconsin Wolf Management plan is 350 animals. According to a Wisconsin DNR report issued in September 2020, the minimum wolf count in the winter of 2019-2020 was between 1034 and 1057 animals, a one-year growth of 13%. DNR indicates that this population range understates the true population of wolves in the state. In the meantime, wolves continue to cause a high level of depredation of livestock, pets and hunting dogs in Wisconsin’s wolf range, causing great concern to farmers, ranchers, other landowners and sportsmen and women.
The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation is calling upon the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources to immediately reconvene its Wolf Advisory Committee to update the state’s Wolf Management Plan which was last updated in 2006 and to implement its active professional management of wolves as soon as possible. The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation is one of the organizations represented on the current DNR Wolf Advisory Committee.
The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation is also calling on Governor Evers, Attorney General Kaul
and DNR Secretary Preston Cole to vigorously support the US Fish and Wildlife Service
decision in Federal Court if the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s delisting decision is challenged in Federal Court.
