In less than three days, Wisconsin hunters killed 200 wolves, double the number allowed
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It took the Trump administration about a year to announce their plans to gut the Endangered Species Act. Trump’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) successfully “delisted” the gray wolf at the end of October, just one week before the soon-to-bIn less than three days, Wisconsin hunters killed 200 wolves, double the number allowed
It took the Trump administration about a year to announce their plans to gut the Endangered Species Act. Trump’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) successfully “delisted” the gray wolf at the end of October, just one week before the soon-to-be twice impeached president was trounced in the November election. The move was made official on Jan. 4, giving states like Wisconsin the power to manage their wolf population. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says it is the fourth time the wolf has been federally delisted. This means hunting and trapping. It looked like Wisconsin, “the only state in the country that requires a yearly wolf-hunting season if the animal is not protected under the Endangered Species Act,” would have to wait until at least the fall of 2021 to begin their hunt. This calculation was based on the Wisconsin law that the one wolf hunting season can only be held between November and the end of February, and as officials wanted time to come up with a “scientifically based” quota of how many wolves could be killed. But as the Republican Party wandered about in the haze of a QAnon fever dream, Republican lawmakers demanded instant wolf hunts, and the Kansas-based hunter advocacy group Hunter Nation was successful in bringing a lawsuit forcing the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to “hastily” set up a hunting season that would begin in February. Hunter Nation’s argument was that the normal winter hunting season had been delayed by conservationist groups and therefore any further delays would just allow those groups to stop the hunting season altogether, and newly elected President Joe Biden and all his environmentalist talk might end cheeseheads’ chances of killing wolves. The “harvest” was supposed to last for one week, but has been called at four days after hunters from Hunter Nation killed at least 216 wolves—over 50% more than the 119 quota set by the DNR. They accomplished this in 60 hours. This is not much of a surprise as, according to the Sentinel, “the DNR sold 27,151 wolf harvest applications. The 2,380 winners (20 times the kill goal of 119) were drawn Sunday.” Read more