A gray wolf. (Wisconsin DNR photo)

Wisconsin Republicans on Thursday continued their yearslong effort to reverse the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s decision not to quantify a specific statewide goal for the state’s gray wolf population with a public hearing on a bill that would require the agency to set one. 

The bill, authored by Sen. Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) and Rep. Chanz Green (R-Grand View), is unlikely to be signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers if it’s passed, but shows how the contentious politics around wolves continue to play a major role in the state’s natural resource policy debates — especially in an election year. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, seen as the frontrunner in the Republican primary for governor, was the author of a bill recently passed in the House that would remove the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list. 

State law in Wisconsin requires that whenever the wolf isn’t listed as endangered, the state must hold an annual wolf hunt. 

The state’s wolf management plan was updated for the first time in decades in 2023. The plan was established after a two and a half year process involving an advisory committee made up of 28 member organizations and thousands of public comments. 

Prior to the current plan’s adoption, Wisconsin was operating under a plan that was first approved in 1999 and then updated in 2007. That plan went into effect as the state was working to responsibly handle the animal’s return to the state after its extirpation in the 1960s. 

Initially, the state set a  population goal of 350 wolves. 

More than a quarter century after the 1999 plan’s adoption, the state’s wolf population is estimated to be about 1,200 wolves. The 350 number that was initially set as an aspiration for a healthy wolf population has come to be seen by some hunters and farmers as a wolf population ceiling. 

But under the current wolf management plan, the DNR opted to use an “adaptive management” system which forgoes setting a specific population number. Instead, the state gets divided into zones and in each zone the DNR annually assesses the local wolf population to decide if it needs to be kept stable, allowed to grow or reduced through a hunt. 

Adaptive management is the method used by the state for most other game species, including black bear, bobcat, coyote, white-tailed deer and wild turkey. But since the plan’s adoption, Republicans have been opposed to using the method for wolves. 

Rep. Green, the bill’s co-author, said that the growth of the wolf population in northern Wisconsin is causing a number of problems, including in the area’s deer population. 

“We’d like to see a wolf management goal in place where — most of these wolves are concentrated in northern Wisconsin and we’d like to see that reduced,” Green said. “It’s been heavily impacted on our deer populations and things like that.”

Research has shown that Wisconsin’s wolves have helped cause a noticeable decline in the number of vehicle-deer collisions that occur in the state. 

At the hearing, Chris Vaughan, Wisconsin director of the pro-hunting organization Hunter Nation, complained that the wolf management plan focuses too much on the social effects of the wolf population, putting too much weight on people’s personal views about wolves. Vaughan lamented how frequently Wisconsin’s plan uses the word “social” compared to other states

But representatives of the DNR said social carrying capacity is an important consideration for biologists when managing any species. 

“Dare I say the biological part of wolf management is the easy part,” Randy Johnson, the DNR’s large carnivore species specialist, said. ”We know how to have a pretty good system of monitoring the population. The science is pretty clear about how we can move the population up and down through harvest. It is the social side of this that continues to be the difficult part of it. Everybody knows it’s a contentious issue. Some people see it different ways, some people want more, some people want less and it’s our job to try to balance that.” 

Proponents of a hard limit on the wolf population also cast their argument in social terms.

Brad Olson, president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, said the state should have a specific population number to assuage the feelings of farmers who are traumatized by losing livestock to wolves. 

“For those of us who live in wolf country and deal with wolves on a day in, day out basis, at times, I think the number is very important to those of us in wolf country who have these issues,” Olson said. “You haven’t been on the farms like I have where, where the mule has been killed by a pack of wolves … and I think in all of this, what we’re really missing from the legislative side, from the DNR side, is we’re missing the impact of the mental health on rural ag and those in rural Wisconsin.” 

“When compared to other species where adaptive management works, wolves sit at a completely different intersection of biology, social politics and law, where this vague management tool is impossible to apply,” Vaughan said.

Democrats on the committee questioned the prudence of changing the DNR’s management plan before the wolf has been delisted and the plan has a chance to be put to the test when a hunt must be held. 

“So if we actually could accomplish [a healthy wolf population] utilizing the tools and the science that the DNR has provided, would that or would that not actually accomplish the goal?” Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) asked.

A wolf makes its way across a road in Yellowstone National Park. (Jacob W. Frank/Courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service)

The U.S. House on Thursday passed, 211-204, a bill to remove Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf outside Alaska.

The bill, sponsored by Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, would direct the Interior secretary to reissue a 2020 rule removing ESA protections that delisted wolves other than the Mexican wolf in the lower 48 states, while stipulating it could not be challenged in court. 

The rule from President Donald Trump’s first administration was struck down by a federal court in 2022.

Five Democrats voted for the bill and four Republicans voted against it. The measure was considered during the chamber’s last vote series before a two-week break, and 18 members did not vote.

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, has sponsored a companion bill in that chamber. The measure faces an uphill road in the Senate, where passage of partisan bills is rarer due to the 60-vote threshold for most legislation.

The bill would remove gray wolves from the ESA list, even though they have not reached population figures that the Fish and Wildlife Service has said would indicate full recovery.

Rep. Donald S. Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, said it would be reasonable to adjust population thresholds, but that congressionally mandated delisting was unwise and illegal.

“This bill fails to recognize the status of gray wolves today, taking us back to an outdated rulemaking that didn’t hold up in court,” Beyer said on the House floor Thursday.

House Natural Resources Committee ranking Democrat Jared Huffman of California said the bill set a “troubling” precedent by blocking judicial review.

“It tells the American people they no longer have the right to challenge unlawful government actions,” he said. “The ESA is simple and effective. It ensures decisions are grounded in science — that’s the heart of it — and this bill throws that principle out the window.”

Several Republicans on the Natural Resources Committee spoke in favor of the bill, saying it would delegate wolf management to states.

In a statement, Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, said the gray wolf has been “fully recovered” for two decades.

“States are more than capable of managing thriving wolf populations. This legislation restores a common-sense, science-based approach to wolf management, returning decision-making to states,” he said.

Republicans also argued the bill would protect livestock and humans.

Rep. Pete Stauber showed a photo from his district in Ely, Minnesota, of a wolf in a school parking lot.

“Because of the gray wolf’s listing status, nothing could be done to protect the lives of the students there,” the Republican said. “The broken ESA is putting my constituents’ lives at risk.”