B4
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2021
States look to step up wolf kills
By MATTHEW BROWN
and IRIS SAMUELS
Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. — Payments for dead
wolves. Unlimited hunting of the animals.
Shooting wolves from the air.
Wolf hunting policies in some states are
taking an aggressive turn, as Republican
lawmakers and conservative hunting groups
push to curb their numbers and propose tac-
tics shunned by many wildlife managers.
In Montana, lawmakers are advancing
measures to allow shooting wolves at night
and payments to hunters reminiscent of
bounties that widely exterminated the spe-
cies last century. Idaho legislation would
allow hunters to shoot them from motorized
parachutes, ATVs or snowmobiles year-
round with no limits in most areas.
And in Wisconsin, just weeks after for-
mer President Donald Trump’s adminis-
tration lifted protections for wolves in the
Great Lakes region, hunters using hounds
and trappers blew past the state’s harvest
goal and killed almost twice as many as
planned.
The timing of the Wisconsin hunt was
bumped up following a lawsuit that raised
concerns President Joe Biden’s administra-
tion would intervene to restore gray wolf
protections. The group behind the suit has
close links to Republican political circles
including infl uential donors the Koch broth-
ers and notable Trump loyalists — Kris
Kobach, a former U.S. Senate candidate
from Kansas, and rock star and gun rights
advocate Ted Nugent.
Antipathy toward wolves for killing live-
stock and big game dates to early Euro-
pean settlement of the American West in the
1800s, and fl ared up again after wolf pop-
ulations rebounded under federal protec-
tion. What’s emerging now is different: an
increasingly politicized campaign to drive
down wolf numbers sometimes using meth-
ods anathema to North American hunting
traditions, according to former wildlife offi -
cials and advocates.
“It’s not a scientifi c approach to wild-
life management. It’s management based
on vengeance,” said Dan Vermillion, for-
mer chairman of Montana’s fi sh and wild-
life commission. Vermillion and others said
wolves were being used to stoke political
outrage in the same way Second Amend-
ment gun rights were used in recent elec-
tions to raise fears Democrats would restrict
fi rearms.
Hanging in the balance is a decadeslong
initiative that brought back thousands of
wolves in the Rocky Mountains, Pacifi c
Northwest and Great Lakes regions. Consid-
ered among scientists and environmentalists
a major conservation success, the predator’s
return remains a sore point for ranchers
Adam Messer
A gray wolf, a member of the Nez Perce pack, seen north of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National
Park in Wyoming in 2002.
whose livestock are some-
allow the use of bait
‘THEY’RE
times attacked by wolves
and night-vision scopes.
RUNNING THEM Another proposal would
and hunters who consider
wolf packs competition in
allow snares, which critics
DOWN WITH
the pursuit of elk, deer and
say are indiscriminate and
other big game.
can accidentally catch pets
HOUND DOGS.
In Montana and Idaho,
or other animals.
THAT’S WOLF
wolf numbers exploded
In response to concerns
after their reintroduction
that
treatment of wolves
KILLING. THAT’S will the drive
from Canada in the 1990s.
away tourists
Federal protections were
hoping to glimpse one in
NOT WOLF
lifted a decade ago. The
places like Montana’s Gla-
TRAPPING
states have been holding
cier National Park, Brown
annual hunts since, and
said their negative impact
OR
WOLF
wildlife offi cials cite stable
can’t be ignored.
HUNTING.’
population levels as evi-
“I certainly believe there
dence of responsible wolf
are people who come to
Carter Niemeyer | former
management.
look at wolves,” he said.
federal wildlife agent
That’s not satisfi ed hunt-
“But we are also hurting
ing and livestock groups
the outfi tting industry.”
and their Republican allies
Critics including Demo-
in those legislatures, who contend 1,500
cratic state Sen. Pat Flowers, a former state
wolves in Idaho and 1,200 in Montana are
wildlife department supervisor, warned of
damaging the livelihoods of big game out-
a signifi cant toll on Montana’s wolf pop-
fi tters and cattle and sheep producers.
ulation. State Senate Minority Leader Jill
“Too many wolves,” Republican state
Cohenour, also a Democrat, said the pro-
Sen. Bob Brown said of his mountainous
posals would “take us right back to having
district in northwest Montana. He’s spon-
them listed” as an endangered species.
soring a bounty-like program that’s similar
Wolves lost federal species protections
to one in Idaho and would reimburse hunt-
in the western Great Lakes in 2011, but they
ing and trapping expenses through a private
were re-imposed three years later under
fund.
court order.
A separate measure from Brown would
The Trump administration lifted protec-
tions again fi ve days before the November
election, when former Interior Secretary
David Bernhardt travelled to Minnesota to
announce the move.
On President Joe Biden’s fi rst day in
offi ce, the White House said it would review
the wolf decision.
Wisconsin offi cials already were plan-
ning a hunt in November when Hunter
Nation, founded in 2018, sued to force a
hunt immediately. The group cited a pos-
sible return of protections by the Biden
administration.
Hunter Nation boasts its led by “Amer-
ica’s greatest Hunters and Patriots” on its
website, which also includes praise for
Trump. Its leader, Luke Hilgemann, for-
merly served as CEO at Americans for
Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group
backed by industrialists Charles Koch and
his deceased brother, David, that has spent
tens of millions of dollars on Republican
candidates.
Hunters and trappers killed at least 216
wolves of Wisconsin’s 1,100 wolves over
three days, nearly doubling the state’s target
of 119 animals and forcing an early shut-
down of the season.
Hilgemann participated, and said in that
he chased a wolf with dogs for 60 miles but
never caught it. It’s up to states to decide
what kind of tactics they use, he said, while
Hunter Nation will fi ght any attempt to halt
the hunts. He said group has quickly grown
to 20,000 members, but declined to divulge
its fi nancial supporters.
“Conservative, traditional American val-
ues of God, family and country — that’s
what we intend to focus on,” Hilgemann
said. “We need to get ahead of our preda-
tor populations including wolves. They will
quickly expand their range. They repro-
duce quickly, spelling trouble for other wild
game, livestock and pets.”
Adam Winkler, a University of Califor-
nia, Los Angeles Law professor specializ-
ing in gun policy, said the group’s messag-
ing appears aimed at mobilizing hunters to
get behind conservative causes.
“I’m not surprised we’re seeing hunting
groups wrap themselves in the mantle of
patriotism,” Winkler said. “Patriotism has
become the watchword of the right.”
Former federal wildlife agent Carter
Niemeyer, who killed wolves that preyed on
cattle in the Northern Rockies and was later
involved in restoration efforts, said wolves
are too resilient to be easily eradicated. But
he warned the tactics being used will alien-
ate large segments of the public to hunting
and trapping.
“They’re running them down with hound
dogs,” he said. “That’s wolf killing. That’s
not wolf trapping or wolf hunting.”
Associated Press writer John Flesher
contributed from Traverse City, Michigan.
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