Divisions Over Wolves Shape Wisconsin's New Management Plan

Frederica Freyberg:
Lower than usual deer hunt totals for 2023 were released by the DNR this week, continuing a trend of declining harvest since the year 2000. Over that same time, wolves have seen their population triple. How much impact does the apex predator have on the north woods deer population and why are Wisconsinites so passionate about the animal? “Here & Now” reporter Nathan Denzin explains.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
I’m here today to talk about my brother, and my brother is the Ma’iingan.

Brad Olson:
The more you put wolves in close contact and proximity with people, just the greater the chances are of something truly catastrophic happening.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
I think wolves should be allowed to reestablish their historic range.

Keith Mark:
They’re going to allow an unchecked, unmanaged wolf population to continue to wreak havoc.

Nathan Denzin:
Bring up wolves to a Wisconsinite and you’ll likely get a passionate response.

Sam Jonas:
It’s probably been the longest, most intense public engagement process that I’ve been a part of.

Nathan Denzin:
Sam Jonas is the wildlife species section supervisor with the Wisconsin DNR. He helped write Wisconsin’s newest wolf management plan which was released in late 2023.

Sam Jonas:
It strives for a sustainable and healthy wolf population in the state of Wisconsin.

Nathan Denzin:
Gray wolves are federally protected as an endangered species, but if that designation was ever lifted, Wisconsin would be required by law to hold a wolf hunt like it did in 2021. The DNR received over 3,500 public comments while developing the plan with a group of 29 stakeholders. One of those stakeholders, the Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe in northern Wisconsin.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
The Ma’iingan goes back in our history and our stories, our existence. Who we are as Anishinaabe.

Nathan Denzin:
Shingbinase or Marvin Defoe is a spiritual leader in Red Cliff. In Ojibwe, Ma’iingan means wolf.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
We know the Ma’iingan as our brother.

Nathan Denzin:
He says that the relationship between wolves and Ojibwe people goes back over thousands of years.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
There’s a lot of misconceptions out there about the Ma’iingan, a loving being that has a heart, that has a soul.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
Wolves are really important to native people of Wisconsin because it’s said that what happens to one of us will happen to the other.

Nathan Denzin:
Ron Nordin, Jr. is the wildlife technician for the Red Cliff tribe.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
It’s the tribe’s objective to protect wolves and their keystone species. They create biodiversity. They’re excellent for the habitat. We’re seeing better forest regeneration.

Genevieve Adamski:
They have a great role to play. Not just with deer but with lots and lots of other animals out in the woods.

Nathan Denzin:
Genevieve Adamski works with Nordin Jr. as the wildlife specialist for the Red Cliff Tribe.

Genevieve Adamski:
Wolves will, in general, regulate themselves. They have pack boundaries. They can’t just exponentially grow.

Nathan Denzin:
The wolf population in Wisconsin has grown but not exponentially. They numbered about 250 in 2001 and are roughly 1,000 today. That growth has caused plenty of conflict.

Brad Olson:
Has become a real issue for agriculture, and especially of course livestock agriculture.

Nathan Denzin:
Brad Olson is the president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau. It was also involved in the 2023 management plan. Olson says wolves are a big concern for farmers in the northern half of the state.

Brad Olson:
One case in central Wisconsin, they came in in a night and wiped out the entire herd of sheep. That’s years and years of work by that individual farmer. The emotional stress of something like that, you know, losing everything in one night due to a predator.

Nathan Denzin:
The Wisconsin DNR paid out over $100,000 to farmers for livestock killed by wolves in 2022 but Olson says it’s about more than money.

Brad Olson:
It isn’t a financial loss at that point; it’s an emotional loss at that point and it’s something that, I’m sorry, money just can’t fix.

Nathan Denzin:
Olson says he and his organization aren’t opposed to having wolves in the state.

Brad Olson:
I don’t think anybody is out to get rid of the wolves.

Nathan Denzin:
But thinks the 2023 management plan has flaws.

Brad Olson:
I mean, it’s a bad plan.

Nathan Denzin:
The Farm Bureau sent a letter to the DNR opposing the new plan back in October. A key point of contention is the number of wolves recommended for a healthy habitat. The old guidelines recommended a population of 350 wolves for the whole state before other management practices, like a hunt, were implemented. Now there is no specific number named before those management plans would be considered.

Brad Olson:
Once you get past that 350 goal that was back in the late ’90s and the original wolf plan that had scientific data to it, this plan really has no scientific data. It’s a feel-good plan.

Nathan Denzin:
But the DNR’s Jonas says that number was misunderstood and needed to be updated.

Sam Jonas:
It was never intended to be a cap, per se. It was really a management objective or number to consider other management tools.

Nathan Denzin:
He says the new guidance doesn’t use a statewide number of wolves because it wants to be more responsive to local communities.

Sam Jonas:
We’re also going to be balancing that with what is depredation look like, what do conflicts look like within each zone, what is the community saying for the wolf population where they live.

Genevieve Adamski:
Let’s say we do set a goal number. That’s going to change from year to year based on, you know, not only climate data but people, where the people are distributed and just all these different factors.

Nathan Denzin:
Not everyone sees it that way.

Keith Mark:
If you look at deer harvest over the years compared to wolf populations over the years, it is — there is a direct correlation between the two.

Nathan Denzin:
Keith Mark is the president of Hunter Nation, a national organization for hunters. Hunter Nation did not participate in the 2023 management plan, though multiple in-state hunting organizations did. Hunter Nation sued the state of Wisconsin in 2021 to schedule a wolf hunt while gray wolves were briefly delisted.

Keith Mark:
Surely, they want to see a sustainable population of deer.

Nathan Denzin:
Yearly deer hunt harvests have fallen since its peak in 2000 from well over half a million to about 350,000 a year ago. Northern counties, like Bayfield, have seen a particularly sharp decline. Hunt totals in 2022 were only a fraction of what they were two decades ago.

Keith Mark:
You’re going to end up with so few deer that there won’t be a hunting season.

Brad Olson:
In my part of the state, you can sit out there for hours on end on opening day of deer season and not hear anything, not hear a shot.

Nathan Denzin:
But others aren’t as sure wolves are solely to blame for the north woods declining deer population.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
If you were around here last winter, 157 inches of snow, you know, it’s going to kill the deer.

Genevieve Adamski:
When there’s less deer, what are the wolves going to eat?

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
It’s really the deer population that regulates the wolf population.

Nathan Denzin:
DNR records show the past five years of deer harvest in Bayfield County have been larger than harvest between 1967 and 1978. That was before the first reintroduced wolfpack wandered into Douglas County. If the gray wolf ever was taken off of the endangered list, the 2023 management plan lays out a system for experts to decide local harvest goals.

Sam Jonas:
We want to be able to incorporate local input, local feedback as to how they feel. You know, wolf populations are in their community, what is the science saying, but that’s not the only thing we’re going to be looking at and that’s going to help us be flexible and adaptable to what wolves are telling us.

Nathan Denzin:
In the meantime, everyone agrees there is common ground to be found.

Ron Nordin, Jr.:
We need to work together. We need to be vigilant and sit down and listen to each other.

Brad Olson:
They are a majestic animal. No one is advocating for their demise again.

Shingbinase, Marvin Defoe:
We really have to come together and have a really meaningful conversation. A mutual, respectful conversation of what’s going on with this earth.

Nathan Denzin:
For “Here & Now,” I’m Nathan Denzin in Red Cliff.