MADISON, Wis. (CN) — Animal rights advocacy groups sued the state of Wisconsin on Tuesday to stop a gray wolf hunting and trapping season planned to start this fall and void a state law mandating a wolf hunt in the first place.
The Great Lakes Wildlife Project, Project Coyote, Animal Wellness Action and the Center for Humane Economy’s 52-page petition condemned the recklessness of allowing for a fall wolf hunt at all, especially given a controversial February hunt that exceeded its kill quota by 99 wolves and generated unflattering national headlines, and argued plans for this fall's hunt violate the Wisconsin Constitution.
The lawsuit names as defendants the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, DNR Secretary Preston Cole, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board—a seven-member agency filled via governor appointment and state Senate approval that sets policy for the DNR—and the agency’s current chairman, Frederick Prehn.
The groups' lawsuit demands that a Dane County Circuit Court judge cancel this fall's wolf hunt, throw out the state law that allows for it and enjoin the DNR from issuing any licenses for the fall hunt.
The Natural Resources Board, or NRB, gave the greenlight earlier this month to a wolf hunt slated for November and set the kill quota at 300 wolves, a controversial decision that more than doubled the recommended 130-wolf quota proposed by the DNR and outraged those in favor of protecting the wolves.
The NRB’s members spent hours deliberating over the quota for the November hunt at the Aug. 11 meeting, which turned tense as some members entertained citizen activists’ proposals to set the quota at zero and effectively cancel the hunt, while others wanted a quota even higher than 300. The animal rights groups’ petition called that meeting “a parody of reasoned deliberation” that arrived at a “politically contrived conclusion.”
Perhaps the biggest issue weighing against November’s wolf hunt for the advocacy groups is the nature and aftermath of a rushed hunt held last February, during which at least 218 wolves were killed by hunters and trappers in just over 60 hours, blowing past the quota for state hunters set at 119.
A 2011 Wisconsin law—which the wildlife groups want tossed—mandates a gray wolf hunting and trapping season if the animal is not on the federal endangered species list. The NRB was going to hold off on a 2021 hunt after former President Donald Trump's administration removed the gray wolf from the endangered species list in late 2020, but a legal organization that boosts conservative causes sued the state on behalf of Kansas-based pro-hunting outfit Hunter Nation and ultimately forced officials to schedule a hunt by the end of February with less than two weeks to plan.
The animal rights groups referred to that hunt in their petition as “carnage” and “a massacre” which reduced Wisconsin’s gray wolf population by at least 30%, also pointing out that “since it took place during breeding season, the February 2021 hunt season also had a devastating impact on wolf population growth and reproduction.”
The groups’ petition said the 2011 law violates the Wisconsin Constitution by not allowing the DNR to do its job to protect natural resources and manage the state’s wolf population.
DNR statistics ahead of February’s hunt estimated roughly 1,195 gray wolves and about 256 total packs in the state. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment on the animal rights groups’ lawsuit on Monday.
Aside from expressing outrage at holding an unprecedented, unsustainable second hunting season in a single calendar year with a quota that flies in the face of DNR scientists’ recommendations and disregards the health of the wolves’ ecosystem, the wildlife advocates’ filing takes direct aim at Prehn, who has become a flashpoint of partisan acrimony in his role with the NRB this year.
Prehn’s tenure as chair of the NRB technically ended in May after being appointed by former Governor Scott Walker, a Republican, in 2015. He refuses to vacate his seat, however, citing state statutes that say he can remain in his position until an appointee to replace him is officially confirmed by the Wisconsin Senate. Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, appointed Prehn’s replacement, Sandra Dee Naas, earlier this year, but the Republican-controlled Senate has not scheduled her confirmation hearing.
Monday’s lawsuit charges Prehn—who has listed the wolf hunt as a priority keeping him on the NRB and pushed hard for the 300-wolf quota for November—with “squatting in an expired board seat after refusing to relinquish it to his duly appointed successor” for political reasons. Attorney General Josh Kaul brought a petition in Dane County Circuit Court on Aug. 17 to unseat Prehn through the courts, and Hunter Nation and the Wisconsin Legislature have moved to intervene in that lawsuit.
The coalition of wildlife advocates argued in their petition that even if the NRB did have the authority to set the quota for the November wolf hunt, the quota decision is invalid because it was guided by someone who is not even legally a member of the NRB. The fall wolf hunt quota should be nixed in any case because it was “irrational, capricious and devoid of a reasonable supporting factual basis” in violation of state law, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys with Berkley-based Greenfire Law and Seattle-based Animal & Earth Advocates, as well as Joseph Goode with the Milwaukee office of Laffey, Leitner & Goode.
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