U.S. states look to step up wolf kills, pushed by Republicans
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 tactics 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 species 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 President Donald Trump’s administration 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 administration would intervene to restore gray wolf protections. The group behind the suit has close links to Republican political circles including influential donors the Koch brothers 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 livestock and big game dates to early European settlement of the American West in the 1800s, and flared up again after wolf populations rebounded under federal protection. What’s emerging now is different: an increasingly politicized campaign to drive down wolf numbers sometimes using methods anathema to North American hunting traditions, according to former wildlife officials and advocates.
“It’s not a scientific approach to wildlife management. It’s management based on vengeance,” said Dan Vermillion, former chairman of Montana’s fish and wildlife commission.