On November 3, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision to remove protection of wolves in the lower 48 states from the federal Endangered Species Act. Now the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is laying the groundwork for a barbaric wolf trophy hunting and trapping season as soon as the delisting rule goes into effect January 4, 2021.

Today, November 19, 2020, the Humane Society of the United States  sent a letter to Wisconsin’s Gov. Tony Evers, state lawmakers and Department of Natural Resources officials, stating that any attempt to begin a wolf hunt in early 2021 would be scientifically unsound and illegal. According to Wisconsin law, a wolf trophy hunting season can begin only in November: a decision the state reached in 2016 after a great deal of debate. Any attempt to open a hunt in January or February or, indeed, any time before November 2021 would therefore be against the state’s own law.

Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States just released this statement in her BLOG just posted:

“It would be unwise for Wisconsin, or any other state, to rush into announcing wolf hunts based on the federal delisting, which, by itself, is premature and was made not in the best interests of wolves but as a handout to special interest groups, including gun lobbies and trophy hunters. Scientists have warned that the delisting is sure to cause irreversible damage.

Wolf populations continue to be dangerously low all around the United States and these apex carnivores, so crucial to their ecosystems, now occupy only 15 percent of their historic range in this country. Wolves pose little to no risk to people, pets and farmed animals. Any fearmongering about the dangers posed by wolves is spread by those who want states to allow wolf hunting, and it was such fearmongering that led to their extirpation a century ago before they slowly began to make a return after they received federal protections in 1974.”

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