MADISON, Wis. — Animal welfare advocates filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to invalidate Wisconsin’s new wolf management plan, accusing state wildlife officials of violating the state’s open meetings law and ignoring comments from wolf researchers and supporters.
The lawsuit reflects how contentious the debate over wolf management in Wisconsin has become. Farmers in northern Wisconsin have complained for years that the population is multiplying too quickly and preying on their livestock. Hunters claim wolves are devastating the deer population in the northern part of the state. Conservationists believe wolves have not yet become firmly established in Wisconsin and need protection.
The Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance, also known as Friends of the Wisconsin Wolf and Wildlife, filed the latest lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court. The organization describes itself as a group of hunters, ranchers, politicians, business owners and statewide animal welfare advocates who support science-based conservation.
The lawsuit alleges that members of the Department of Natural Resources policy council collected comments on the plan from interest groups they favored even after the public comment period ended in February.
Board members attended private conversations in February, April and July hosted by the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, the Wisconsin Association of Sporting Dogs and Wisconsin Wolf Facts, the lawsuit alleges. According to the lawsuit, members of the Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance were not allowed at the April and July meetings. The filing does not indicate whether members have been excluded from the February meeting.
The lawsuit alleges that even though a quorum of board members did not attend any of the meetings, enough participated to influence changes to the plan. Adam Payne, the department secretary at the time, announced that revisions were coming following February’s talks with the organizations in favor of further reducing the wolf population. According to the lawsuit, that all amounts to violating open meeting statutes.
The filing goes on to allege that DNR officials gave little weight to scientific studies questioning the accuracy of the department’s wolf population counts, and comments warning that hunting and trapping wolves will not reduce conflict with people. They also failed to appreciate the dangers of overhunting wolves, the lawsuit alleges, and allowed opinions and unverified stories of wolf aggression against hunters to influence the plan. The lawsuit does not cite specific examples to support these claims.
DNR spokesperson Molly Meister, when reached by email Wednesday afternoon, said she could not comment on pending litigation.
The Department of Natural Resources adopted a wolf management plan in 1999 that called for limiting the population to 350 wolves. However, the latest DNR estimates indicate that the population is currently around 1,000.
Republican lawmakers passed a law in 2012 requiring the DNR to hold an annual wolf hunting season. Hunters and farmers have cited the 350 wolf limit as justification for setting high hunting quotas, angering animal rights activists.
Last year, a federal judge placed gray wolves in the lower 48 states back on the endangered species list, making hunting illegal and limiting ranchers to non-lethal control methods such as fencing livestock or using guard dogs. The DNR has been working on an updated wolf management plan in case wolves are delisted and hunting can resume.
The department’s board last month finally approved a plan that recommends keeping the statewide population at about 1,000 wolves but does not set a hard limit. Instead, it recommends that the population grow or decrease at certain numerical thresholds.
DNR officials called it a flexible compromise, but ranchers and hunters have criticized the lack of a hard population limit. Republican lawmakers are advancing a bill that would force the DNR to include a specific number in the plan.