Founder's Blog

Howling For Wolves President Dr. Maureen Hackett featured in WCCO AM830 radio program - John Hines Show from MN State Fair on August 31, 2016. Dr. Hackett covered many issues related to survival of wolves, environment and latest developments from legislative perspective. Click on the image below to hear the interview.

A Star Tribune article published Feb 7, 2016 raises the possibility that wolves are somehow responsible for the decline of moose populations in Minnesota and that this might justify a wolf hunt, thereby excusing trophy killing.  Before this article is taken at face value, we need to look more carefully at the myriad claims, most of which are unsubstantiated.  The article itself provides the proof that this simple minded assumption of cause and effect is wrong.  The charts provided by the Star tribune show higher moose (and deer) populations at the same time the most wolves were counted in Minnesota.  If wolf and moose populations are inextricably linked, we should want more wolves, not fewer.  Perhaps the argument is the non sequitur that because wolves have been observed to feed on sick and dead moose, the removal of wolves would not make these sick individuals get better.   Moose are declining in places like New Hampshire where wolves are non-existent.   Moose are not dying off in Isle Royale where there are wolves (but no deer).

 The statement that wolves have maximized their range has no scientific basis: it is an assertion by Dr. Mech because he has seen wolves that are “skinny”, like the moose.  Moose could very well be suffering more deaths from illness because of warmer winters and hotter summers due to climate change combined with pervasive habitat destruction.  The survival of the parasite afflicting moose may also be enhanced by these warmer conditions year-round.  I suspect Dr. Mech has not researched this possibility, in spite of his blather targeting wolves for slaughter.

Could it be that Dr. Mech’s study wolves are also suffering from issues tied to a generally declining ecosystem?  Many scientists believe we are witnessing a mass extinction of wild animal populations due to human carelessness and greedy behavior.  Under these global circumstances, it is irresponsible to insinuate that killing wolves will keep moose from dying or other wolves from starving.  It is a razor thin (and baseless) judgment to claim it is better to kill wolves to hang on the wall rather than let nature take the chance that some will starve.  Wolf hunters do not select individual animals to shoot for the “worst or best” genes for survival, let alone to compensate for specific environmental problems.  I suspect no trophy hunter has ever massaged a wolf “feeling their every bone” to decide if it was the right wolf to kill, even if he had the time. That being the case, DNA analysis to decide which wolves to spare for the benefit of the species before pulling the trigger is pretty much ruled out.  Seems to me that mankind has never gotten it right, even when armed with the latest in technology.  To suggest that a trophy hunt is a measured or controlled way to preserve a species is pure hokum.

Wolves have NOT been shown to be the cause of declining moose populations, but trophy hunters will jump on any excuse to kill them.  Wolves have it hard enough and they too, will disappear when their food source is gone.  After three years of reckless wolf hunting, Minnesota wolf populations have been pushed down to levels last seen since 1988, never mind the moose question.  Lobbying for another year of trophy killing is irresponsible, dangerous and without a shred of justification, scientific or otherwise.
 

For many years it has been obvious to those of us advocating for measures to protect our diminishing natural resources that the very people assigned to perform these functions seem more inclined to be working against us. I can't recall how many times someone of our ilk has made the comment to me, "I thought the MNDNR was supposed to be protecting the environment, not working against it." This accusation can be also applied to the USFS and more so to county land managers. Of course, this is a general compliant - there are well intentioned people working within these resource agencies - wanting to do the right thing for the natural world. But overwhelmingly, the culture of forestry, wildlife, waters, and so forth are principally managed within market based logic - not what's right for the environment. Look at who three of our last four MNDNR Commissioners were; two politicians (Merriam & Holsten) with no natural resource background/training and one retired FBI agent (Allen Garber). Having been part of a number of committees and 'task forces,' I repeatedly hear DNR staff refer to snowmobiliers, ATVers, dirt bikers, mudder trucker, hunters, fishermen, trappers, etc., as their clientele and stake-holders. Rarely do I hear them refer to animal and plant communities as stake-holders. The plant and animal communities do not provide the legislative muscle and lobbying power that the special interest and consumptive stake-holders mentioned above have.

There was a time, perhaps 40 to 50 years ago when there was a balance in the DNR of politics and science.....maybe 50/50, but today, the sad reality is that politics and economics carry’s the day. A retired wildlife manager once asked me how you tell the difference between a forester and a farmer during a hotly contested question of inappropriately placed ATV trails involving 'forestry.' His answer was that a farmer wears striped overalls, a forester wears green overalls. The upshot was that both were more concerned about yield - bushels and board feet. I would add a third comparison: the wildlife manager - he wears camouflaged overalls - increasing game populations for harvesting, similar to harvesting corn and trees.

Even many environmental groups are suffering from this creeping fund raising malady along with their relationships with corrupt legislators - more concerned about money than doing what's right for the ecosystem. With this wolf issue heating up, few if any environmental groups are willing to stand up on the proposed wolf hunt.

The opinions of the International Wolf Center have been brought to my attention -  in the winter 2010 issue of the International Wolf Center Magazine - http://www.wolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/winter2010.pdf:

"Considerations for Developing Wolf Harvesting Regulations in the Contiguous United States" - authored by co-founder L. D. Mech raises some disturbing issues about where the International Wolf Center is on the wolf hunt.

You can read the two page article via the link provided (2010 winter issue) plus I have copied and pasted below some verbiage from the Mech article that I find upsetting, like hunting wolves from airplanes or ATV's, controlling wolf populations by killing pregnant females, and even tracking them via wolf radio collars. He even talks about killing wolves to increase game populations! Furthermore, the IWC is funded by donations from private citizens and the public. This point needs to be questioned and made public. I thought we turned this ugly page in our history.

Let me make one thing clear about this message; I am a hunter and have been for nearly 50 years but I find the culture around hunting to have been extremely transformed in the last 20 years. Ethics, responsibility, and conservation motivated thinking are more a rarity than common place. Our forests are under an invasion of motorized hunters; deer hunters who can't even get to their starter-castle tree stands on foot, they ride ATV's. Grouse hunters who hunt from ATVs. The majority of hunters should have the appropriate bumper sticker on their trucks that states; "he who dies with the most toys wins." That's what it's about now - money & consumption.

What adds a note of irony is the commonly held belief among most hunters that what makes deer hunting so attractive is that the whitetail deer is so elusive and challenging a quarry. The irony of it is that this elusiveness and wariness of the whitetail is the result of millions of years of being chased and tested by the wolf. For some of us, to hear a wolf or even see a wolf is far more rewarding than shooting a deer.

"Harvesting many wolves is not always easy, which is why
in regions where they were not extirpated but have long
been harvested, extraordinary methods have been used,
although not all are necessarily used now. Such methods
include aerial shooting (also currently employed for livestock
depredation control by Wildlife Services in the NRM),
tracking by snowmobile (Canada), and spotting from
aircraft and then landing to shoot wolves (i.e., land and
shoot) in Alaska. These approaches appear unfair to much of
the public who are unaware of the difficulties of taking
wolves and are bitterly opposed. Hunting wolves with fairchase
standards had never been tried in the contiguous 48
states until 2009. Such standards succeeded better than
some expected in Montana and worse than some expected in
Idaho. However, there is reason to believe that in most
extensive forested areas with low road density fair-chase
hunting deliberately for wolves will not be very productive
given the low density of packs and the crepuscular and
extensive travels of wolves. Chances are high that most
wolves taken by fair chase will be shot incidental to biggame
hunting, primarily because of many hunters afield
during those seasons."

"Because wolves were recently on the ESL, many still carry
radiocollars, and at least some states will continue to use
such collars to monitor their wolf population. States
currently prohibit hunters and trappers from using tracking
receivers for taking wolves because this technique would not
be considered fair chase. Use of snowmobiles, all-terrain
vehicles, and horseback to track down and shoot wolves
might be useful in more open areas for short periods before
wind obscures tracks in snow. Effectiveness of these
techniques and the regulations governing their use probably
will vary by state."

"A similar consideration that can be made toward the end
of any annual hunting or trapping season would be to end
the season before fetuses in gravid females are obvious. In
most northern states that would be by 1 March, which also
coincides with when wolf fur has lost its prime. Allowing
harvest through February, however, would assist with wolf
control by increasing chances that gravid [pregnant] wolves would be
taken."

"Whereas the above considerations focus primarily on
public perception of the humaneness of hunting, some of
the public will judge the success of wolf hunting by its ability
to decrease conflicts between wolves and ranching. Wolftaking
regulations should, therefore, attempt to focus wolf
harvest on areas where wolves kill the most livestock.
Reducing wolf density there could reduce conflict with
humans and the need for costly deliberate wolf control while
also gaining more public support. Similarly, where states
perceive the need to reduce wolves to increase wild prey,
concentrating public taking there could reduce the need for
deliberate control by state agencies, which tends to be
opposed by certain segments of the public."

In humility, I am a hunter:

I just finished reading the gruesome details of the Minnesota dentist who, through a guide service lured Cecil the lion, a favorite with tourists, out of a national park in Zimbabwe and shot him with a bow.

As disgusting and sickening as this is, I know what it will mean on the internet for the next week or so is a host of postings on what despicable beings hunters are and I for one, am sometimes at a loss as how to express my beliefs or justify them. As a hunter I cannot tell you that a majority or minority of hunters support or condemn this. I would like to think that the majority condemn it but I really can't say. What I can say is that I live as sustainable and environmentally correct life as I can. I have thought about vegetarianism but I am not ready for it. I do avoid corporate produced meat and restrict my diet of meat to that which I kill myself and local free ranged livestock.

I do think that sinful acts like the killing of Cecil polarizes us, hunters and non-hunters, in a way that plays into the enemies hands but who is the enemy? We do not always have a clear identification of who they are.

For years I have been talking about a “three legged stool” in regards to the culpability of recent wolf hunts among other conservation issues. I have been stating that the “legs” are state DNR's, legislators, and organized hunting groups (such as the Minnesota Deer Hunting Association/MDHA as in my state of Minnesota.) As this wolf issue has evolved since 2012 I have added Big Ag as a leg of the stool as cattleman’s associations have aggressively stepped forward in their demands of zero tolerance for wolves. All stools have a seat which is supported by the legs and seated and supported by these legs is the “Recreation/Industrial/Ag Complex.” I remind you of President Eisenhower's farewell “Military/Industrial Complex speech to Congress. The speech was originally titled the “Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex” but since Eisenhower was giving the speech to Congress, it was thought best to remove the word “Congressional.” In this speech he warned the public of a looming danger to America. I here warn American's of a different looming threat to our land , environment, and what's best about America and what's best about being an American; Rec/Ind/Ag Complex.

As management of our natural resources have become more market place driven and as hunting, fishing, motorized recreation and so forth have come to be seen by natural resource agencies as “clients” and “stakeholders” less attention or no attention is given to groups unless they are “clients.” And for the record, these state agency decisions, like wolf hunts, have nothing to do with majority opinion. This isn't just happening in Minnesota, it is happening nation wide. Large industries have sprung up where none existed before. Sporting goods catalogs now exist resembling old Sears and Roebuck catalogs where in some cases there are twenty or more pages of just camouflaged clothing. The majority of deer hunters ride ATV's every where they go and the woods on opening day of deer hunting sounds more like military maneuvers at Fort Ripley than the old days when one looked forward to the silence of a frosty morning is a tree stand. In a sense, much of this is the gentrification of hunting and fishing. You have to have a lot of money nowadays to hunt and fish....or keep up with the trends. This “complex” has transformed deer hunting more in the last 20 years than it has in the last 200 years.

I love to hunt, I am good at it, yet I respect and know what I am hunting which in my late years has been restricted to whitetail deer and ruffed grouse. The venison is important to our subsistence diet. I am not a trophy hunter but am not always sure where one draws the line that separates trophy hunting from subsistence hunting. I often shoot a mature buck and I save the antlers as they are a thing of admiration. Some would consider this trophy hunting, I would consider it highly disrespectful to throw deer horns away as I believe the spirit and essence of the animal is in those horns. Consider the caves of Lascaux in France. Those prehistoric hunters showed great affinity for those massive flowing antlers as aptly painted on the cave walls.

The upshot of this is that there is a sizable portion of hunters out there who find hunters like the dentist who killed Cecil the lion a disgrace to all hunters and many of these see killing apex predators as simply wrong. I personally know of deer hunters who would give anything to hunt deer in the northwoods and hear wolves howl. I have heard hunters tell of the experience of seeing a wolf while hunting deer and describe the experience as one of the greatest they've ever had while afield. I also know of other hunters who espouse the ideals of “fair chase” and believe that ethics is as essential to hunting as actual success in the field. As Leopold said, when alone afield, only you are the judge of yourself...no one else.  The nationally well known hunter/writer David Peterson stated that it's wrong to kill a grizzly or wolf. The widely read bow hunting author Texan Jim Hamm told of his experience bow hunting deer in the Leech Lake region of northern Minnesota and having the thrill of hearing wolves while in the woods, something he wrote that his fellow Texans would most likely never experience. And then there are men like Aldo Leopold who were equally as much hunters and they were conservationists who were some of the first American's to speak and write publicly for the preservation of wolves and bears.

It is time for more hunters to come forward and speak out against heinous acts such as happened recently in Africa and it's time that ethical hunters, non-hunters, and animal rights advocates to put aside our differences and work together for the common goal of honoring our relatives who we share in the travails of life on earth; the wolf and the bear. We must not let them keep us divided. As a hunter, I am as offended by this barbaric act of senselessness and am ashamed to be categorized with this behavior.