On the hunt for Michigan wolf population solutions Senate committee weighs state wolf hunting season
Oct 18, 2012 Lansing State Journal
Less than one year after Michigan’s gray wolves were removed from the federal endangered species list, a new fight is emerging over whether the animals should now be hunted or returned to protected status.
The Senate natural resources committee met Wednesday on a proposal to designate wolves as a game species — meaning they could be hunted.
Wolves were taken off the federal endangered list in January after four decades as a protected animal. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources estimates there are roughly 700 wolves in the state today, up from just six in 1973. The vast majority are in the western part of the Upper Peninsula.
Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, said he hopes to get a bill passed this year that would allow the state’s Natural Resources Commission to create a traditional hunting season or a regional harvest of wolves as soon as next year. He’s working with a fellow Upper Peninsula lawmaker, Rep. Matt Huuki, R-Atlantic Mine, who introduced a wolf hunting bill in August.
Both lawmakers say a hunt can’t happen too quickly for people in their districts who have suffered from the rising number of wolves.
“In the farming community, they’re losing their livestock, their livelihoods,” said Casperson, who chairs the Senate natural resources committee. “There is no response quick enough to help them out. They feel like their hands are tied. They’re being told how precious the wolf is, but they think their livestock is precious.”
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