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Category: Wildlife

Wolf plan sure to stir controversy

Remember the mourning dove?

You know, the drab little bird with the tasty breasts that we can't hunt in Michigan?

Even though the vast majority of them fly to Ohio and Indiana to get shot at?

And they reproduce so furiously that they cheerfully withstand 70-percent mortality rates and come back strong year after year?

And never mind that the Humane Society of the United States, the world's most fervent anti-hunting group, bamboozled Michigan voters into ignoring the science about doves with a misinformation campaign loaded with hogwash about people shooting birds too small to eat (ever try a shrimp?) off their backyard feeders.

Because you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Next month the Natural Resources Commission is expected to approve the draft of the DNR's wolf management plan, in anticipation of wolves coming off the state's endangered species list later this summer.

Some 500 wolves roam the U.P. these days, up from roughly none as recently as the 1980s. In my view it's a remarkable comeback story about an opportunistic predator exploiting a huge, available ecosystem. Very cool.

But now they need to be managed. The plan is heavily focused on understanding wolves and maintaining the wolf population while minimizing conflict with humans and livestock. Most everyone involved agrees with that strategy.

But one section of the plan will raise a furor that could make the mourning dove argument look like an afternoon tea:

"Develop and Implement a Socially and Biologically Responsible Policy Regarding Public Harvest of Wolves."

Under the management plan, wolves will likely be killed. But it distinguishes between harvesting wolves to reduce conflict and harvesting wolves for other reasons, which essentially means "for fun and profit."

And here, at long last, is my point. The folks who dumped millions of dollars into keeping the ho-hum mourning dove off the list of game species will certainly back up the Brinks truck to prevent killing large, charismatic predators like the gray wolf.

The state has not indicated that there will be recreational wolf hunting any time soon. But those who oppose hunting will not draw any distinction between recreational hunting and wolf management.

To them killing animals is bad, period. Science is to be ignored. Ecosystems come in second-to-last place, ahead of only impact on humans. Balance? Pff. And no argument is too shrill, too venomous or too devoid of truth to make their case.

Brace yourself. It's going to get loud.