November 26, 2018 at 4:26 p.m.
House passes Duffy's bill to de-list gray wolves
Tiffany calls on Senate to take action
House passes Duffy's bill to de-list gray wolves
The bi-partisan vote was 196-180. It heads to the U.S. Senate where prospects for passage are not considered good, though this week state Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) called on senators to take action before the end of the year.
The state's wolf population has rebounded and, speaking in favor of his bill on the House floor, Duffy said it was important that states be able to manage those populations.
"Frankly, I believe that our states are far more in tune in understanding the ecosystem of their state than bureaucrats in Washington," Duffy said. "So I would far rather empower Wisconsin and my good friend, (Democratic U.S. Rep.) Collin Peterson from Minnesota. Let Minnesota manage the populations because they understand that ecosystem better. I would encourage all of my colleagues to join Barack Obama, and join Donald Trump, and join a few members of Congress from Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and Washington and senators as well, to allow us to successfully manage our gray wolf population, which allows for a healthier ecosystem."
Duffy pointed out it was the Obama administration that de-listed the wolves in the first place, before a federal judge returned the species to the endangered species list in 2014.
"We're coming to hunting season in Wisconsin right now, so a lot of us Wisconsinites put on their blaze orange and get their guns and go out to the woods and hunt deer," he said last week. "I have never seen a picture of Barack Obama in blaze orange and his rifle to go out and hunt deer. Not a great outdoorsman, I don't think. But Barack Obama's administration was the one to first to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list. And Donald Trump, too, agrees. Donald Trump and Barack Obama agree on an issue? They do on gray wolves."
Duffy said people who live in cities simply don't understand what a problem the protected status of wolves has become.
"And so if you live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., it's not a problem," he said. "If you live in Madison, Wisconsin, it's not really a problem. You can make the argument that, the pretty little puppy of the wolf, it's so pretty and beautiful and we have to protect it."
And protect it we did, Duffy continued.
"We put it on the endangered species list," he said. "Unlike a lot of government programs, this one worked. And we have protected them and allowed them to recover. We have three times as many gray wolf as was projected to be necessary to take them off the endangered species list."
Duffy said state management of wolves would be a win-win all the way around.
"If you live in Wisconsin, especially northern Wisconsin, it might be necessary for us to actually manage this population because it's good for the environment," he said. "It's good for the wolves. It's good for the cattle. It's actually really good for our deer population. And so I just think this makes common sense."
In an interview with The Lakeland Times just before the mid-term election, Duffy acknowledged he has had a hard time getting a bill passed in the Republican-controlled House, for various reasons, but he said he was going to demand action after the election.
Apparently he did.
"I have gone round and round, and I am to the point where I am so angry about what's happened to the wolf bill," Duffy told The Times. "And again, the Obama administration was the one that delisted the wolves, so it's not some radical righties that did it. It was their administration."
Duffy said he would put his foot down on getting the legislation passed.
"So we have some must-pass bills, and just the internal politics of Republicans right now, I've made it clear to those in our leadership that if they want me on bills they're going to need me for, I'm not doing it without the wolves bill," he told The Times. "There's still time to get it done this year but it has been one of the most frustrating bills I have tried to manage, when it shouldn't be that controversial, especially with a Republican House."
Tiffany urges Senate action
In a statement after the vote, Tiffany and a Republican Michigan state senator, Tom Casperson, called jointly for the Senate to take up the bill, and for Midwestern senators to take the lead in making sure it gets passed.
"Now is the time for the Great Lakes senators to show voters in their states they have some clout in Washington," Tiffany and Casperson said. "Sens. (Tammy) Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), (Amy) Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), and (Debbie) Stabenow (D-Michigan), it is now your turn to produce results for your constituents."
Tiffany and Casperson said the science was clear-cut on the issue of de-listing.
"Twenty-six scientists with expertise in the field of wildlife biology signed a letter a few years ago urging the wolf be delisted," the lawmakers said. "The Fish and Wildlife Service under President Obama delisted the gray wolf in 2011. By every measurement the gray wolf has successfully recovered."
If the gray wolf continues to be protected under the Endangered Species Act, will the Act itself become endangered? Tiffany and Casperson asked.
"Sportsmen across the country rely on sound science to buttress ESA decisions," the lawmakers wrote. "If the ESA is simply a political tool used by the well-connected to deny sound science, will it jeopardize the ESA?"
The lawmakers said they understood that some interest groups were urging the Midwestern senators to quietly let the bill die.
"However, you have made a commitment to support delisting," they wrote. "All of you received substantial numbers of votes from rural constituents. It is time to prove you have clout in Washington D.C. and force a vote on this bipartisan issue. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) successfully achieved delisting in Montana by demanding a vote for his state. You should do the same."
Tiffany and Casperson urged sportsmen to call, email, and visit their senators to demand action.
Environmentalists opposed
The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups criticized the House bill to delist the wolf.
The group pointed out that the bill would not only end Endangered Species Act protection for wolves, except Mexican wolves in the Southwest, but would also prohibit review of the legislation by the courts.
"This final, pathetic stab at wolves exemplifies House Republicans' longstanding cruelty and contempt for our nation's wildlife," said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The American people overwhelmingly support the Endangered Species Act and the magnificent animals and plants it protects. We don't expect to see these disgraceful anti-wildlife votes next year under Democratic control of the House."
During the 115th Congress, Hartl said, Republicans launched more than 115 attacks on the Endangered Species Act and, since Republicans retook the U.S. House of Representatives in 2011, have introduced more than 350 attacks against the Act. That, Hartl asserted, even though a 2015 poll showed nine out of 10 Americans wanted the Act strengthened or left unchanged.
And while relentless political pressure by Republican members of Congress have compelled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to repeatedly try to remove protections for gray wolves, Hartl said, nine separate cases in federal courts uniformly found that those efforts failed to follow the law or the best available science.
During the time when the service illegally lifted federal protection in the western Great Lakes, approximately 1,500 gray wolves were wrongly killed, Hartl alleged.
However, Duffy says there's a greater danger to leaving the protections for the wolves in place.
"We should be able to manage our wolf population," he told The Times before the election. "We have farmers who are losing livestock and people who are losing their pets. I don't think it's going to be long until we lose a child. This is dangerous stuff, and if you live in Chicago or Madison you don't get it."
Management of the gray wolves was transferred from the state to the federal level following two 2014 U.S. District Court decisions that reinstated gray wolves under the protections of the Endangered Species Act.
Duffy's bill provides for removal of the gray wolf in the contiguous 48 states from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife published under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. According to the DNR, the state's wolf population has grown significantly and steadily since 1980 - except for a sharp fall off to 660 in 2014, after several years of state management.
There were 905 wolves estimated in the state in the winter of 2018, compared to just 25 in the winter of 1980. The population began to expand rapidly after 1996, the last year the population was under 100.
The DNR set a goal of about 350 -375 total population in 1999, but others say that was too low and assert the number should be between 600 and 800. The current population exceeds both targets significantly.
Richard Moore is the author of the forthcoming "Storyfinding: From the Journey to the Story" and can be reached at richardmoorebooks.com.
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