Appeals Court Sides with Sportsmen, Wolf Hunt to Proceed

Press Release

Sportsmen and farmers notched another legal victory today when an appeals court rejected a desperate, last-ditch attempt by the Evers administration to subvert the state law authorizing a wolf hunting season. It was the second consecutive legal defeat in as many weeks for liberal special interest groups, and another win for those seeking local control over wildlife conservation and management.

"Today's ruling was a complete and total victory for sportsmen, farmers, families and the rule of law," said U.S. Rep Tom Tiffany (WI-07). "It is time for Governor Evers' Department of Natural Resources and the Kaul Justice Department to stop wasting time and money trying to undermine the legal right of Wisconsinites to hunt, fish and trap."

The court ruling is the latest in a string of recent high-profile victories for hunting advocates that began when sportsmen's rights group Hunter Nation filed a suit pushing the Department of Natural Resources to move forward with a wolf hunt in accordance with state statute. A Jefferson County Circuit Court agreed, and the state's Natural Resources Board led by Dr. Fred Prehn responded by unanimously authorizing the hunt and setting a harvest quota for 200 of the predators.

The developments come in the wake of a Trump administration rule removing the gray wolf from the list of threatened and endangered species in much of the lower 48 states after a significant rebound in the Wisconsin wolf population and an increasing number of attacks by the predators on livestock and pets.

"For too long, species conservation and management decisions have been driven by politics and Big City bureaucrats instead of science, and with little regard for the impacts those decisions have on the livelihoods of our communities," concluded Tiffany. "The Evers administration needs to follow the law, implement the decision of the Natural Resources Board, and stop trying to subject this legal wolf hunt to death by delay."

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