While there has been considerable debate about the status of the wolf population in Wisconsin, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin says the matter is stuck in Congress.
Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson has authored a bill in the Senate and a bill has been written in the House of Representatives that would take the gray wolf off the endangered species list..The bills would force the Fish and Wildlife Service to turn the matter over to the states.
Democrat Baldwin last year came out in favor of de-listing the wolf and allowing state management.
In Rhinelander recently, Baldwin says not much is happening with the bill in the Senate. She says the bill only affects a relatively few states that have wolves so the idea is to put it as part of a larger bill...
"....it's been put into a compilation in the hopes that it can attract Senators and members of Congress that represent states that don't have any wolves. By combining a bunch of issues of interest to conservation-minded constituents as well as sportsmen we can make some progress on an assortment of issues that have big impacts in certain regions of the country or in some cases, everywhere in the country, and get some momentum...."
In 2011 the gray wolf was de-listed in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan and parts of six other Midwestern states. Officials argued the populations had grown and that disease and humans did not pose a threat to the wolves.
The Humane Society of the United States sued over the decision, and in 2014 a federal district court ruled against the de-listing effort, putting the wolves back on the endangered species list.
