Fighting Wisconsin's War on Wolves

media release: Wolf Patrol, a volunteer group who for the last seven years has monitored conflicts between Wisconsin hound hunters and wolves on national forest lands, will host an event at the Goodman Center in Madison on June 13, 2021 to discuss plans to monitor the November wolf hunt now being planned.

After creating controversy by following and filming wolf and bear hunters who attract their prey with unlimited bear baiting, Wisconsin passed a law in 2016 limiting the rights of non-hunters who document hunting activities on public lands. To date, not a single Wolf Patrol member has been charged with violating any laws. 

Wolf Patrol members were in Forest County during the February 2021 wolf hunt, monitoring both hound hunters and trappers in pursuit of wolves on Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest lands. The Goodman Center event will feature a 35-minute video report from the hunt. During the wolf hunt, Wolf Patrol reported both hound hunters and trappers to Wisconsin DNR law enforcement for violating wolf hunting regulations.

In one instance, Tyler Belott, a hound hunter who lost hunting privileges for three years for illegally killing a black bear in 2019, was reported to WDNR for participating in multiple hound hunts for wolves in Langlade County, Wisconsin.

In another reported violation, Wolf Patrol alerted authorities to the use of livestock carcasses to attract wolves by licensed trappers on national forest lands. Both reported violations resulted in investigations that determined both men were in violation of Wisconsin’s 2021 Wolf Hunting Regulations.

Wolf Patrol’s crew will be on hand at the Goodman Center event to demonstrate techniques for releasing non-target animals from traps, investigating noncompliant bear baits on public lands, and other “citizen monitoring” techniques to document controversial hunting practices in Wisconsin.