By Melissa Smith

We environmentalists are not very well-liked in Wisconsin. Trophy hunters and trappers despise us. The Democrats don’t like us. The Republicans loathe us. The DNR, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service consider us a litigious pain in the butt. Only the lawyers and the vast majority of Americans like us — and the wildlife love us dearly. It is overwhelming to think about what happens to wildlife in our environment and that they are disappearing, perhaps, faster than we can act. 

There’s a running list of dirty names the “other side” has branded us with: greenies, tree huggers, conservationists, naturalists, enviros, antis, etc., and we are harassed, ostracized, criticized, scorned, shunned and generally denied many accesses to government decisions in the state of Wisconsin. Last month, my black lab was intentionally poisoned and died. Valid reasons for such treatment of humans or animals with forever escape me.

I probably don’t have to say that wolves, bears and mountain lions have an irreplaceable and complex role in our world. What is distressing to me, is that these species are all quickly losing ground, and when they finally receive the step up they deserve from us, the fringe groups are just waiting for the next opportunity to push them back to the brink of extinction. 

Wisconsin wildlife has adapted to us as best they can. They’ve been forced to close the distance from humans in order to survive. Large territories have been eliminated from nearly 90% of their historic ranges. Yet, they keep hanging in there, in a very small marginalized habitat. We are seeing the effects of first order inbreeding, habitat destruction, roadkills, poaching and poisoning.

Unfortunately, for the past three years, trophy hunting has taken the largest toll on the populations of our wolves, mountain lions, bison and bears. I am here as an advocate who is concerned about the raping of our wildlife and the impending repercussions to come in Wisconsin and across the world.

Wolves and other large carnivores are just like us. They have many different needs and we cannot continue forcing them into fragmented habitats — the last remaining pieces of wilderness in Wisconsin — and expect them to conform and thrive. Wolves need space, clean water, abundant wild food sources, and to be free of human threat and harassment. 

This fact requires a multi-faceted approach that comes from different angles. What’s most important, is having different environmental groups working simultaneously on the same issues from those varies perspectives, so we have partners in this fight to keep areas free from development, trophy hunting and human-caused environmental degradation such as fracking or mining. 

We need partners like the wildlife rehabilitators, who have now seen a 75% increase of wildlife coming in needing treatment and care due to malicious human interaction. We need ethical hunting partners that help enforce poaching, humane and environmental laws.

As long as money is involved, greed takes precedence over science, democracy, native rights and the public trust. There are a lot of people and powerful organizations who believe that animals are put on this planet to be killed for a trophy or because they get in the way of stockholder profits. I know lots of ‘hook and bullet’ folks absolutely agree, but they also believe any collaboration with us will somehow end all hunting…when in fact, much of our member base is comprised of ethical, sustenance hunters! 

I often ask hunters, do deer have the right to live in Wisconsin at healthy sustainable populations? Do you try your best to minimize suffering with your kill shot? Do you enjoy watching wildlife at state parks, trails, gun ranges and public lands? Do you care about cruelty to your dog? If you step on his paw, do you say “oh sorry buddy”? Do you believe in democracy and that the government should work for us?

That’s us. Congratulations on being an anti! 

The government cares about protecting corporations. However, Congress works for the people and with that being said, they need to keeping hearing from us. Local officials in any arena can dedicate time to wildlife policy. We have to take what we have in common with normal citizens and stop bending to “both sides” because that dichotomy doesn’t actually exist. There are however, powerful lobbies with screaming vocal minorities and their anti-science agendas. 

In my mind, taking from wildlife at the current rate is a crime. I am not sure the forces against us can be defeated, but if survival of the planet matters, than they must.

These forces against us represent business capitalism without conscience, the economy before ecology, jobs at any cost, anti-animal rights and extremist animal rights, game farms, mismanaged forests favoring only game species, extreme trophy hunting and trapping and noise polluting ATVs. They consist of oil pipelines risking powerful explosions and toxic contamination to bodies of water from train derailments, and conversion of America’s public lands stewardship to Wisconsin’s controlled lands for future sale to private wealthy investors, forcing us all to breathe dirty air and drink polluted water.

That represents a lot of people, who first and foremost crave money over anything else. What they fail to realize, is that the earth is the one and only life support system we have and when it is gone….so are we. Do they actually even care?

I have to believe we are moving in the right direction because the opposite of that is resignation. Here’s the good news. We have the ability right now to influence policy to reflect the way we relate to wildlife by coming together and having an open and honest discussion. We are here because we are anxious to learn, to increase our awareness and to express our values.

I’m happy to say there are so many more people who care, want to help and speak out than when I first started my crusade to stop the trophy hunt of Wisconsin wolves. Those people are helping to spread the message that our relationship with wolves and other wildlife is the same relationship we have to ourselves and the world. How we treat wildlife is a barometer of our humanity. By promoting respect for all animals, that bleeds into protecting Endangered Species.

The wolf holds sacred meaning to a lot of people, and that has to be respected. The wolf gives me hope that if we can save them, we might just be able to fight the other threats against our environment. The wolf isn’t just another species of wildlife. The wolf is a symbol of working together to fight for a better world.