Wildlife Under Siege
Yesterday’s Wolf Hearing: They’re Not Stopping
Wisconsin Republicans held another public hearing yesterday on their bill to force the DNR to set a hard population cap on wolves. Sen. Rob Stafsholt and Rep. Chanz Green aren’t hiding their intentions: reduce wolf populations in northern Wisconsin.
The DNR’s own large carnivore specialist, Randy Johnson, testified that managing wolves biologically is straightforward—it’s the social and political pressures that complicate everything. Translation: the science doesn’t support what they’re demanding, but politics doesn’t care about science.
This is the state-level infrastructure being built for the moment federal protections fall. Wisconsin law mandates annual wolf hunts whenever wolves aren’t federally protected. They’re setting population targets that guarantee those hunts will resume.
This Is What We Accomplish When Funded
Our team delivering petitions to the Department of the Interior
Last night I was on the Voices Carry For Animals Podcast talking about wildlife agency reform, systematic corruption in Wisconsin’s DNR, and the work we’ve been doing to fight back against the hunting lobby’s stranglehold on wildlife policy.
This is strategic communications in action—reaching audiences who care, building coalitions, educating people about what’s really happening in state wildlife management.
But I do this work on fumes. We operate on minimal resources while facing hunting lobby dark money, multiple legislative battles, federal court litigation, and constant agency manipulation. When we have resources, we file lawsuits, submit expert testimony, coordinate advocacy campaigns, and get our message out.
When we don’t have resources, I’m choosing between legal filings and keeping the lights on.
It’s Minus 40 Tonight
Actual temperature: minus 17°F. Wind chill: minus 40°F. Wild animals are remarkably resilient—they’ve survived Wisconsin winters for millennia. But there are things we can do to help, and critical things we shouldn’t do.
What Actually Helps Wildlife in Extreme Cold:
- Fresh water – Break ice on ponds and bird baths daily. Animals burn massive calories searching for unfrozen water. This is simple, costs nothing, and genuinely helps.
- High-fat bird food – Stock feeders with suet, sunflower seeds, and peanuts (never bread). Birds need this when insects disappear and temperatures plummet.
- Shelter and cover – Leave dead plants standing. Don’t rake leaves. Those brush piles and dense shrubs protect small mammals and birds from wind and predators. Snow acts as insulation when there’s shelter underneath.
- Woody browse for deer – Cut fresh branches and leave them where deer can reach the buds and twigs. That’s what they actually eat in winter.
⚠️ CRITICAL: Do NOT Feed Deer or Elk
Feeding deer or elk corn, hay, or pellets can literally kill them.
Deer digestive systems change seasonally. In winter, their gut bacteria are adapted to digest woody browse—twigs, buds, bark. When you suddenly introduce high-carb corn or high-protein hay, they don’t have the right bacteria to process it. They die with full stomachs because the wrong food causes fatal acidosis and digestive shutdown.
Wisconsin DNR explicitly states: “DO NOT feed hay to deer.”
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD): Artificial feeding stations concentrate animals unnaturally, creating disease transmission hotspots. CWD is a fatal prion disease with no cure, and it’s spreading across deer and elk populations.
Here’s the hard ecological truth: Some deer and elk will die in harsh winters. That’s not a failure—it’s how healthy ecosystems function. Natural winter mortality culls weaker animals (strengthening the gene pool), provides critical food for wolves, coyotes, foxes, ravens, eagles, and countless scavengers, and prevents overpopulation that would devastate habitat for years.
A deer carcass feeds the ecosystem all winter and into spring. That’s not tragedy—that’s how nature works.
If you want to help deer: Cut fresh branches and leave them accessible. That’s it. Resist the urge to “save” them with food that will kill them.
Coyote Killing Contests: Turning Slaughter Into Sport
These contests aren’t about population management. Research is clear: killing coyotes triggers compensatory reproduction—remaining animals have larger litters and higher pup survival. If population control were the goal, lethal methods don’t work.
But these aren’t about management. They’re about turning killing into entertainment, competition, and prizes.
Longest coyote. Most coyotes. Cash awards. That’s not hunting—it’s a killing contest where living beings become game pieces.
⚠️ WARNING: Graphic Images of Killing Contests (Click to View)
These images document the reality of wildlife killing contests. They are disturbing.
Fox River Christian Church Sportsmen’s Ministry hosts a “Coyote Bonanza” where participants compete to kill the most coyotes for prize money, all while claiming to “share the love of God through a common passion for His creation.”
The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking. You cannot honor creation while running competitions for who can kill the most creatures for cash prizes. That’s not stewardship—that’s the commodification of wildlife wrapped in religious language.
These events normalize the idea that some wildlife is disposable, that conservation means picking favorites, and that killing for sport masked as “management” is legitimate.
It’s indefensible. Scientifically. Ethically. Theologically.
The Federal Threat: HR 845 and Wolf Delisting
While Wisconsin prepares state-level wolf hunts, the federal assault continues. HR 845 passed the House in December 2025 and would permanently strip Endangered Species Act protections from wolves without judicial review. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany—seen as the frontrunner for Republican governor in Wisconsin—authored this bill.
If Tiffany wins, Wisconsin will have a governor who literally wrote the federal delisting bill AND a legislature forcing population targets that guarantee hunts.
Meanwhile, the Mexican gray wolf faces similar threats. The subspecies remains endangered, with only around 200 individuals in the wild. Recent proposals would delist Mexican wolves and sever the U.S. population from the struggling Mexican population—a move that would doom genetic diversity and long-term survival.
Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ) introduced the misleadingly named “Enhancing Safety for Animals (ESA) Act” to delist Mexican wolves. The Public Lands Council and New Mexico Cattle Growers Association are backing it, framing apex predators as threats rather than essential ecosystem components.
This is the pattern: strip federal protections, hand management to states hostile to predators, mandate hunts, and call it “wildlife management.”
We’re Fighting All of This—But We Need Resources
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