Maybe you cried a little. It’s okay. We did too.

Those beagles blinking into sunlight for the first time — pawing at grass like they weren’t sure it was real — broke something open in people everywhere. The world stopped scrolling and felt something shift inside itself.

That’s not weakness. That’s your humanity working correctly.

1,500 beagles from Ridglan Farms in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin — 30 miles from Madison — are being released after a legal agreement forced the facility to surrender its breeding license to avoid felony animal cruelty charges. Years of activism, a special prosecutor, a judge who listened, and people who refused to look away finally produced a result. The world is watching Wisconsin right now.

We need to use every second of it.

Because the people who ran Ridglan are not the only ones in Wisconsin who have decided that dogs are tools, that suffering is acceptable, and that the law exists to protect their interests — not the animals’.

They are not even close to the worst of it.

These Are the Same Dogs.

Walker hounds. Blueticks. Plotts. Redbones. July hounds.

These are the breeds going viral from Ridglan. These are also the breeds being GPS-collared, branded, loaded into crates on the backs of trucks, driven into Wisconsin’s northwoods, and released — miles from their owners — to run unsupervised through wolf territory and bear country. No license required. No oversight. No one watching.

Bears Kill These Dogs Too.
Wisconsin Doesn’t Pay a Dime.

Here is something almost nobody talks about: bears kill and injure hunting hounds at rates that likely exceed wolf kills — and Wisconsin pays zero compensation for any of it.

DNR wolf expert Adrian Wydeven has documented that hunting dog losses to bears are “possibly much higher” than those caused by wolves. According to bear hunter survey data, approximately 50% of Class A/B bear license holders report their dogs encountering bear mothers with cubs — three to four times per training season, in the hottest weeks of summer. Black bears have no sweat glands. Running them with hound packs for hours causes heat stress, panic, and violence. Dogs die. Horribly. And the owners collect nothing.

But when wolves defend their dens? $2,500 per dog. Paid from Wisconsin’s Endangered Species Fund — the same fund your wolf license plate and endangered species tax checkoff support.

Ask yourself: if these hounds are “like our kids” — why is the lobby that collects $2,500 per wolf kill completely silent about bear kills?

The answer is that the wolf compensation program was never about the dogs. It is a political weapon designed to generate public animosity toward wolves by creating a financial incentive to run hounds through wolf territory — and then publicize every death. The dogs are the ammunition. The wolves are the target.

This Is What’s Happening Right Now.
Watch It.

This dog did not survive. The owner received $2,500. The wolf who defended her territory was blamed. Wisconsin calls this wildlife management.

The Wolves Aren’t Okay Either.

While the world celebrated the Ridglan rescue, something else was happening in Wisconsin that most people didn’t see.

Since GLWA filed our gray wolf state endangered species petition in June 2025, at least four Wisconsin wolves have been documented as illegally killed in connection with wildlife killing contests. Wisconsin hosts over 400 of these contests annually — events called Yote Slams, Song Dog Shootouts, and Vermin Roundups — where participants compete for cash prizes exceeding $25,000 for killing the most animals, the smallest, the youngest. The DNR does not track them. Does not monitor them. Does not collect a single data point.

Our wolf petition — backed by 126 organizations representing 13 million people — has been sitting on the WDNR’s desk for over 320 days past the statutory 90-day response deadline. No answer. No denial. No hearing. Silence.

And then there is what happened in February 2021 — the event that changed everything and that most of the country never fully understood.

We documented all of it. Every necropsy. Every affidavit. Every trespass incident. Every failure of the rules that were supposed to prevent this.

— Continued in Part 2: The $1.29 million racket, the names behind it, the documentary we’re updating, and what you can do right now —

If you read Part 1, you know what’s happening on Wisconsin’s landscape — the hounds, the wolves, the bears, the bait, the compensation system designed to generate wolf bodies and wolf hatred at your expense.

Now you need to know who built it. And what it has cost.

What the Necropsies Found.

Kerry Beheler performed wolf necropsies for the Wisconsin DNR for 14 years. What she found in the bodies of wolves killed during hound encounters — and in the bodies of hounds killed by wolves — is documented in our white paper and in federal court records.

Wolf expert Richard Thiel, after 33 years with the DNR’s Bureaus of Endangered Resources and Wildlife Management, described dog-wolf encounters this way in sworn testimony:

Former DNR wildlife veterinarian Julia Langenberg documented what wolf attacks actually do to dogs in sworn affidavit testimony:

One USDA report on a Wisconsin hound kill — documented in the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism — described the scene as: “mostly consumed, with the head, rib cage and hind legs mostly stripped of flesh and many small pieces of hide and bits of clotted blood hanging from the surrounding vegetation.”

The owner received $2,500.

These are not edge cases. This is what happens when you run hounds into wolf rendezvous sites. Every scientist who has studied it says so. The DNR’s own former experts say so. And the compensation program pays hunters to do it again.

The Numbers. Your Money. Their Racket.

Wisconsin is the only state in the nation that compensates hunters for dogs killed by wolves while hunting other animals. Official DNR records current as of April 20, 2026:

In 2016 alone — the worst year on record — $99,400 was paid out for 41 dead dogs. That year, PEER filed a federal complaint with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documenting that more than 15 of those depredations occurred after hunters had already been warned they were in wolf caution zones. They went anyway. (PEER.org, 2017)

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism found over $80,000 paid to repeat claimants — hunters filing again and again, some with prior criminal convictions for hunting violations. The state does not check whether claimants are licensed. A hunter can be convicted of a wildlife crime and collect $2,500 the next season.

Many claimants aren’t even Wisconsin residents. Hunters bring hounds from Minnesota, Virginia, Texas, and Alaska to run on Wisconsin wolves — and file Wisconsin taxpayer-funded claims when those dogs die. These payments come from the Endangered Species Fund — the same fund your wolf license plate and tax checkoff support. The people who love wolves are funding the people who run dogs on them.

Meet the Lobby That Built This System
— and Opposed Every Law That Could Have Changed It.

The Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association has contributed more than $360,000 to Wisconsin legislative and state candidates since 2000. They are the primary architects of the hound compensation system, the training season calendar, the deregulation of bear baiting, and the political opposition to every animal welfare bill that might have constrained them.

Their former president, Al Lobner, submitted sworn affidavits in state court claiming dogs killed by wolves were simply “being ambushed” — as though the wolves were the aggressors for defending their own dens. The court found his testimony anecdotal, speculative, and inconsistent with the actual depredation record. (Wisconsin Federated Humane Societies v. Cathy Stepp, Dane County Case No. 12-CV-3188)

Bob Welch told the Wisconsin legislature: if they couldn’t have a formal wolf hunting season, they would conduct one on their own. That is not a threat. That is a description of what has already happened — four wolves illegally killed in killing contests since our petition was filed.

Pat Quaintance — a retired DNR warden cited three times for hunting violations, including an incident connected to the killing of a radio-collared wolf on Christmas Day near Red Cliff tribal lands — was appointed to the wolf advisory committee. And the bear hunting committee. That is who Wisconsin trusts to set policy for the species they helped kill.

This is the same lobby that:

• Opposed the puppy mill bill
• Opposed the tethering bill
• Killed the rabies vaccination requirement — In 2017, the legislature repealed the mandate that hunting dogs be vaccinated against rabies before being run on Wisconsin wildlife. Unvaccinated hounds now run through wolf and bear territory with no accountability
• Opposed Ridglan accountability — the facility the world is celebrating today
• Eliminated bear hound training licenses in 2015 — No license is now required to bait bears, train hounds on bears, or assist hunters pursuing bears. Confirmed under Wisconsin Statute § 29.184 (2025)
• Pushed Senate Bill 545 — to expand hound training into May and June, denning season, when wolf pups are blind and newborn. Committee chairman: Rob Stafsholt, who collected $5,000 in compensation for two dogs he personally ran into wolf territory in 2004, and who has stated on camera that dogs dying is part of the sport
• Pushed the Conservation Congress hazing resolution — authorizing hound packs to “relocate” wolves from farms. Translation: dogs chasing wolves year-round, with state sanction, no compensation limits

The Man Who Died in His Driveway.

The hound hunting culture does not only harm wolves and dogs. It harms people.

And recall what our white paper documented from the 2021 wolf hunt: a girl in Douglas County ran home sobbing after a pack of hounds charged her at her school bus stop. Armed men with rifles followed the dogs out of the woods. She dropped her backpack and ran. That was a Tuesday morning in Wisconsin in 2021. And the rules that made it possible are still in place today.

Ten Years Ago, We Made a Film About All of This.
It’s Time to Update It.

It’s called Dogs of War. We made it when Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance was still called Friends of the Wisconsin Wolf & Wildlife. All footage was taken in Wisconsin. It shows the hound culture, the wolf kills, the compensation system, the science, and the politics — and it makes the case that what Wisconsin calls tradition is what the rest of the world recognizes as cruelty.

We made Dogs of War ten years ago. Since then:

• 218 wolves killed in 60 hours in the February 2021 hunt — 82% over quota — 86% by hound packs. We stopped it in court.
• Single-year hound compensation hit $99,400
• Four wolves illegally killed in killing contests since our petition was filed
• The God Squad invoked the ESA national security exemption for the first time in history
• 79% of USGS Great Lakes Science Center positions eliminated
• The Ely and Grand Rapids wolf research stations — the longest continuously running wolf study in North America — closed permanently
• HR 845 passed the House, stripping post-delisting monitoring requirements
• Our wolf petition: 320+ days past the statutory deadline. No response.

We are updating the documentary. The 2021 hunt deserves to be on film — the 4 AM hound releases, the girl at the school bus, the portal that wouldn’t close, the 218 bodies. The Ridglan moment deserves to be connected to the broader Wisconsin story. And the people who are still fighting deserve to be seen.

Your donation makes the update possible.

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