It was never just the bears.

You already met Tulip — the bear run to death by a pack of hounds. Her story broke hearts this week. But here is the part that should make you angry: Tulip wasn’t an exception. She was the system working exactly as written.

Every July 1, Wisconsin opens its hound-“training” season and packs of dogs are loosed across the public forests of the north — no bear tag required, no animal taken, just dogs running wildlife for sport. And a pack of hounds at full cry doesn’t honor property lines, or the difference between a bear’s trail and a nesting bird.

Those same northern forests and barrens are where our sharp-tailed grouse — a bird so fragile the state just canceled its hunting season — are nesting and raising flightless chicks right now. Researchers have found that ground-nesting birds perceive dogs as predators: even leashed dogs disturb nesting, and free-running ones far more. A pack of hounds crashing through their cover doesn’t just disturb — it flushes the nests, scatters the broods, and runs down whatever can’t fly. The state frets over a grouse being hunted — while letting dogs tear through its nursery.

And it doesn’t stop at bears or birds. The hounds run straight through wolf country in the weeks when pups are barely mobile — which is how dogs and wolves end up in the deadly fights the state then pays hunters up to $2,500 a head to compensate, the only state in the country that does. Bear hounding is simply the most visible piece. Wisconsin turns dogs loose on coyotes and bobcats too. The disturbance is the same.

So this was never only about bear hounding. It’s about the practice itself — and every season the state lets it run through the one place wildlife should be safest.

One of these is tightly controlled. The other is free — and paid.

Last year, Wisconsin paid out $98,599 to hunters whose hounds were killed by wolves. The same year, 7,815 Wisconsinites bought wolf license plates — $195,375 — to help protect the very animals those hounds are run into. One group pays to protect wildlife. The other gets a check for putting dogs in harm’s way.

Tulip can’t be the last word. The hounds will run again this summer — through the dens, the nests, and the broods. Whether they run unchallenged is up to people like you. Give today, and you’re the reason we fight back.