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Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance
Speak for Wildlife • Madison, Wisconsin
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den·ning
noun • practiced legally in Wisconsin, right now
Locating the dens of coyotes and wolves during pup season — to pull the pups out for dog-fighting practice, or to destroy the den entirely. They call it a sport. There are prizes.
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Right now, in the north woods and farm country of this state, there are people going out specifically looking for dens with pups in them. The pups are pulled out alive and used in penning operations — enclosures where dogs are trained to chase, attack, and tear apart coyotes and wolves.
The dens themselves? Gasoline poured down the entrance. Fireworks. Tannerite explosives. Dug out and collapsed with the animals inside. Not for livestock protection. Not for management. For sport, and for prize.
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This is what denning leaves behind
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This week, we formally put this practice in front of the Natural Resources Board and the DNR — with documentation — in case they didn’t know. Now they do. We fully expect them to act, and we intend to make sure they can’t look away.
And here’s what we believe, all the way down: if the world knew these practices existed, they would be over. Cruelty like this survives on one thing only — nobody seeing it.
So we’re going to make sure everybody sees it. Thanks to your donations, billboard #2 is in the works right now — we’re in contact with the company as I write this. But billboards are one piece. We need flyers, handouts, farmers market tables, and a full media blitz across Wisconsin.
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Be the voice they never had
Those pups never made a sound anyone listened to. Their mothers came back to dens that were gone. No one saw. No one knew. That ends when you decide it ends. Whatever you can give today becomes the thing this cruelty cannot survive: people who know.
$25 — a stack of flyers in someone’s hands at a farmers market
$50 — handout materials for a full weekend of tabling
$100 — pushes the story to reporters, editors, and screens statewide
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Can’t give today? Give your voice.
We will need you in the room at the next Natural Resources Board meeting to tell the Board, face to face, what you think of denning for sport and prize. Sign up for action alerts and we’ll tell you exactly when and where to show up, and how to testify.
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Advocacy is expensive. Silence is free — and silence is exactly what this practice depends on.
Thank you for refusing to look away.
Melissa Smith
Executive Director, Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance
P.S. — Billboard #2 exists because people like you refused to stay quiet. Somewhere in Wisconsin right now, there is a den with pups in it that no one has found yet. What happens to them depends on how loud we get, and how fast. Give whatever you can — for them.
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Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance • 117 Ardmore Drive, Madison, WI 53713
speakforwildlife.org • Unsubscribe
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