This Is What Bear Hound Training Looks Like

By Melissa Smith, Executive Director  ·  July 2026

One person can stop 100 bears from terror, heat exhaustion, and death. You can be that person right now.

We took action. GLWA petitioned the Wisconsin DNR for an emergency and permanent rule to stop running bear hounds during heat and smoke advisories, and to limit chase distance.

Right now, there is no license required, no reprieve, and no limit. Between 14,000 and 16,000 hounds are released onto the landscape every single day from July 1 through August 31. Bears get no break from it. Neither do the hounds.

More than $1.6 million from Wisconsin’s Endangered Species Fund has gone toward claims involving hounds sent into designated wolf caution zones to chase bears down. 82% of the handlers cited in these incidents are repeat offenders.

Bears die. Hounds die. Wolves die. And we pay for it.

We filed the petition. Now the agency has to act — and we need the resources to hold them to it.

We don’t take corporate money. We’re not Hunter Nation. We’re not backed by industry cash. We are a small, all-volunteer organization that runs on people like you, and we have to ask you frequently because that’s the only way we survive.

And we are still winning. We are still beating them. Every time we ask, you show up — and matches like this one make it go further than we ever could alone.

Great Lakes Wildlife Alliance · Friends of the Wisconsin Wolf & Wildlife
117 Ardmore Drive, Madison, WI 53713 · speakforwildlife.org