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To the Journal editor:
In the Sept. 21 (edition of the) Daily Mining Gazette (Houghton) I read of legislation proposed in the State House to require hunting and trapping of gray wolves in Michigan, if and when the species is removed from the federal list of endangered species.
This is not the first time, and probably not the last, for such a proposal. What is new, of course, is that voters go to the polls in another month and will see the names of the sponsor and co-sponsor, respectively, of the proposed bill – state representatives Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River and Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock.
Prestin's news release implies that an "exploding" wolf population in the Upper Peninsula is threatening the economy by decimating the deer and moose populations. Nothing could be further from the truth. There has been virtually no change in wolf and moose numbers in mainland U.P. for at least a decade, and deer fluctuate mostly with winter severity. Fear-mongering about wolves has often played well for U.P. politicians who prefer political theater over reality as a campaign tactic.
Might it even be beneficial to have wolves on the landscape? Car-deer accidents have been shown to decline in Wisconsin counties with wolves (Raynor et al, 2021, Proceedings of the Nat'l. Acad. Science), which saves human lives. There is increasing evidence that wolves and other large carnivores provide a firewall against the spread of chronic wasting disease in deer (Brandell et al. 2022, Journal of Animal Ecology), considered the "greatest threat to hunting in North America" (Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, https://www.trcp.org/).
CWD is spreading in deer in Lower Michigan but virtually absent in the U.P. (U.S. Geological Survey and MI DNR). Wolves (and deep snow) may actually help the state's small moose population in the Michigamme Highlands by decreasing deer density in late winter, thereby protecting moose from the fatal effects of a brainworm that is carried by most deer in the U.P. Brainworm is a risk to moose survival identified over 50 years ago (Anderson 1963, Canadian Journal of Zoology).
Residents of Michigan can be proud to have wolves back in the state after they were driven to virtual extinction in the 1950s. In public referenda over the past decade in Michigan, citizens have voted twice against a wolf hunt. Wolf recovery in the U.P. in the past 35 years should be a cause for celebration, not an excuse for hatred.