THE TRUTH ABOUT YELLOWSTONE WOLVES

Your attention needs to called to the December 2003 Outdoor Life story by Jim Zumbo on the problems with Yellowstone wolf reintroduction. Of course, to wolf lovers, and the few bureaucrats that live off of wolves, it is a great success story. But to the ranchers, hunters, outfitters and landowners it is total disaster.

Many similarities to what is going on in Wisconsin can be drawn from the Zumbo article. Wolves were federally declared endangered, and forced in on us, without being asked if we approve, or if it is really true that wolves are endangered. In 1974 the USFWS provided a map showing a small Minnesota area with wolves. Canada, with it’s over 60,000 wolves, was left blank, to imply that the only North American wolves left were those in Minnesota. You weren’t supposed to figure out that these Canadian wolves cross that international boundary at will.

So to this day we have this federal dictatorial power over wolves. Of course, our DNR wolf promoters love it, and our Natural Resources Board loves it, and want it to continue for as long as we allow it to. The more wolves there are, and the more damage they do, and the more problems they cause, the more taxpayer money they can extract.

In the Zumbo article, our Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, sides in with her USFWS wolf lovers who think it is bad if wolves are totally protected in Yellowstone, but called predators when they leave the park, and dealt with the same as coyotes. Of course, this is possible because they are an Experimental Population in the Western Distinct Population Segment set up by her own USFWS. Write and tell her this. States, not USFWS bureaucrats, should be managing wolves.

To make a very long story short, we cannot have USFWS wolf number dictates, the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan, and what Wisconsin Conservation Congress wants all at the same time. The USFWS needs to agree that Wisconsin wolves are an Experimental Population as defined in the Endangered Species Act. Then it will be possible to have the kind of common sense wolf management that we long for. Click onto the People Against Wolves web site for all the details.

That Natural Resources Board, Signe Holtz , Adrian Wydeven and all the promoters of the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan need to see that the time has come to scrap, not overhaul, that WWMP. Wisconsin is not the prime wilderness that it was at the time of Columbus. Now over four million people live here, and their activities are the most important thing that goes on in Wisconsin. All wolves, whether packs or loners, are in conflict with these activities. They are really not an endangered species, and it should be possible to manage them accordingly.

This involves severing all ties to the USFWS and their wolf dictates. The Wisconsin Statutes need to be changed so that the State is not forced to duplicate or exceed federal wolf classifications. When the State Legislature acts to bring about these things, then it will be finally possible to manage wolves as they need to be managed

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman WI 54433

715.447.5739

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

Dec 12,2003

Ms. Gale Norton, Secretary

US Department of the Interior

Washington, DC 20240

Dear Ms. Norton,

The current wolf situation throughout most of the US is well expressed in a Dec 2003 Outdoor Life article by Jim Zumbo. There will be no much needed changes till 2004 as we go through the lengthy USFWS delisting process. Why must this take so long? And this will be far short of what the States need.

Of course, the biggest contributor to the problem is that wolves are wrongly being called an endangered species. In my Feb 22, 2000 petition I asked that the Secretary on the Interior change this classification. Secretary Bruce Babbitt and his associates denied this petition which is still very valid today. I am asking you and the USFWS to reconsider this at this time.

The logic supporting this is very clear and simple. This endangered wolf classification is based on a USFWS 1973 map showing only a few wolves in Minnesota. Canada, with it’s over 60,000 wolves, is left blank implying that there are no wolves there. The fact is that these wolves do not know about the international boundary, and cross over at will. We do have one very large North American wolf population and the same subspecies, Canius Lupis Nubilius, covers most of the US and Canada. And they are far from being an endangered species.

Knowing all of this, the USFWS set up a nonexistent endangered Eastern Distinct Population Segment to make these wolves an endangered species. You can easily wipe out all of this by acting as you are empowered to do.

So, if wolves were wrongly called an endangered species, this can be corrected by you, and then managing them can be effortlessly turned over to the States. This will remove all basis for lawsuits, and give the States what they want and need..

The Endangered Species Act gives you the authority to do what I am asking you to do. So it is time that we were all shown that Gale Norton, not Bruce Babbitt, is Secretary of the Interior. Many people out there are eagerly waiting for you to act in this manner. It will immediately solve lots of problems, and put an end to much USFWS counterproductive activity.

Sincerely Yours,

Lawrence Krak

People need to be aware of the information in the USDA APHIS Wolf Depredation Report for Minnesota for 2000. There are now 2,600 wolves in Minnesota. During 2000 they did damage to livestock totaling $84,344.69 and 148 of these wolves had to be killed by federal agents. Losses authorized for payment included 19 cows, 1 yrl., 104 calves, 1 horse, 21 ewes, 12 lambs, 576 turkeys and 132 ducks. What the actual totals really are only God knows.

A most welcome addition to this year’s report is the paragraph on how much this is costing the taxpayers. It says that the MDNR estimates that the wolf plan will cost $95,000 for the fiscal year (2002), $785,000 for 2003 and $695,000 for 2004. Of course the obvious question is why the 2002 number is only $95,000? Maybe this is the much needed difference we get from the Bush administration in informing people how much some of these environmental things such as wolves are really costing them.

We are all holding our breaths as we await what the USFWS will do under the direction under Gale Norton. The most obvious is that they have to admit that wolves are really not an endangered species and stop interfering in the wolf management of MN, WI, ND and MI. In Minnesota all it will take is a go ahead on the wolf bill that has been passed into law and forgetting about worrying about that too many wolves will get killed. There is no threat whatever to the ultimate survival of North American wolves and no need what so ever to be sure that there are always at least 1,500 wolves in Minnesota as we have been led to believe

Of course the informed people’s wish list includes the above. The wish list of the DNRs of the four states is that not a single thing gets changed. Just keep the wolf restoration and depredation money coming for as long as possible. The poor fools will never see that their money is being wasted on restoring wolves which are not endangered and which they don’t need and are better off without.

Actually the time has come to think about renaming that pro basketball team. Rather than The Timber Wolves it would be much more appropriate to call them The Minnesota Fools for those that still think wolves are an endangered species and what is going on with the Minnesota is acceptable.

The next Wisconsin wolf event is the Wolf Technical Advisory Committee meeting May 22 at Wausau. People Against Wolves will be strongly represented to ask some questions and lay out some facts. For instance, readers of Wisconsin Outdoor News have been led to believe that Wisconsin wolves are costing the public an average of $81,441 per year as stated in the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan. Actually the true number for the past year is $258,674.23 for State and federal that the WDNR wolf restoring received. And the wolf promoters are asking for more money and a letter to the USFWS has been drafted for this. Here is an activity that qualifies for fleecing of America and they ask for more money.

Just because the endangered wolf was not questioned as it should have been in 1974 is no reason why it cannot be questioned now. The only acceptable solution to wolf depredation is to not have wolves in places where they do this. Incidental taking of endangered species is part of state and federal law. If the number of wolves involved in depredation is as small as the wolf promoters say, then why can’t land owners remove problem wolves on their own with flat trajectory rifles? The Wolf Technical Advisory Committee needs to start thinking about these things

To bring this report un to date, for 2001, 109 wolves were killed and they did damages totaling $59,456.76. The numbers for 2002 are 146 wolves killed and damages were not reported. Nobody wants to talk about how much this is costing the taxpayers.

Log onto the People Against Wolves web site at home.centurytel.net/PAW/home.htm

for details. Keying in People Against Wolves, which is easier to remember, also gets the site up which is on all the major search engines including AOL.

Lawrence Krak

People Against Wolves

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

Except for the opening half hour, when the house was opened for public comment, it was business as usual at the Wolf Advisory Board meeting this past Jan 24th, 2002 at Wausau. People came form all over the state, some from as far away as Ashland, to let it be known that they objected to what is going on with the Wisconsin wolves. People told of losing valuable dogs and livestock to killer wolves that do not fear people. Others objected to these killer wolves being trapped and then released somewhere else to continue doing more killing. Person after person told them that there are far too many wolves out there. This was all coming from an overflow, standing room crowd in a facility that was clearly too small.

Here it should be noted that the Florence County Board passed a resolution advising the DNR that they do not want any of these problem wolves that the DNR traps, released in Florence County. This story was carried in the Jan 18th Wisconsin Outdoor News. Other counties are bound to do the same.

Following this the Wolf Advisory Board went into session, and ignored dealing with the conditions the protestors laid out. According to the agenda in the meeting notice, they were supposed to be dealing with loss of hunting hounds and livestock depredation. Instead they went into changing the weasel wording of parts of the Wolf Management Plan that covers depredations under the present conditions imposed by the USFWS. Most of the time the people on the Wolf Advisory Board did not speak up so they could be heard. Actually this this did not matter as what they were saying was of no value in dealing the with problems that the protestors laid out to them.

This is because the situation requires killing problem wolves, and killing wolves to cut their numbers down. Being able to do this requires the approval of the USFWS, which is slow in coming. But the Wolf Advisory Board is not telling the USFWS that this is what they should be allowed to do. Instead they want the present situation to continue for as long as possible, and keep getting that federal wolf restoration and depredation money.

Of course if our DNR is content to let the USFWS keep their hands tied while it takes it’s sweet time to grant them permission to kill wolves, then that is the way it will be. Right now, Incidental Taking, which is a part of federal and Wisconsin law, can be used to kill problem wolves. The very mention of this really drives some people up a tree, as does any killing of these precious, sometimes collared and named wolves. In Incidental Taking, the only thing that matters is if the numbers of the species involved is able to absorb the taking. With Wisconsin wolves, there is no problem with this. The USFWS and our DNR have been getting away with this "endangered wolf" ruse for too long. The time is here to think about how do we do the necessary wolf shooting instead of trapping and all the things that go with it.

This is not just another "Krak Pot " idea. There is a Wisconsin president for the use of Incidental Taking to remove a problem wolf. Go back to when the three wolves got into that deer farm and were killing deer at a greater rate than the 18 per year per wolf as the wolf promoters claim. Two of these wolves were trapped and removed, but the remaining one got smart and could not be trapped. So it was shot. If this was not Incidental Taking being applied, then what was it?

A few people were able to get some words in as the Wolf Advisory Board was leaving at 4 PM. The next wolf event is the Wolf Stakeholders Meeting on April 13th at some site as yet undisclosed. Here People Against Wolves is represented, and I guarantee that things will be different this time. If you have had it with with the Wisconsin wolf situation, be there to help me. An effort will be made to contact all members of Stakeholders, excluding the avowed wolf lovers, DNR bureaucrats and their disciples ,with information that is contained in this critique of the WAB meeting with the hope that they will see the problems that wolves pose under the wolf plan we have. Things just cannot continue as they are.

The fact is that we have a duplication in Wisconsin of what went on in Minnesota a couple of years ago. They had a wolf plan in place as their wolf lovers and DNR wanted, under which the whole state would be overrun with wolves But the Minnesota State Legislature passed a law under which people in the southern 2/3 of the state would be able to kill wolves as needed to protect their property, scrapping the wolf lover’s plan. Our Wisconsin Legislature needs to do the same thing..

For People Against Wolves

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

The article on 2001 WI license sales appearing in the 01.17.03 Wisconsin Outdoor News has a non hunter bias. Many of the 2,422,000 people that fed, observed or photographed game in 2001 were only doing that in support of their hunting activity. To try to separate these activities by a non hunter, as was obviously done in that WON article, is very unfair.

Ask the simple basic question; how much license revenue did those feeders, photographers and observers bring in to the DNR? License revenue is what really puts the $ on a lot of those DNR paychecks. Need I say more?

Getting to wolves, as you no doubt know I will; during the past fiscal year, $54,637.44 State, and $219,124.67 federal, for a total of 273,762.11 was spent on wolves. Wolves conflict with all human activities, especially hunting, and are really not endangered. Need I say more? Why don’t more people view the wolf issue properly? The same goes for having all of those fishers out there taking game away from hunters and wildlife observers.

For People Against Wolves,

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

The Jan 31st Wisconsin Outdoor News is full of insinuations that such people as Tony Fornengo, Gina Brandis, and anyone that allows their dog to stray out of their sight, is at fault because they allowed the wolves to do their thing. This is based on the premise that Dean Bortz and wolf supporters believe, which is that we must again restore all things that were once native to Wisconsin, regardless of the problems that they cause. These wolf supporters consider everything outside of the urban settings in which they live to be the wild, and should be involved in this wolf restoration.

This is made possible, with any choice people could have in this removed, when the USFWS declared Wisconsin wolves to be an endangered species. So if people kill one these wolves, they can be finned up to $100,000. Of course the WDNR and all of the wolf lovers are most delighted with this, and they want it to continue for as long as possible. The more damage the wolves do, the more wolf restoration money they will get from the federal government.

As it is, a few WDNR wolf promoters and some wolf lovers thrive on this. They refuse to see that everything wolves do outside of prime wilderness is in conflict with human activities. Of course, Wisconsin does not have any prime wilderness

Yes, this foolishness can be brought to an end. Just as in Minnesota, the Wisconsin Legislature can force a scrapping of the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan. Everybody knows that wolves are really not an endangered species. If wolves were that endangered, would I be able to go into Canada, buy a $50 small game license, and kill as many wolves as I happen to see? Wisconsin can demand that the USFWS declare it’s wolves to be an experimental population, as set forth in the Endangered Species Act. Wisconsin will then be able to classify and manage wolves as they see fit, as the people indicated in their 2002 Conservation Congress vote. Some most obvious needed changes in WDNR wolf management do need to take place first.

So you have to do the necessary learning to understand all of this, and get involved if you want the needed changes to take place.

For People Against Wolves,

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

Wolf lovers like Jason Schultz continue to show us that they do not have functioning brains. Or else they really believe that the people out there have this problem and are not able to see thru their thrash. So now we are all at fault because of urban sprawl we have displaced wolves and made it possible to selfishly enjoy the life style we have. After all, the wolves are only doing what they are supposed to when they kill our dogs and cattle, and threaten people.

Well, what good are the wolves? They really do not have a right to be here with our not being able to do anything about it.. They are not an endangered species and never were. We do get along just fine without them. It does benefit a huge majority if people do manage wolves, instead of wolves actually managing people, as they now do.

So these wolves are such great predators. The fact is that hunters, predators other than wolves that are out there, and the environment manages deer numbers, and help from wolves is not needed. What the wolves do is in conflict and competition with the hunters. As I said before, wolves are not needed.

Wolf lovers exercise their warped thinking and point out all the dogs that cars kill. They are not able to see that there is a lot of difference between this and the hunter’s hounds that the wolves are killing These dogs killed by cars are out there chasing cars and doing things not controlled by their owners. They deserve what they are getting. Hunter’s hounds are too valuable to have their owners allow them to do these things.

Where did the wolf lovers, USFWS and WDNR bureaucrats learn their arithmetic? Last year 694,111 bought deer hunting licenses at $20 each, 260,279 bought archery licenses at $20 each and 5,681 bought bear hunting licenses at $41 each. Without the bonus tags, nonresident licenses and hunter’s choice dollars this come to $19,320,721. On the other hand, how much came in from the wolves? Instead in Wisconsin they cost the taxpayers $43,060 State and $209,118 federal. The only that thing keeps these numbers from deciding the wolf issue is the endangered wolf lie.

True to form, Clarence Krause, Jr. does not know that snow is needed to track bears. How much snow is there in September when we have our bear season? I bought my bear license in good faith and should be able to go after bears anywhere the season is open for them without wolves attacking my dogs.

Sincerely ,

Jim Trawicki

N6854 Hwy 73

Gilman, WI 54433

717 -668-5655

When you see a member of the Taylor County Board of Supervisors, be sure to tell them that you approve of their unanimous action taken in passing the resolution letting the DNR know that we do not want any of the killer, problem wolves that they trap released in Taylor County. The USFWS has downgraded Wisconsin wolves to threatened, which allows lethal control, or killing of such wolves. But some of these wolves are collared, innoculated and even named, so the DNR does not exactly like the idea of removing such a meal ticket. The more problems that such a wolf causes, and the more damage they do; the more money the DNR gets to process damage claims.

So the County Board has let the DNR know that we do not want this going on in Taylor County. This was not easy with all the assurances that the DNR gave that such wolves are a good thing, and cause no problems. Try telling this to the many that are experiencing problems with such wolves in livestock losses, and other general livestock and hunting problems. As board member Allan Beadles put it, there were very good reasons why wolves were eliminated from Wisconsin before, and there should be a bounty on them now instead of the big fine for killing one.

Unfortunately, things regarding wolves in the rest of Wisconsin are not like this. To that Natural Resources Board and the DNR Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan promoters the USFWS wolves are one beautiful package. Over a quarter million dollars come in yearly to pay for the few totally counter productive DNR jobs that result. So let the poor fools try to stop this. This is not exactly a shining example of American democracy in action. But it goes on because the so called silent majority does not get informed and allows it to.

Presently representatives of our Conservation Congress are trying to get that Natural Resources Board to see that wolves should be made a big game furbearer. We can only hope for the best in how this turns out.

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

The Wisconsin wolf situation is in need of actions from an informed public. This can be done by attending a series of DNR meetings on Nov 5 and 6. The purpose of these meetings is to delist wolves from a threatened species to total State management. This is something that is long overdue with wolf numbers of 100 or more being present in WI and MI for over 10 years. The USFWS quota for this is 5 years. At present WI has at least 343 wolves.

On Jan 22, 2002 at Wausau, a large number of protestors tried to tell the DNR Wolf Advisory Board that there are far too many wolves in Wisconsin. This did not have any effect on Wisconsin wolves and their management. Since then WI wolves were federally downgraded from endangered to threatened, allowing killing of depredating wolves, of which 17 were killed in WI to date

Some counties, Taylor included, have passed ordinances against releasing killer wolves within their boundaries. But things are still a long ways from freeing us from wolf problems. Wolf numbers just need to be reduced. This means that the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan has to be scrapped for a number of reasons. Foremost among these is that WI people should be managing wolves, not wolves managing people, as is now often happening.

Also among these is that there is not enough money available to keep spending the huge amount of money the WWMP is costing us. Last year this came to $293,854.19, with only $34,000 budgeted for fiscal year 2003-2004. This is State of Wisconsin money from figures given at the Oct 25 Stakeholder Meeting held under the WWMP. National numbers for the extent of the wolf restoration fleecing of America by the USFWS and the USDA that has been going on since 1974 are an mind boggling something else.

So where will this money keep coming from? You can be sure that no DNR wolf promoters will be laid off. Of course there is all that money coming in from bear and deer hunting licenses. Even if the DNR assures us that none of this money if being used to pay for wolves, an audit of DNR books is needed to provide the true answer.

One does not have to look very far into the national wolf situation to see that wolves are really not an endangered species and never were. How can they be endangered if I can go a little ways up into Canada, and buy a license to shoot as many wolves as I happen to come across? The USFWS is hiding behind some wording which allows them to set up an Endangered Eastern Distinct Population Segment for WI, MN, MI and SD using the international boundary between the US and Canada. The wolf subspecies which is in much of Canada and the US ,makes up a DPS independent of this international boundary. Click onto the People Against Wolves web site for details of what a taxpayer ripoff this federal endangered wolf really is..

In 2002 people attending the Wisconsin Conservation Congress meetings indicated by a nearly 90% vote that they want wolves to be managed as coyotes are managed. They are really not endangered, as are coyotes, and can be managed accordingly. Of course the USFWS will not easily give up their dictatorial control of wolf numbers, but it can be forced on them if we can get our legislators to act, as they can. To those attending Stakeholder and Wolf Scientific Meetings held under the WWMP, most clearly see that our DNR is trying to keep that WWMP going for as long they can get away with, and milk it for every cent they can. But our Wisconsin Legislators need to first see that this is going on and put an end to it. Really and truly, the less wolves we have, the better of we are.

As the PAW web site shows, WI wolves are really an Experimental Population, as set forth in the Endangered Species Act. That is because many of them have been released or planted, and not where they are because of things they did on their own. In addition to this, many wolves are collared, named and inoculated, and a long away from being a wild and free occurring population. When established with the USFWS, this Experimental Population classification can give people means to deal with problem wolves and even wolf numbers.

These DNR meetings earlier referred to, are at 6 PM, Nov 5 at Spooner, Stevens Point and Madison, and Nov 6 at Rhinelander and Black River Falls. I hope that many of you will attend, and let the DNR know what we need in WI wolf management If you are not able to attend, because you did not find about the meetings soon enough, your written comments can be sent in for equal consideration. The DNR is accepting them until Nov 21. It won’t take very many hunters, farmers, loggers and trappers to outnumber the wolf lovers and bureaucrats that live off of wolves. So lets get out, or write, and put them in their place and let them know that the less wolves we have, the better off we are..

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

715.447.5739

This week two very significant things happened as the Wisconsin wolf scenario plays out

There was up-to-date article in the Nov 10 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by Dan Egan telling of the problems the wolves are causing a rancher, Tony Fornengo, in the Grantsburg, WI area. This was a total departure from the Jay Reed wolf lover stuff that paper had been putting out. If you are not a J'S subscriber, you can get the article up on the Internet as I did.

The gory details of the over $50,000 worth of damages this rancher incurred should be enough to convince you tha t sweeping changes are needed in what goes on under the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan. The only thing that the DNR did for that rancher under that plan was trap a wolf and let it go near Minocqua.. Even if wolves are downlisted from endangered to threatened, as we are waiting for the USFWS to do, that wolf would be shot instead of let go. Of course all of the other wolves out there would be left alone waiting for them to do more damage.

This comes to the second thing that is needed to make it possible to deal with the wolf problems we have. That is that the USFWS needs to declare Wisconsin wolves to be a non essential experimental population, as was done in Idaho, giving property owners a right to kill wolves doing damage. My letter to Gale Norton, Secretary of the US Dept, of the Interior, asking for actions along these lines, was turned over to them for response.

Most of all, they try to set aside what went on in our area 1980. A while before that, Larry Gehr of Gresham, WI turned over 12 wolves to the USFWS for release in the wild. These were Wisconsin wolves he had been keeping in a pen. He found himself unable to care for them any longer.

So out of the clear blue, on the Friday nite before deer hunting season, Cliff Witta and Frank Vanacek, then employed by the DNR, went on WIGM radio announcing that Lincoln County would be closed to coyote hunting because there were now 12 wolves there. Hunters might mistake them for coyotes.

So how did these 12 wolves appear so suddenly in Lincoln County? There were no other wolves within a 100 miles. Those Lincoln County wolves had to be the Gehr wolves. There is just too much coincidence, such as time frame, number of wolves involved, absence of other wolves near there, etc, that points to this conclusion.

The USFWS answer to this is that the Gehr wolves were kept for breeding stock, and none were released in the Wisconsin. This is not enough to set aside my claim that the Gehr wolves were released in Lincoln County . We now have DNA Analysis which can be applied to blood samples that had to have been taken even in 1980. That was surely done then as it is now with every wolf that is being handled. If any wolf turns out to be related to the Gehr wolves it clearly imply that these Gehr wolves were released as I say.

This is so important because it would establish that some Wisconsin wolves were indeed planted. So it would quickly follow that all Wisconsin wolves are a part of an experimental population. The USFWS would have to go along, whether they want to or not. This would free Wisconsin from their endangered or threatened dictate, and make it possible to manage wolves as they should be.

Of course, it also follows that our DNR really does not want this to happen. They want things to go on as they do for as long as they can get away with it. They love all that wolf restoration money they are getting. They cannot be trusted with the DNA Analysis and passing on the result. The Legislature needs to contract for this testing and provide the answer. This is sad state the Wisconsin wolf situation is in. If you do not believe what I am saying, just go to a Stakeholder meeting and see the DNR wolf promoters trying to keep things as they are for as long as they can.

If you do not believe what I say about the Gehr wolves, you can get a copy from the Wausau Daily Herald archives. Or I can send you a copy of the story as it was carried by that paper.

For People Against Wolves

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

715.447.5739

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

April 4, 2003

Mr Scott Hassett, Sec. WDNR

Box 7921

Madison, WI 53707

Dear Mr. Hassett,

You again send me the letter asking for inputs on how to further the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan. All you need to do is read and reread the two letters that I sent you before. I clearly lay out that the WWMP should be totally scrapped. You very well know that this is what most Wisconsin people want. Instead you have chosen to side with the few DNR bureaucrats that benefit from the WWMP.

Instead of being so happy with all the federal money that you get for complying with the USFWS endangered wolf, and engaging in wolf restoration , you should be telling the USFWS that Wisconsin people want to make Wisconsin wolves a furbearing big game animal. We have had enough of this endangered wolf charade. As I lay out, there is more than enough evidence that Wisconsin wolves are an experimental population. Clearly all the wolves that there are in Wisconsin are not here as a result of natural migration Our DNR should be demanding that they be so classified by the USFWS. This will make possible the kind of wolf managing that the Wisconsin people want.

So how about considering what is really needed, instead of furthering the WWMP? I say again, scrap the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan. The guys making up the next Stakeholder meeting this coming April 10 and 11 understand what I am saying to the extent that they did not invite me to the meeting.

I again send you the two letters. It is all up to you. You can exercise less than 1% of your conscience and see that what I laid out is the way to go. or appease the Wydevens, Thiels, Jurweczics, etc and try to further the WWMP. I realize that this may very well be the only letter like this that you get,, but you know dam well that there should be a mail box full of them.

Sincerely Yours,

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

April 29, 2002

Ms. Gale Norton, Secretary

US Department of the Interior

Washington, DC 20240

Dear Secretary Norton,

Time is rolling along. Still there have not been any actions from you or the USFWS on the wolf situation in WI, MN, MI or SD. Recently the USFWS did make wolves a non essential experimental population in most of Idaho. This allows Idaho land owners to kill wolves that they do not want on their lands. No more of this endangered wolf stuff. If the same thing was done for the four States, together with cutting off all federal wolf restoration and depredation funds, it would put things completely in the four state's hands. No more of this hanging on and living off of all that federal money, and their DNRs capitalizing on all the wolf problems their people are having.

There is not a better way of getting around the fact that wolves are not endangered, or threatened, and never were. The USFWS is so afraid of being taken to court about people taking or killing an endangered or threatened species, when wolves are finally totally delisted. This would solve that problem. Just let the wolf lovers try to prove that wolves in the four States are endangered or threatened.

I will again try your email with this. Your email has been non operational for too long.

Sincerely Yours,

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

Feb 11, 2002

Ms. Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior

US Department of the Interior

Washington, DC 20240

Dear Ms. Norton,

The whole country is still waiting for you to tell us what the Bush Administration Wolf Policy is. With Steve Williams approved as head of the USFWS, there should not be any more delays. Hopefully it is not a continuation of what Clinton-Babbitt were doing. As you very well know, Texas is not participating in the Mexican Wolf travesty that is taking place in Arizona and New Mexico, that started under Clinton. Further, as I have been trying to tell you, and President Bush will agree, what has been going with wolves since 1974, when they were first wrongly declared to be an endangered species, needs to be changed.

The truth of this matter is that wolves were not endangered then, nor are they endangered now. This is most clearly established in the People Against Wolves web site. It is very wrong, really a most flagrant conflict of interest, for USFWS bureaucrats to call wolves an endangered species, and then follow with USFWS bureaucrats spending public money on themselves to restore them.

The best course of action for you and the USFWS people is to openly admit these things, and stop doing them. The public will accept the truth after they are shown how they have been misled all of these years. If the people of these states, such as my Wisconsin, still want wolves, let them bear the whole costs out of their own funds.

Right now Wisconsin is waiting for the USFWS to classify Wisconsin wolves as threatened so they can kill problem wolves. The people of Wisconsin will tell you that much more is needed. They need to be able to reduce the number of wolves to 50 to 80, which will satisfy the USFWS quota for the state.

Of course the Wisconsin DNR wants to continue with a wolf plan that allows for the over 250 wolves they now have. They are real happy with things as they now are, and like to have all that federal wolf restoration and wolf depredation money to keep coming. You can bring all of this to an end, as I have been trying to tell you.

In Minnesota your USFWS people are stopping a law that allows people in the southern 2/3s of the state to kill wolves as needed to protect their property. There are over 2,600 wolves in the state, so why is your USFWS afraid that too many wolves will get killed? The USFWS quota for Minnesota is 1,200.

You can deal with all of these problems by just doing as I say. The Endangered Species Act, acting as Secretary of the Interior, gives you these powers.

Sincerely Yours,

Lawrence Krak

` The Stakeholder Group, as they are called under the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan,

met April 13th at Wausau. For those that were expecting a continuation of the Wolf Advisory Board meeting of 2 months earlier, when people from all over the state came to tell that there were too many wolves out there, and the problems they were having, it was a disappointment.

This meeting did not open as as the other one did, with people in the audience telling of their wolf problems. Instead they were told that there were little cards on which they could write a few words telling of what was wrong, and put it on the bulletin board. Then at the end of the meeting it will be looked at. Well, it did not happen.

To start the meeting, they went around the table and everybody got to introduce themselves and say a few words. I got right to the meat of things and mentioned that in most of Idaho the USFWS declared wolves to be a non essential Experimental Population. This allows property owners to kill wolves as they see fit on their own lands. They are rid of this endangered wolf stuff. This is exactly what we need in Wisconsin. You can imagine how this drove the DNR wolf promoters up a tree. They thought they sloughed it off, but they didn’t , as I reminded them in my closing remarks.

To give you an idea of what went on all day, there were wording changes needed to further refine the operation of the wolf plan. One of these was to "humanely kill" problem wolves. This was too blunt for some. Of course there is nothing humane about the way wolves do their killing of prey and feed on them while they are still alive. These wolf lovers do not think about things like that. I don’t remember what they settled on. It was some sort of lethal removal

In these meetings, a very lot of time is spent on how far from the predation site the trapping can take place. The big concern is that the wrong wolf may get caught. I say, so what?

They told that we now have 320 wolves when the USFWS says 50 is enough. If these wolves are on private property, they are where they should not be. They should all be removed. Of course, every wolf is very precious to these DNR wolf promoters. The more wolves that there are, and the more problems they cause, the more work there is for them, and justification for what they do. It follows that they can get away with spending more money

So you get the idea of what went on all the time. There was nothing on reducing the number of wolves. A lot of time was spent on bear hounds running into wolf territories. The hounds wear radio collars and are under control. They are not running free. One wolf lover had difficulty in seeing this. She also said that letting the bear hunters know where the wolf pack territories are might be used by some to go there and kill wolves. So let the bear hunters have their losses.

The discussion also went to what is going on with the plea for more money to pay for the predation costs. Of all things, the cattle man on the Advisory Board, is the one that is asking for this. At one time this same guy had an article in the Wisconsin Outdoor News saying that too many wolves are a large factor in too much predation. But do you see him joining me in saying that the number of wolves needs to be reduced? Instead he says we need more more money to pay for wolf predation.

The bill to the taxpayers for all of these wolves is something that the wolf promotion does not say anything about. They do have page number 33 in the wolf plan that covers the years 1979 thru 1998 showing an average total expenditure of $81,441 for state and federal . However for next two fiscal years following the totals are $258,674 and $252,674. It will be real interesting see to what the numbers are for 2001-2002, that should be coming out at the end of this June.

Of course in Minnesota they do not have a page in their wolf plan telling how much this is costing them. When you write asking for these numbers, they get real indignant and say they they do not keep track of this. They know very well what these numbers are and have to be made to tell them, and put them in the plan. In the USDA report on Minnesota wolf predation for 2000 they finally had a couple of paragraphs telling the costs. For the coming three fiscal years they are $95,000, $785,000 and $695,000. The first number looks out of line, but the changes form Clinton to Bush may have a lot to do with it. In the report for 2001 they again say nothing about how much they are spending. This money being poured into wolves is really fleecing of America, and people better start becoming aware of it!

So you get an idea of what goes on in this wolf lover dominated environment. You see lots of people that do not like what is going on being so very careful in saying things so they do not offend the wolf lovers. On the other hand, the wolf lovers are not one bit careful. One even said that wolves were here first and have just as many rights as people. We do not have too many wolves, just too many people. That gives you an idea of how warped the thinking of some these people really is.

I am making an effort to get other people on the Stakeholder Group. We need a logger, a sportsman club rep, a PARR rep, a Farmer’s Union rep, etc, that will speak up and join with me against this foolishness.

I did ask Darrell Bazzell, Secretary of the DNR, to attend this meeting. He did send a representative. Just to make sure he gets my version of what went on, I am sending him this report. She did say something at the end, but it was not possible to hear it from where I was sitting.

What is needed is for the DNR wolf promotion to see that there are too many wolves out there. We are much further along in the wolf plan than they are aware of. Instead of trying to make this plan work, why don’t we do as they did in Idaho? Get the USFWS to make wolves a non essential Experimental Population so that they can be managed as a big game animal. They are really not an endangered species. How long will it take for our DNR to move along these lines?

For People Against Wolves,

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

715-447-5739

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

April 2, 2002

Dear Stakeholder,

People Against Wolves is making an effort to contact Stakeholder people regarding the coming April 13th meeting at 8:30 AM, Days Inn, Wausau. According to the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan, the main mission of these Stakeholder meetings should be for the Wolf Advisory Board to obtain inputs on problems experienced as this plan is being implemented. All people from the public at large from the State that come to the meeting to voice their observations of what is going on with the wolves that we have out there, should be given a chance to do so, and submit written statements if they have them. These are really the most important people at the meeting, and what page 57 of the plan implies that the Stakeholder team should be doing..

This Stakeholder meeting should not be a meeting run by somebody from the Wolf Advisory Board, devoted to further implementing the wolf plan, regardless of the problems being experienced with it. This is what happened at the Wausau Jan 24th meeting of the Wolf Advisory Board. For about half an hour, people were given a chance to tell them that there are far too many wolves out there, and the problems that they are causing. This included losses of valuable dogs and livestock, and confrontations with wolves that are not afraid of people. Others told in no uncertain terms, that they do not like these damage causing killer wolves being trapped and released somewhere else to continue causing problems.

But as I said before, this DNR Wolf Advisory Board completely ignored what these protestors told them, and went about their business of refining wording in the wolf plan dealing with trapping of depredation wolves, where and when it should take place, etc. They wasted the whole day on things like this.

Instead they should have seen that the time is here for figuring out how to deal with the reducing of the number of wolves out there, not trapping them and hauling them off to continue to cause more problems. Of course the federal control and their endangered wolf, which the State must also follow for now, stands in the way of doing what is needed. The time is now here for letting the federal and State governments know that wolves are really not an endangered species, and that this is the main obstacle to dealing with the problems they are causing.

The only way to deal with this is for the Wisconsin Legislature to change the statutes so that the federal endangered wolf does not have to be duplicated in the State. Then it will be possible to manage wolves as they need to be managed.. A Stakeholder vote should be taken on a resolution asking the Legislature to do this.

This is what should be coming out of all these wolf meetings taking place under the wolf plan, and so reported to the DNR Natural Resources Board, rest of the DNR and all media. Instead the DNR wolf promoters try to convey the idea that all is well. Just keep the wolf restoration and depredation money coming in increasing amounts is all they are saying.

I hope that you see that everything that is going on in Wisconsin wolf recovery needs to be questioned. Are wolves really an endangered species? How did this wolf plan calling for all those wolves come about? The federal guideline says that there should be 100 total in all of Wisconsin and Michigan, or 50 in Wisconsin. All wolves we have are not where they are as a result of natural migration. Some were trapped and let go a hundred miles away. Under the Endangered Species Act, this qualifies all Wisconsin wolves as an experimental population, which allows for the more effective number control methods now needed.

Adding to this, sufficient blood samples have to exist to determine if the Gehr wolves were indeed released in Lincoln County. The dna of these samples can be compared to that of the blood samples of the wolves now being trapped to get the answer to this once and for all. The details of this and other things raised can be found in the People Against Wolves web site.

The Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan must not continue to be a wolf promotion for the benefit of those that want to continue getting that wolf restoration and depredation money for as long as possible. Real wolf education needs to start. That starts with getting the public to see that wolves are really not an endangered species. Overcoming all of this information to the contrary, that has been going since 1974, is a huge task that needs to be overcome. Wolves need to be seen as just another big game animal that needs to be managed as coyotes and bears are managed. They are at the top of the natural food chain, and have no enemies in nature other diseases and prey avail availability to control their numbers. Their numbers do need to be controlled by hunting and and trapping. The wolf plan has to start saying this very clearly.

We are already at the number of wolves when killing them to keep the number of them and the problems they are causing within reason needs to start. Page 52 says this is 300 to 500 wolves. Whatever this number really is, we are already there. This is the information that should be coming out of this wolf meeting.

There is no need to be afraid of animal rights law suits when the needed wolf control starts. Just look at what happened in Minnesota. Just as here in Wisconsin, Minnesota wolf supporters had a wolf plan in place which allowed wolves to be everywhere in uncontrollable numbers. But the Minnesota Legislature passed a law that allows killing wolves by people to protect their properties as needed in the southern 2/3s of the state. The animal rights people filed a suit against this, but it was promptly dismissed by the court. In Wisconsin any jury or court will do the same.

These are just some of the things that the Wolf Advisory Board should be getting from this meeting. We should be under a wolf plan that reflects the real wolf situation and deals with it to the benefit of the people and what is best for them and the wolves, not just the bureaucrats

that live off of wolves.

For People Against Wolves.

Lawrence Krak

715-447-5739

cen99449@centurytel.net

PO Box 145

Gilman, WI 54433

April 6, 2001

To Wolf Stakeholders Group:

The following points need to be addressed.

1. Wisconsin wolves and US wolves are the top of the line or natural food chain.

A very basic completely overlooked fact regarding wolves in Wisconsin and the rest of the US is that wolves are the top of the line or natural food chain. This means that they have no enemies in nature and that their numbers are only controlled by food supply and diseases. They have a position here exactly like the lions have in Africa. If man does not intervene and control their numbers by hunting and trapping they keep increasing their numbers and range until they kill off all prey and start starving. It is documented that this did actually happen in a large part of Minnesota. National Wildlife, March 1985

Classifying wolves as endangered does not permit any needed human wolf number control measures. Having zones in which there is no lethal wolf control allowed assures that there will always be an overflow of wolves to bordering zones to cause problems. Even if lethal control is used on problem wolves, it does not reduce the continuing depredation as the Minnesota experience shows. Trapping and relocating problem wolves should be stopped. Wolves often will go over a hundred miles to return to their original capture site. Records show that a wolf collared north of the Twin Cities in Minnesota crossed into Wisconsin and came near Madison and returned back to the capture site for a trip of over 600 miles.

The only possible conclusion is that wolves have to be hunted and trapped everywhere they exist. Wolf hunting was met with protests in presentations of this in our wolf plan because the preceding facts were not stated. These protestors have no facts to support their position.

2. Wolves are not an endangered species.

Wolves are really not an endangered species. In 1974 when they were declared endangered and now there are at least 60,000 in Canada. They cross the international boundary at will into Minnesota, Michigan and North Dakota as part of a huge North American wolf population. If there are 300, or 500, or none at all in Wisconsin, or 1,500, or 2,600 as now, or none at all in Minnesota really makes no difference what so ever in the total North American wolf survival if their huge number and the vast area they have in Canada is considered.

So we are not doing a noble thing by calling wolves endangered. Never were they in any danger of vanishing as the passenger pigeon did. The People Against Wolves lays out how the USFWS got around all these facts and used Discrete Population Segments as the amended Endangered Species Act allowed them to and to give us the situation we have now.

People of Wisconsin are just not aware of how much this is costing them. For instance for the years 98-99 it was $40,358.72 state, $160,506.58 fed for a total of $200,865.36 and for 99-00 it was $48,423.15 state, $210,251.08 fed for $258,674.23 total. On a federal total level it comes to well over three million per year for the USFWS alone nationally.

The People Against Wolves web site clearly shows that Minnesota has a huge net loss when what the 2,600 wolves bring in versus the losses in deer hunting are compared to those of Wisconsin with 250 wolves, all other factors being very comparable.

It is a fact that we got along just fine without wolves from 1950 to 1980 in Wisconsin. Just because all of these facts were not known and the right questions were not asked from 1974 up to now is not any reason why we cannot raise them now.

Considering all the above stated facts, Wisconsin should stop participating in federal wolf restoration. Wolves are not an endangered species and the people can decide how to manage them.

3. Wisconsin Statutes need to be changed.

At present Wisconsin Statutes call for a duplication of federal species classifications. So because wolves are declared endangered federally, we must do the same in Wisconsin. Wolves are clearly not an endangered species. It should be possible for the people of the State to give wolves a classification they think is right by changing the Statutes to allow this..

4. Endangered Species conflict of interest needs to be removed.

There is a conflict of interest if the Bureau of Endangered Resources, a part of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, can declare something to be an endangered species and then have WDNR personnel be employed in restoring it. These two activities need to be in separate agencies to avoid this conflict. There is a further conflict if the same WDNR people have the power to accept or reject petitions to curtail or limit their restoration or managing activities. The legislature needs to address this problem.

5. Incidental Taking provision needs to be utilized

Incidental taking of endangered species has been a part of Wisconsin law for quite some time. This should be utilized to lethally remove problem wolves anywhere in the State and especially in zone 1.

5. The Treehaven Policy needs to be changed.

At present the wolf studies at Treehaven do not cover any of the negative aspects of wolves in Wisconsin. The cost and other problems being experienced throughout the four state area needs to be covered.

From People Against Wolves

home.centurytel.net/PAW/home.htm

cen99449@centurytel.net

Lawrence Krak

PO Box 145

Gilman, WI 54433

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

July 7, 2003

Mr Charles M Wooley

USFWS, BWH Fed. Bldg.

Fort Snelling, MN 55111-4056

Dear Mr. Wooley,

The conditions that you stated for a nonessential experimental population did not exist before the Yellowstone wolf release. There were already wolves there as a result of crossing over from Canada. Enough people saw this to file a lawsuit defending their views. The same is true for this part of Idaho that I refer to. The planted wolves could not be distinguished from the wolves that were already there. So all wolves in what is now the Western Distinct Population Segment are a part of a nonessential experimental population.

The same conditions exist in Wisconsin. As I stated, there were other wolves than the 11 Larry Gehr returned to you, that he released in Wisconsin. These were wolves that you gave him and they were not all Wisconsin wolves. Your records have to show this. And as I stated in my letter to you, Gehr can verify this. So all Wisconsin wolves are not here as a result of what they did on their own. Some were truly reintroduced making all Wisconsin wolves a part of a nonessential experimental population.

Of course, you should have the means in your records to settle this. Sometime ago in a USFWS Wolf Plan you stated that a majority of wolves tested showed a hybridization with coyotes. This surely involved DNA blood work. You should be able to apply the same DNA knowhow to the blood samples that you have for every wolf that was passed on to Larry Gehr. So this question of wolf origins can be settled and it can be shown that some Wisconsin wolves were indeed reintroduced. The declaration of all Wisconsin wolves to be a nonessential experimental population follows

The biggest problem with USFWS wolf management is that you refuse to consider wolves as a North American population and ignore the Canadian wolves. Your maps show Canada as blank implying that there are not any wolves there. Taxonomy maps show Canadian wolves without that international boundary running through them. You are just hiding behind some Endangered Species Act wording that allows you to do what you do and end up calling these US wolves to endangered.

There is really no need for you to have a 1,200 wolf quota for MN and a 100 for MI and WI. These wolves are really not endangered and the people in these states should be able to manage them as they want. In Wisconsin,, where there are now over 350 wolves, there is need for far more than just down listing from endangered to threatened. Either make wolves a nonessential experimental population or totally get out and delist them, so they can be managed as the Conservation Congress indicated that the people want. In Minnesota you are not allowing a State Legislature passed wolf plan that allows people to kill wolves as needed in the southern 2/3s of that state, to go into effect. This is in spite of the fact that there are over 2,600 wolves in that state. So you should consider getting out of the wolf management in these states as soon as possible. I am going to send copies of this letter to Secretary Gale Norton and Steve Williams and hopefully they will so advise you.

You ignore the fact that wolves are the top of the line. In nature only diseases and food supply control their numbers. If left alone they continue to increase their numbers and range. Therefore man has to be able to hunt and trap them to control their numbers. This has to be done everywhere wolves are, including what you call core areas. Why are you, the USFWS, interfering in the way states want to do this with your wolf policies? How about telling how much money is being spent on this and the number of your jobs that depend on this?

That petition letter that I was referring to was dated Feb 22, 2000. This time consider the fact that wolves are really being forced in where it is not practical to have them If as many as 216 are being killed in one year for doing livestock depredation in MN, this has to be so. Also consider the conflict of interest there is within the USFWS when you declare wolves to be an endangered species, and then spend all that money on your efforts to restore them

I hope that get the idea that there is a big need for changes in USFWS wolf policy in Wisconsin and Minnesota..

Sincerely.

Lawrence Krak

Copies to

Senator Russ Feingold

Senator Herb Kohl

Ms. Gale Norton

Mr. Steve Williams

WI Governor James Doyle

WDNR Secretary Scott Hassett

.

The basic thing wrong with the Eastern Distinct Population Segment is that it does not consider the Canadian wolves. The taxonomy map for these wolves does not have that international boundary running through it. So you should not be having a DPS for continental United States wolves only. In no way are these US wolf subspecies canius lupis nubilius, that are in the US and Canadian areas involved, separate. distinct and different from their Canadian counterparts, as your definition for setting up a DPS requires. Your maps should not be showing blank areas for Canada as if there are no wolves there. When you do this it becomes obvious that your calling these wolves endangered has no basis.

So admit this and immediately delist wolves in this Eastern DPS. especially for MN and WI.

I am not getting a response from you to my letter to Mr. Wollsey, so I am sending it to you again. I am also sending my response to a Wisconsin wolf lover. Some comments in there apply to you.

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

When wolf lovers say "wolves were here first", they think that this wipes out all problems that there are in wolf-people conflicts. People must accept all wolf damage and wolf negatives because "wolves were here first".

If this same logic is applied universally to not only wolves but to all other naturally occurring living things in the environment, we could not have the civilization and life style we all enjoy. No matter where you live, your house and all its electrical appliances, food on your table, clothes on your back, automobile and roads on which you drive it and everything else you take for granted are a result of removing and replacing wolves and all other things that were there first in the environment.

So it is hypocrisy of the highest for urban dwelling environmentalists to give us this "wolves were here first" stuff. They do not have wolves that were here first running the streets and killing their pets and making them worry about their children at play. But people living in what they call "the wild", actually a mix of wooded and cultivated land, should tolerate loss of livestock, hunting opportunities and waste of tax payer money due to wolves.

Wolf lovers like to say that after all wolves are one of God's creatures and they are only doing what they were put here to do. Well so are rats and mice God's creatures. Do we allow them to have a free rein in our buildings and do their thing? We kill and remove them by whatever means we have at our disposal where they are in conflict with our activities. The same reasoning can be applied to wolves that conflict with our activities once it is established that they are not an endangered species.

The time for this first or initial conditions is arbitrary. Wolf lovers do not like going back to the time of Columbus and including all things, not only wolves. This totally destroys their argument. The best choice for this starting time is about 1950 when all the wolves were eliminated from most of the US. So the livestock and the game hunters harvest is really there first. The wolves are really the "Johnny come lately". The wolves that came as a result of being declared endangered and restored by the federal government are not there first whether they migrated or were planted. According to the Endangered Species Act, this restoring was to only be in places where it is practicable. The problems that these restored wolves are causing shows that this is not being followed.

So I hope that we have heard the last of "wolves were here first".

From now on at least $250,000 will be spent per year on Wisconsin wolves. To use per year averages to bring this number down is misleading. Further much of this is Pitman-Robertson tax money from sale of guns and ammunition that congress intended to be used to replace game taken by hunters. Here it is being used to restore wolves that take game away from hunters.

In Minnesota the people are not told how much. their wolves are costing them. The MDNR answers requests for this information by saying that they do not keep any record of this. They have to know to the last cent how much State, USDA and USFWS money is going into wolves each year and it won't be very long before they are forced to disclose this. The more that write their legislators, the sooner it will be.

If you believe that wolves are really an endangered species, then you will have no trouble believing that the Wisconsin central forest wolves are all there as a result of natural migration.

For a complete treatment of all these wolf issues visit the People Against Wolves web site at home.centurytel.net/PAW/home.htm

For People Against Wolves

Lawrence Krak

PO Box 145

Gilman, WI 54433

715-447-5739

Wisconsin wolf restoration totally depends on the USFWS calling wolves an endangered species and paying them money to support these restoration efforts. How can this be if I can go a couple hundred miles to the north into Canada, buy a license, and kill as many wolves as I come across? Clearly Adrian Wydeven and the WDNR wolf restorers are living off of an endangered wolf lie.

Follow the reasoning used by the USFWS to turn down a petition to correct this in the People Against Wolves web site. To separate US wolves from Canadian wolves, they use the international boundary to make US wolves an Endangered Distinct Population Segment. This takes advantage of an amendment to the Endangered Species Act. Of course the wolves do not know that this boundary exists, and cross it back and forth at will. Lots of them stay, taking advantage of that US super endangered protection.

These wolves are supplying Wydeven and his WDNR wolf restoring cohorts a great meal ticket. Last year it was $54,647.49 State and $219,124.44 for a total of $273,762.67. That is the main reason why wolves were forced into Wisconsin, and why these people are doing all they can to keep things as they are for as long as possible. If you doubt this, just attend a Wolf Advisory Board or Stakeholder meeting and you will see them openly doing this. Wydeven’s claim that he wants wolves delisted as soon as possible is just another one of his lies.

Why does Wydeven make such a big deal of that Wisconsin wolves were not reintroduced, as Rollie Petersen said? By his own admission, all of the wolves we have are not exactly where they now are at the present time because of what they did completely on their own. He calls it translocation, when a killer wolf is hauled off and let go somewhere. In addition to this, some of these wolves are inoculated and even named. Nobody can say that these Wisconsin wolves are a totally wild, completely naturally occurring population. The USFWS should have no trouble at all granting permission for Wisconsin to call these wolves an experimental population. Wisconsin has to start demanding that they do this This could be implemented to give people the right to kill wolves, as they can do with coyotes, as part of a management plan.

Further, if some of the WDNR wolf promoters are not able to support this kind of wolf policy, which most Wisconsin people want, they should be fired. It makes no difference how the wolves that are causing the people problems got where they are. The present USFWS wolf policy makes it impossible for the people to manage wolves as they want and need.

A lot of people raise questions about how all of those wolves we have got here. Add to this the story of the Gehr wolves.

Most of all, they try to set aside what went on in our area 1980. A while before that, Larry Gehr of Gresham, WI turned over 12 wolves to theUSFWS for release in the wild. These were Wisconsin wolves he had been keeping in a pen. He found himself unable to care for them any longer.

So out of the clear blue, on the Friday night before deer hunting season, Cliff Witta and Frank Vanacek, then employed by the DNR, went on WIGM radio announcing that Lincoln County would be closed to coyote hunting because there were now 12 wolves there. Hunters might mistake them for coyotes.

So how did these 12 wolves appear so suddenly in Lincoln County? There were no other wolves within a 100 miles. Those Lincoln County wolves had to be the Gehr wolves. There is just too much coincidence, such as time frame, number of wolves involved, absence of other wolves near there, etc, that points to this conclusion.

The USFWS answer to this is that the Gehr wolves were kept for breeding stock, and none were released in the Wisconsin. This is not enough to set aside my claim that the Gehr wolves were released in Lincoln County . We now have DNA Analysis which can be applied to blood samples that had to have been taken even in 1980. That was surely done then as it is now with every wolf that is being handled. If any wolf turns out to be related to the Gehr wolves it clearly imply that these Gehr wolves were released as I say.

This is so important because it would establish that some Wisconsin wolves were indeed planted. So it would quickly follow that all Wisconsin wolves are a part of an experimental population. The USFWS would have to go along, whether they want to or not. This would free Wisconsin from their endangered or threatened dictate, and make it possible to manage wolves as they should be.

Of course, it also follows that our DNR really does not want this to happen. They want things to go on as they do for as long as they can get away with it. They love all that wolf restoration money they are getting. They cannot be trusted with the DNA Analysis and passing on the result. The Legislature needs to contract for this testing and provide the answer. This is sad state the Wisconsin wolf situation is in. If you do not believe what I am saying, just go to a Stakeholder meeting and see the DNR wolf promoters trying to keep things as they are for as long as they can.

If you do not believe what I say about the Gehr wolves, you can get a copy from the Wausau Daily Herald archives. Or I can send you a copy of the story as it was carried by that paper.

For People Against Wolves

Lawrence Krak

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

715.447.5739

380 S 8th Ave

Gilman, WI 54433

Feb 9, 2004

Ms. Lynn Lewis, USFWS

BHW Fed. Bldg. 1 Federal Dr.

Fort Snelling, MN 55111-4056

Dear Ms. Lewis,

Thank you for responding for Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, and attempting to explain why my petition to totally delist gray wolves is still being denied.

With the materials that you sent with your letter, you document how the USFWS is able to classify gray wolves as an endangered species. Take away your use of the international boundary between U.S.-Canada to set up that "discreteness" of that Eastern Distinct Population Segment, and the required separation for setting up a DPS vanishes. The wolves do not know of this international boundary, as they cross back and forth between the two countries. Neither does the taxonomy of the Canis Lapis Nubilius sub species,(ref # 1) recognize this international boundary. The sub species covers an area extending from northern most Canada, through the U.S. down to Texas and Arizona. Only for their benefit, the USFWS invokes that international boundary because the Endangered Species Act allows them to. But for the wolves, the international boundary and the Eastern Distinct Population Segment is non existent.

The use of this international boundary to set up that endangered Eastern Distinct Population Segment, was really the main argument for denying my delisting petition. So I am asking that it be looked at again.

The USFWS must stop acting totally for it’s own benefit, as it is doing in classifying gray wolves endangered. I again point out the great conflict of interest there is in being able to classify gray wolves endangered, and then spend huge amounts of tax payer money on USFWS and State bureaucrats to restore them. To further this conflict, the USFWS is able to rule on petitions, such as mine, to correct what they have been doing.

In my petition, I point out that the ESA says that species should be restored to their former range where practicable. If this restoring leads to as many as 216 wolves being killed in one year in Minnesota for livestock depredation, then they have been restored to places where it is not practicable to have them. Many other problems have resulted from this restoration of wolves. Mainly, all places in WI, MI, MN and SD, outside the Minnesota Northen Boundary Wilderness, are not prime wilderness. People’s activities of farming, hunting, trapping, urban and rural living, etc. are the most important things that go on in this ecology. Nothing interferes as much with these States being to deal with, and manage these wolves, as their being an endangered species and totally under USFWS control. True, States have Wolf Management Plans, but they are only extensions of USFWS dictates

The USFWS wolf management, based on the Endangered Eastern DPS, is a failure. More is needed than just removing wolves trapped while doing depredation on livestock. This is happening in both MN and WI every year .States need to be able to reduce the number of wolves to have any effect in this problem.

It needs to be understood that wolves are the top of the line in the natural food chain. They have no enemies in nature. Nature controls their numbers by diseases and availability of prey. So if man does not intervene to do this number controlling, they keep increasing their range and numbers. Federal wolf policy, with it’s endangered wolf, prevents the States from doing this needed wolf number control in their wolf management.

So States, not USFWS bureaucrats, need to have control over their wolves. With the USFWS admitting that wolves are not an endangered species, and never were, would immediately give them this. An alternative would be to have the USFWS declare all wolves in the Eastern DPS an experimental population, and give land owners the right to remove wolves as needed.

As you pointed out, the Endangered Species Act prevents the Secretary of the Interior from acting alone to do this needed total delisting of wolves, and total exodus of the USFWS from wolf management in these four States.. However it can be done by a consortium of the Secretaries of Interior, Commerce and Agriculture. But Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, can be the main player in bringing this about.

So it is possible to give the people what I am asking for in my petition.

Sincerely Yours,

Lawrence Krak

References:

#1 Hall, E.R. 1981 The Mammals of North America, 2nd edition, 2 vols, John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY

#2 Mech L.D. 1974, Canius Lupis, Mammalian Species, No 37, Am Soc of Mammalogists

#3 The Endangered Species Act

Copies to:

US Senator Russ Feingold

US Senator Herb Kohl

US Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton

WI Governor James Doyle

WDNR Secretary Scott Hassett

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