Wisconsin DNR board starts wolf hunt revision process

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Department of Natural Resources policy board started the process Wednesday of revising Wisconsin’s wolf hunt rules to potentially prohibit night hunting and shorten the window for registering kills after hunters blew past their quota in February.

The board authorized the department to schedule a hearing on a general proposal to revise the regulations during a meeting Wednesday morning with no discussion.

Specific changes won’t be on the official agenda, but DNR officials told the board in a memo earlier this month they want to eliminate night hunting, create a shorter registration window and create zone-specific tags rather than statewide tags to get a better read on kill totals in different regions. The hearing will be the first step toward making revisions.

Last year, the department was preparing for a November hunt but an out-of-state group named Hunter Nation won a court order forcing a February start.

That hunt killed 218 wolves in four days — blowing past the 119 quota and forcing the DNR to end the season three days early.

The Trump administration removed wolves from the federal endangered species list in January. Wisconsin law requires the DNR to hold a wolf hunt from November to February if wolves are fair game.