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"A 2012 state law requires Wisconsin to hold a wolf hunt whenever gray wolves are not federally protected." Not sure how to ask for an explanation of this with

"A 2012 state law requires Wisconsin to hold a wolf hunt whenever gray wolves are not federally protected." Not sure how to ask for an explanation of this without profanity.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
It’s not clear what this sentence is trying to mean. It may just be saying that wolf culls can only occur during parts of the year when they’re allowed to be culled under federal law, rather then that they have to be culled, although the latter interpretation would be ok too, right? I’m no expert but wouldn’t unchecked wolf numbers rapidly become a significant risk to humans and live stock?
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  If they could grow in a truly unchecked manner, sure, but this generally isn't a concern with apex predators -- their population is kept in check by availability of resources. We see this in action with the wolves in Yellowstone, which remain federally protected -- the wolf population stabilized at around 100 animals. https://nywolf.org/2019/01/wolves-naturally-limit-their-own-numbers/ https://nywolf.org/2019/01/wolves-naturally-limit-their-own-... So it's probably vanishingly rare that wolf packs would need to be culled. Most of the concern over wolves, from what I've seen over the years, has historically come from - game hunters, because when you remove wolves from an ecosystem, game animal population does grow in a relatively unchecked manner; - ranchers who see wolves as an existential threat to their livestock and therefore livelihood. The latter tends to be rather overemphasized by ranchers, from all the evidence I can find; they happen, but statistically, livestock is far more likely to be killed by coyotes. (It's not impossible that if the ranchers let the wolves alone they might suffer less carnivore predation: coyotes and wolves don't like to share territory.)
rtpg 5y ago
https://news.wisc.edu/tolerance-of-wolves-in-wisconsin-continues-to-decline/ https://news.wisc.edu/tolerance-of-wolves-in-wisconsin-conti... this article seems to have more. Reading it sideways, what seems to come out is: > “There was a notion held widely in the scientific literature and said at public meetings that a public hunting season would increase acceptance of wolves,” says Adrian Treves, professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and co-author of the study. > Treves isn’t certain whether most hunters in Wisconsin will ever embrace wolves because the predators feed on the white-tailed deer that hunters value. > “It’s easier to talk about and tally the costs of dead calves than it is to talk about improved populations of endangered plant species or the other ecosystem benefits that come with wolves.” Sounds like it's basically that hunters dislike wolves (I imagine rural populations aren't fans either...) and that's kind of the default position. And Wisconsin seems to have adopted this hunt as a way to keep the population under control and "release pressure" from, for example, trying to get them completely wiped out. Pretty nasty, though my impression is that wolves are not really accepted much anywhere in the US? I don't know if this is more cruel than other mid-western states or not.
- labster 5y ago
  Based on an environmental policy class I took in university, it seems like wolves are lupae non grata wherever they appear. There seem to be two root causes: ranchers don’t like wolves eating their livestock, and people are just frightened of them. Some of the fright is instinctual, but it’s certainly played up by the ranchers. Essentially anywhere and everywhere wolves are reintroduced, people start freaking out. Some wolves end up shot even when it is illegal, but more are shot when it is not. This is one of those intractable problems because the benefits of predators to wildland is very high, but innate fear and economic concerns keep a solution out of reach. It’s not reasonable to ask ranchers not to carry firearms because wolves and bears are in fact dangerous, and they have economic incentives not to comply with wolf protections.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > it seems like wolves are lupae non grata wherever they appear Lupi non grati. ;D (non grata isn't an independent phrase; it ends in -a because it has to agree with persona.) (And while lupae could mean "exclusively female wolves", I think it's more likely to mean "prostitutes".)
    - didgeoridoo 5y ago
      Lupi eunt domus!
      - jfengel 5y ago
        They are home. Which is unfortunately the problem.
    - SkittyDog 5y ago
      Cute, but I do think applying the actual Latin declination diminishes the rhetorical value of the phrase. English is mostly not declined, so readers in English often don't understand or expect to see words modified as dramatically as Latin grammar requires. So it becomes distracting, and probably ruins the joke for (the vast majority of) readers who don't know Latin. I would have gone with "lupa no grata" or even "lupus non grata" to maximize intelligibility to English readers. Classical Latin makes up a pretty tiny fraction of the lifetime of actual Latin usage, anyway. It happens to make up the bulk of the written literature that got passed down to modern scholars, but a hell of a lot more people actually spoke various pidgins of Latin, or transitional language as it changed into the Romance languages.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
Not sure the article is accurate, the law reads a lot more like 'allow' than 'require', maybe you can say they're required to decide how many licenses to issue. But why would the state have to require a wolf hunt? People want to hunt wolves, they're just waiting for the state to allow them. > If the wolf is not listed on the federal endangered list and is not listed on the state endangered list, the department shall allow the hunting and trapping of wolves and shall regulate such hunting and trapping as provided in this section and shall implement a wolf management plan. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/acts/169.pdf https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/acts/169.pdf (a 2011 law, enacted in 2012)
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Don't forget that it says, "shall allow" not "allow". What is unsaid here is that the state was sued to enforce this law, because it hadn't yet created a wolf hunt. That law also says, "(5) Seasons; zones. (a) The department shall establish a single annual open season for both hunting and trapping wolves that begins on October 15th of each year and ends on the last day of February of the following year."
- donavanm 5y ago
  > the department shall allow the hunting and trapping “Shall allow” is the operative phrase here. This is legal direction from the legislature on what actions the executive will undertake.

"A 2012 state law requires Wisconsin to hold a wolf hunt whenever gray wolves are not federally protected." Not sure how to ask for an explanation of this without profanity.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago

It’s not clear what this sentence is trying to mean. It may just be saying that wolf culls can only occur during parts of the year when they’re allowed to be culled under federal law, rather then that they have to be culled, although the latter interpretation would be ok too, right? I’m no expert but wouldn’t unchecked wolf numbers rapidly become a significant risk to humans and live stock?

chipotle_coyote 5y ago
If they could grow in a truly unchecked manner, sure, but this generally isn't a concern with apex predators -- their population is kept in check by availability of resources. We see this in action with the wolves in Yellowstone, which remain federally protected -- the wolf population stabilized at around 100 animals. https://nywolf.org/2019/01/wolves-naturally-limit-their-own-numbers/ https://nywolf.org/2019/01/wolves-naturally-limit-their-own-... So it's probably vanishingly rare that wolf packs would need to be culled. Most of the concern over wolves, from what I've seen over the years, has historically come from - game hunters, because when you remove wolves from an ecosystem, game animal population does grow in a relatively unchecked manner; - ranchers who see wolves as an existential threat to their livestock and therefore livelihood. The latter tends to be rather overemphasized by ranchers, from all the evidence I can find; they happen, but statistically, livestock is far more likely to be killed by coyotes. (It's not impossible that if the ranchers let the wolves alone they might suffer less carnivore predation: coyotes and wolves don't like to share territory.)

rtpg 5y ago

https://news.wisc.edu/tolerance-of-wolves-in-wisconsin-continues-to-decline/ https://news.wisc.edu/tolerance-of-wolves-in-wisconsin-conti... this article seems to have more. Reading it sideways, what seems to come out is: > “There was a notion held widely in the scientific literature and said at public meetings that a public hunting season would increase acceptance of wolves,” says Adrian Treves, professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and co-author of the study. > Treves isn’t certain whether most hunters in Wisconsin will ever embrace wolves because the predators feed on the white-tailed deer that hunters value. > “It’s easier to talk about and tally the costs of dead calves than it is to talk about improved populations of endangered plant species or the other ecosystem benefits that come with wolves.” Sounds like it's basically that hunters dislike wolves (I imagine rural populations aren't fans either...) and that's kind of the default position. And Wisconsin seems to have adopted this hunt as a way to keep the population under control and "release pressure" from, for example, trying to get them completely wiped out. Pretty nasty, though my impression is that wolves are not really accepted much anywhere in the US? I don't know if this is more cruel than other mid-western states or not.

labster 5y ago
Based on an environmental policy class I took in university, it seems like wolves are lupae non grata wherever they appear. There seem to be two root causes: ranchers don’t like wolves eating their livestock, and people are just frightened of them. Some of the fright is instinctual, but it’s certainly played up by the ranchers. Essentially anywhere and everywhere wolves are reintroduced, people start freaking out. Some wolves end up shot even when it is illegal, but more are shot when it is not. This is one of those intractable problems because the benefits of predators to wildland is very high, but innate fear and economic concerns keep a solution out of reach. It’s not reasonable to ask ranchers not to carry firearms because wolves and bears are in fact dangerous, and they have economic incentives not to comply with wolf protections.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > it seems like wolves are lupae non grata wherever they appear Lupi non grati. ;D (non grata isn't an independent phrase; it ends in -a because it has to agree with persona.) (And while lupae could mean "exclusively female wolves", I think it's more likely to mean "prostitutes".)
  - didgeoridoo 5y ago
    Lupi eunt domus!
    - jfengel 5y ago
      They are home. Which is unfortunately the problem.
  - SkittyDog 5y ago
    Cute, but I do think applying the actual Latin declination diminishes the rhetorical value of the phrase. English is mostly not declined, so readers in English often don't understand or expect to see words modified as dramatically as Latin grammar requires. So it becomes distracting, and probably ruins the joke for (the vast majority of) readers who don't know Latin. I would have gone with "lupa no grata" or even "lupus non grata" to maximize intelligibility to English readers. Classical Latin makes up a pretty tiny fraction of the lifetime of actual Latin usage, anyway. It happens to make up the bulk of the written literature that got passed down to modern scholars, but a hell of a lot more people actually spoke various pidgins of Latin, or transitional language as it changed into the Romance languages.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Not sure the article is accurate, the law reads a lot more like 'allow' than 'require', maybe you can say they're required to decide how many licenses to issue. But why would the state have to require a wolf hunt? People want to hunt wolves, they're just waiting for the state to allow them. > If the wolf is not listed on the federal endangered list and is not listed on the state endangered list, the department shall allow the hunting and trapping of wolves and shall regulate such hunting and trapping as provided in this section and shall implement a wolf management plan. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/acts/169.pdf https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/acts/169.pdf (a 2011 law, enacted in 2012)

IncRnd 5y ago
Don't forget that it says, "shall allow" not "allow". What is unsaid here is that the state was sued to enforce this law, because it hadn't yet created a wolf hunt. That law also says, "(5) Seasons; zones. (a) The department shall establish a single annual open season for both hunting and trapping wolves that begins on October 15th of each year and ends on the last day of February of the following year."
donavanm 5y ago
> the department shall allow the hunting and trapping “Shall allow” is the operative phrase here. This is legal direction from the legislature on what actions the executive will undertake.