By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Wolf hunting licenses are expected to go on sale in Michigan on Sept. 28, with 1,200 licenses available, but the effort will not be without considerable controversy ginned up by the publication of a hunting sabotage manual by Earth First!
According to an Associated Press report that spread to newspapers in Montana, Idaho, Washington, California and Michigan, the “Wolf Hunt Sabotage Manual” is allegedly the work of hunters who “aren’t proud of what passes for hunting these days and especially for what passes as ‘sportsman’ hunting.”
“Somehow,” the manual says, “the National Rifle Association, yuppie trophy hunters, cattle barons, and the Obama Administration are in cahoots in an effort that promises to wipe wolves clean off the planet. And in that case, we choose to be saboteurs for the wild.”
The booklet then outlines how to destroy traps, harass trappers and interfere with legal hunts by blowing air horns and using other noisemakers, smoke bombs, whistles and trumpets. It counsels saboteurs to have an attorney at the ready, preferably pro-Bono, and to have a Sabotage manual stirs big flap as Michigan plans wolf hunt camera to “provide documentation and ward off aggressive hunters.”
The story quoted an Earth First! spokesman identified as Grayson Flory, who claims his group merely published the 12-page document, which he asserted was written by a group calling itself the “Redneck Wolf Lovin’ Brigade.” Animal rights advocate Wayne Pacelle was in Michigan to campaign against the Upper Peninsula hunt.
There is a move to overturn a Michigan law allowing the Natural Resources Commission to manage wolves as a game animal. That measure would be on the November 2014 ballot.
The commission is a regulatory body, noted The Mining Journal, so an earlier referendum that tried to overturn the game designation was derailed by the state statute.
“Because of a contemptuous action by the Legislature to nullify the practical effect of that ballot measure, we have launched a second referendum to maintain the rights of Michiganders to protect wolves and all wildlife,” Pacelle said, in remarks quoted by The Mining Journal. “The Legislature is trying to hand off responsibility for opening a hunting season on any species to a handful of unelected bureaucrats.”
Pacelle’s comment ignores the fact that Michigan operates essentially like every other state in that hunting seasons are set by a commission or commissioner, based on recommendations from wildlife managers and biologists, rather than by the legislature.
Licenses for Michigan residents will cost $100 and for non-residents, $500.
Wolf hunting is also allowed in Idaho and Montana, and has been the subject of much controversy.
