2012: Wolf hunt legislation tops year's headlines

Part of the whirlwind of legislation considered during the outgoing Congress’ lame duck session was legislation that would designate the gray wolf a game species.

Opponents of the legislation think the move comes too soon after the wolf was delisted from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s endangered species list in January 2012. But proponents of the measure think that wolves need to be managed for the benefit of farmers and for public perception of the wolf, which might suffer if the wolf population proves detrimental to livestock, pets and people.


“You’re shifting the burden to the farmer. He’s got to figure out a way to stay up all night and keep a visual on animals to legitimately shoot a wolf,” said Senator Tom Casperson (R-Escanaba), who introduced the bill. “We’re looking for a balance, and one of the ways to get there is to allow the wolf to become a game animal, to use the hunt to balance it out.”

There are two sticking points for Doug Craven, director of the Natural Resources Department with the Little Traverse Bay bands of Odawa Indians.

First, before the status of an animal is changed, the state is required to consult with the tribes, according to section 26 of the Inland Consent Decree, which covers hunting and fishing rights.

Second, he said, he’s unsure of how solid the science is behind allowing wolf hunts. While Casperson and leaders of several tribes in Michigan, including Craven, met in Brimley recently to decide upon how to estimate the wolf population, Craven is worried about more than numbers. Wolves aren’t like deer or fish, he says.

“These are social groups that really heavily rely on the alpha male or alpha female,” said Craven. “If an alpha wolf is killed, does the group die, does it move, does it fight, does it have more of a tendency to prey on livestock?”


Little Traverse Conservancy’s Bailey inducted into Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame

Tom Bailey, executive director of the Little Traverse Conservancy in Harbor Springs, was inducted into the inaugural class of the Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame.

Back in 1984, a biologist named Mark Paddock approached Little Traverse Conservancy’s Tom Bailey.

Bailey was just a few months into his job as executive director of the conservancy, and Paddock had a big project for him: to convince his board of trustees to protect a 350-plus acre parcel of land, now called the Colonial Point Memorial Forest.

The forest, Paddock told Bailey, was full of red oak and large sugar maple — “magnificent forests,” he said.

“It was threatened to be cut down and lumbered,” said Paddock, who was then associate director of the University of Michigan Biological Station near Pellston. “It was the first big project the conservancy was taking on, and Tom, as well as the board, was a little apprehensive about the project.”

In fact, said Tom Lagerstrom, current associate director of the Little Traverse Conservancy, the board shot down the proposal to purchase the land at first.

“It was slightly less than a million dollar property at the time,” said Lagerstrom. Then, Paddock conferred with Bailey.

“Less than a year later, the board approved a fundraising event. Tom spearheaded it, put the pieces into place, and that was the first major project that the conservancy did,” said Lagerstrom.

If you ask Tom Bailey, director of Little Traverse Conservancy in Harbor Springs, what he’s done for land conservation in Northern Michigan, you might get an embarrassed pause, then a lot of deflection of the conservancy’s accomplishments to the people he worked with over the years.

If you ask the Muskegon Environmental Research & Education Society, Bailey is worthy of the inaugural hall of fame class.


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