Around 300 people vented their anger at gray wolves during a Congressional listening session in Willow River on Monday evening. It was the latest in a string of packed meetings in northern Minnesota where area residents lashed out at wolves, blaming them for a poor deer hunting season, killing livestock and threatening pets.
Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber hosted the meeting. It followed on the heels of more than a dozen town halls around the state convened by a new group called Hunters for Hunters, which is mobilizing to pressure state and federal lawmakers to reduce wolf numbers across northern Minnesota.
Stauber is pushing an effort to remove wolves from the federal Endangered Species Act, and return them to stage management, a move that could open the door for a wolf hunting season.
Currently, wolves are considered a threatened species in Minnesota, meaning they can only be killed in self-defense. Federal agents are also allowed to trap wolves that prey on livestock or pets.
“We need to celebrate the recovery of the gray wolf. And we can celebrate the wolf recovery by delisting them,” Stauber said. “Minnesota is at the tip of this conversation. We have more wolves than any other state in the lower 48.”