The official start to spring is just days away, and thank goodness for it. With the change of seasons come the glorious sounds of Sandhill Cranes, the freeing temperatures above freezing, and the promise of garden bounty around the corner.
Sandhill Cranes. Photo by Mick Thompson
It also signals the Wisconsin Conservation Congress Spring Hearing, a long-time traditionin Wisconsin that allows citizen across the state to weigh in on really important conservation issues. Your votes in the hearing signal to the DNR Board what the public wants, though the results are non-binding. The hearing will be virtual again this year running from April 11-14.
Please, please participate in the Congress hearing. Below are many topics I recommend you follow, in particular the citizen resolutions relating to removing lead ammunition and tackle to prevent Bald Eagle, swan, loon, and other birds from becoming sick and dying from lead poisoning. Lead poisoning is happening on a grand scale, as you’ll see in this nation-wide study, and it is completely—I mean, COMPLETELY—preventable.
Many of us are "virtualed" and “Zoomed” out, and the hearings can be tedious and often have incredibly localized questions—how many panfish limit questions should we be expected to care about? So why bother?
This year has more reasons to care than ever before. Let's note, first of all, that while the Congress and hearings are dominated by hunters and anglers and their concerns, both have included important and broader conservation and environmental questions for many years.
The Congress format allows for four different questions or resolutions to be considered. Here's a preview of the questions I think are most interesting in the first three categories:
DNR hunting and fishing questions. If approved, these are likely to become regulations in the next few years. Not too much here except some good news underlying two questions that would allow catch and release fishing for lake sturgeon in waters that contain strong populations of the fish. The good news is that those populations are increasing as are the numbers of water bodies that contain them.
DNR Board questions. Only two, one concerning the interminable controversy about deer hunting with crossbows; the other is more fundamental and asks whether the state should adopt aggressive tactics to limit CWD.
Conservation Congress questions. My favorite asks whether burbot should be taken off the rough fish list and managed as a gamefish. Want to learn more? Check out the Post Script at the bottom.
+ The Congress also asks whether the DNR should address the danger of PFAS, the ubiquitous and eternal pollutant, to Wisconsin's groundwater, surface water, and drinking water—well timed since the conservation majority on the DNR Board just rejected such regulation.
+ Of course there is a wolf question, whether the DNR should have 350 wolves as the state goal for a wolf population. Again, check the bottom for more wolf debate information.
+ Finally, a seeming obscure question points to a big problem with the Stewardship program, calling for the DNR and Legislature to support the Stewardship-supported purchase of properties on the Lower Chippewa River by Landmark Conservancy, a northwest Wisconsin land trust. The purchases have been underway for several years and are supported by a host of local conservation organizations in that area. The fear is that they have been stopped and will be stopped in the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee through a process whereby ANY ONE MEMBER CAN STOP A STEWARDSHIP GRANT ANONYMOUSLY FOR NO REASON FOREVER. Those caps are there to highlight one of the most ridiculous and unfair procedure I've encountered in 30 years of working in state and local government.
By the time you're reading this, it's 52 degrees outside. Take a break and a cup of coffee or brandy outside, listen to the birds chirping, and then return to read about the fourth category of questions.
There, feeling better I hope. I am.
The sounds of American Robins is good for the soul. Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren
Category 4: Citizen Resolutions
The fourth category of question is the most obscure but, I think, the most important this year. These are resolutions sponsored by citizens on a county by county basis. They appear in the counties in which they have been offered and will not result in any immediate action. However, they are often the first step in bringing an issue before the Congress and the DNR. Some of these questions will appear in counties with Madison Audubon members. Please watch for them and vote.
Bald Eagle and lunch. Photo by Paul VanDerWerf FCC
Two are timely and important. A smart, passionate, and hard-working group of eagle advocates will bring forward a question calling on the Congress and DNR to begin to address the poisoning of Bald Eagles and other birds with lead ammunition. The folks working on this come from the ranks of wildlife rehabilitators and volunteer monitors of eagle nests. They have found eagles dead or sickened by lead poisoning and have cared for those birds. Watching an eagle die of lead poisoning is wrenching and UNNECESSARY. Non-toxic, lead-free, effective ammunition exists. Some of these resolutions will appear in Madison Audubon counties so please support efforts to educate hunters to use non-toxic ammo and eventually to ban such ammunition from hunting.
Secondly, please see the message below from the Mississippi Valley Conservancy and Carol Abrahamzon, its wonderful Executive Director. Ms. Abrahamzon has led the effort to have citizens create resolutions in support of the Stewardship program and to oppose the recent effort to make it easier for local governments and non-profit organizations to sell Stewardship properties. A shout out to Ms. Abrahamzon, who is among the best land trust CEOs at monitoring and educating the public about administrative and legislative changes to environmental and conservation policy. I'm not sure how many counties will have this resolution and the next one.
“There is a growing consensus in the scientific community and among governments that 30% of global lands and waters must be protected for conservation by 2030 in response to climate change and the dramatic decline in biodiversity. In Wisconsin, the Knowles-Nelson stewardship program has made possible the purchase and permanent protection of over 5,000 important natural areas for the enjoyment of the public and the benefit of the environment, helping to steadily move Wisconsin towards this goal. However, to date only 17% of Wisconsin lands have been conserved. Yet, legislators have introduced Assembly Bill 852 and Senate Bill 802 that would move things backward, allowing protected lands to be taken out of conservation and sold. This legislation would allow popular biking, hiking, fishing and hunting locations to be closed off to the public and sold for development, subject only to the requirement that the landowner refund the original grant amount, undermining the progress that has been made.
Wisconsin should not only continue its efforts, but also accelerate them, to permanently conserve natural and restored ecosystems for the benefit of the public, at the rate necessary to preserve 30% of Wisconsin’s lands by 2030. The Knowles-Nelson stewardship grant program, as the most successful state land conservation program, should be affirmed, continued, and expanded. The requirement that protected lands be preserved forever should be affirmed.”
Finally, please keep an eye for and support any local resolutions opposing Sandhill Crane hunts.
Thank you for participating in the virtual Conservation Congress. It's an example of the slow, complex work necessary for protecting our environment and conserving our natural resources.
Topf Wells, Madison Audubon advocacy committee chair
Burbot. Image by NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory FCC
P.S. The burbot is a native, cold water fish, an important resident in a variety of waters, including our Great Lakes, and the freshwater cousin to the cod. They are becoming a more popular target of anglers and, since they are classified as rough fish, they are not protected by any limit nor the subject of much research. One measure of their popularity is how often they are showing up on YouTube videos. Come on, let's give some love to a great native fish! I can't leave them without noting that the most popular current preparation for burbot is poaching them in 7UP. Someone in Wisconsin will surely add brandy.
Gray wolf. Photo by USFWS
P.S. #2: The goal of 350 wolves in Wisconsin was the best guess by DNR biologists as a goal when wolves first began to re-populate the state and no one knew how they would fare. Obviously the state can support many more than 350 wolves. If the state is to have a numerical goal, we should develop that with all we have learned about the biology of wolves, their effects on their surroundings, including their impact on human communities with many opportunities for public input. That would be an exceedingly messy and lengthy process. The folks who want more control of wolves, often translated into more wolves killed, want that 350 goal enshrined. I can't help but note that many of those folks (looking at those four conservative members of the DNR Board again) deride and discount DNR science on so many issues—PFAS, among many others—but embrace this one bit of DNR science, even though the biologists who worked on wolves then acknowledge how much they did not know and have learned.
