FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 19, 2018: A citizen’s monitoring effort of a planned coyote killing contest has been announced by the group, Wolf Patrol which believes the contest will put federally protected gray wolves at risk. The “KB Memorial Predator Hunt” is scheduled for January 19, 2019 in national forest lands around Townsend, Wisconsin, where in 2018 there were five reported fights between wolves and hunting dogs. Contest organizers are offering prizes for the smallest, largest and most coyotes and bobcats killed on January 19th with participants allowed to use either predator calls or hunting hounds.

Wolf Patrol is a citizen’s group opposed to hunting practices that place federally protected wolves at risk. Since 2014, the group has monitored hound hunting activities in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest where the coyote killing contest is scheduled to take place in January. “We are opposed to a contest to kill the largest coyote in federally protected gray wolf habitat.” says the group’s founder, Rod Coronado “Wildlife killing contests should not be allowed on national forest lands where the full impact to public trust resources has not been studied or reviewed.”

Wolf Patrol has asked Chequamegon-Nicolet National forest officials whether they will require contest organizers to apply for a Special Use Permit, which is required for commercial activities on national forest lands. The state of Wisconsin also requires a license to hold raffles, which have also been planned for the January coyote & bobcat killing contest, which is a memorial for a recently deceased hound hunter.

Wolf Patrol members will be in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest during the January contest with trail, video cameras and drones to watch for illegal hunting practices that are common during hound hunts for coyotes, when fights are known to occur. In March 2018, Wolf Patrol released a series of videos from northern Wisconsin hound hunters that led to a Department of Natural Resources criminal investigation into coyote hound hunting practices. In Wisconsin, it is illegal to allow hunting dogs to make contact or kill their intended prey, yet state law allows for year around coyote hunting with no bag limit.

The above mentioned videos are available on Wolf Patrol’s Vimeo site: https://vimeo.com/wolfpatrol

Red= 2018 wolf/hunting dog conflict, Blue= Killing contest location