AURORA – A crowd of over 300 packed the gymnasium at the Loon Lake Community Center south of Aurora last Thursday to show their support for a new hunter’s advocacy group, Hunters4Hunters, and their quest to address what they say is the problem of wolves decimating the deer population in Minnesota.
The group’s claims are at odds with analyses done by the Department of Natural Resources, Voyageurs Wolf Project and others, which have identified recent hard winters as the primary cause of a decrease in deer numbers and the resulting decline in hunter success in northeastern Minnesota. Instead, the group’s leaders insist that gray wolves are to blame. Hunters4Hunters wants the DNR to establish a wolf hunting season to decrease the number of wolves and allow the deer population to recover.
“My starting slide here, you see the wolf in the background chasing that deer? You see this deer here with the chunk of flesh hanging off its hind quarters? You see the wolf behind this one here? This is happening 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” said Hunters4Hunters organizer Steve Porter, a retired law enforcement officer. “We’re in an emergency situation, and the Voyageurs Wolf Project wants to tell you that they (wolves) only eat berries and beavers.”
Throughout the nearly two-hour long presentation, Porter variously cited government as the problem and government as the solution for the alleged wolf problem.
“I don’t care about Democrats, I don’t care about Republicans – I want to know who represents you,” Porter said. “We’re going to talk about that tonight, and we’re going to talk about solutions. How can we control the wolves? We need Democrats and Republicans to get stuff done. We need bipartisan support.”
Porter talked about the need for a two-pronged approach that begins with a grassroots effort like Hunters4Hunters “making noise” across the state and bringing attention to the need to control the wolf population.
A second needed initiative, Porter said, is to work at the federal level to get the gray wolf delisted under the Endangered Species Act in Minnesota, as it has been in several northern Rocky Mountain states. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed completely delisting the gray wolf, contending the population had recovered and no longer needed protection. That rule was reversed by a court decision in 2022, and gray wolves remain protected as “threatened” in Minnesota under federal law.
Porter suggested that if the state had the same political will as it did with marijuana, Minnesota could have a wolf season despite the listing.
“Can the state of Minnesota sue the feds for us?” Porter said. “You bet they could. Could the state of Minnesota legislate a wolf season in opposition to federal law? Could they just put their nose in the air and say you know what, we’re having a wolf season? You guys are nodding yes, they can do it. If it’s something important like marijuana then they can go against the government and pass it and legalize it, but it’s got to be an important issue. They legalized marijuana because that was at the top of the list.”
Porter suggested another avenue available to the DNR, its expedited emergency rulemaking authority, which it can use to bypass legislative approval in the event of an emergency.
“They don’t need the Congress, all the senators and representatives to agree to a law,” Porter said. “They can extend seasons, they can have extra seasons, they can do whatever they want in an emergency. Are you guys in an emergency right now?”
The crowd responded with a loud “yes.”
“Yeah, you are. Do you think Minnesota would act as if it’s an emergency?” Porter said.
This time a loud “no” was the response.
“They’ll tell you we can’t go against the feds,” Porter said. “It seems to me we’re picking and choosing which federal laws we appreciate and which ones we don’t.”
Response to comments from Porter and others at the meeting suggested a general consensus among attendees that the DNR is seen as an obstacle to overcome rather than a partner in the quest to strike an appropriate balance between wolves and deer. Porter read an excerpt from a letter from the Babbitt Sportsman’s Club that illustrated the point.
“The Babbitt Sportsman’s Club said that through the years the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has done an excellent job of managing parks, historical areas, blah, blah, blah, and then it says however, when it comes to recent management efforts concerning the gray wolf, deer and moose, the DNR gets a vote of no confidence,” Porter said.
Legislative avenues
Porter devoted much of his presentation to more conventional means of legislative relief at both the state and federal levels.
Porter referred to a bill in the Minnesota Senate proposed by Sixth District Sen. Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids, that would require the DNR to hold a wolf hunting season if the animal is delisted. A companion bill in the House was co-sponsored by District 3A Rep. Roger Skraba.
Porter showed a video of debate on the Senate floor where Eichorn’s proposal was opposed by District 67 Sen. Foung Hawj, DFL-St. Paul.
“This is one of the number one things people talk to me about in my district,” Eichorn said. “I can’t go to Home Depot or the grocery store or to Anytime Fitness without somebody asking me about the wolf hunt. This isn’t going to force a wolf hunt immediately, but when the wolf gets delisted the DNR should be ready and prepared.”
Hawj said he was a hunter but opposed the wolf hunt because of the wolf’s sacred status in Anishinaabe culture.
“I heard from my constituents, especially the Native community, to regard their sacred animal as the highest thing,” Hawj said. “My highest regard is toward the Anishinaabe.”
Porter encouraged attendees to look up the bills online to see who represents them.
“I don’t care about politics – we need to come together,” Porter said. He then turned political, arguing that GOP lawmakers seem to be more supportive of a wolf hunt than their DFL counterparts. “I look where it says authors and status and I see who signed off on that bill in our House of Representatives, and it just so happens that every one of these guys has an R behind their name.”
Porter emphasized that Hunters4Hunters wants to be and will be a strong advocate in St. Paul and encouraged people to become members to increase their clout.
“We can be your voice, but I need your email,” Porter said. “I need you guys at the Capitol. We’re going to rent a bus. We’re going to fill several buses. I need your email to coordinate this thing. Can we keep this grassroots movement going?”
At the congressional level, Porter says he has forged a connection with Don Peay, co-founder of the group Hunter Nation and one of the key people behind the passage of federal legislation to delist the gray wolf in the northern Rocky Mountain states. Peay is going to lend his expertise and experience to the Minnesota cause.
“What matters is 100,000 pissed off hunters in Wisconsin and Michigan and Minnesota saying we’re not taking it anymore,” Peay said in a video message. “We’re going to get behind you and fellow sportsmen, I just have to tell you that we did it. Everyone told us we could not beat the anti-hunter environmentalists and we did it, and now we’re killing wolves in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming.”
With the current Republican majority in the House, passage of a bill out of that chamber could be accomplished quickly, Porter suggested. But it will take a bipartisan effort in the Senate, and Porter said Peay passed along some encouraging context for getting something done.
“He said ‘You don’t need to convince 200,000 liberals down in the Twin Cities, you need to convince about three Congresspeople,’” Porter said. “We’ve got to get three Democrats in Congress to come on board. It can happen quick if we keep the movement going.”
Johnny Eloranta, district director for Rep. Pete Stauber, addressed the crowd, indicating that the wolf issue is something Stauber hears about “almost constantly.”
“People have been reaching out and we like to see it,” Eloranta said. “I love to see this full gymnasium of people. We shouldn’t have to do this, but this is where we’re at.”
Stauber supports delisting the gray wolf and is a co-author of Tiffany’s legislation, Eloranta said. He also took aim at Minnesota’s wolf management plan.
“Who here has read the governor’s wolf management plan? It’s a joke of a plan,” he said. “Even if the feds do delist it, we need to change that plan.”
Congress has been working on some revisions to the Endangered Species Act, and Eloranta said Sen. Amy Klobuchar should be lobbied as a possible swing vote.
“You know exactly what the long-eared bat issue is and what that does to loggers,” Eloranta said. “She voted the right way on that specific issue, she could do it again. You need to let your voice be heard.”
Skraba targeted the Walz administration as the biggest roadblock to getting a wolf hunt in Minnesota.
“If you want change, I can tell you the best way to change is to vote for a different governor,” Skraba said. “You have a governor who appointed a commissioner who doesn’t want to do this. We have a lieutenant governor who is Native American and came out very publicly saying, ‘I belong to the wolf clan and as long as I am the lieutenant governor there will not be a wolf season.’ I’m just giving you the facts.”
Hidden agendas?
Other speakers at the meeting had more conspiratorial notions, suggesting that the DNR might have ulterior motives for preserving the wolf population and letting the deer population decline.
Scott Collins, who arranged for Porter to bring Hunters4Hunters to the community center, expressed his doubts.
“Sometimes you wonder if there’s a more sinister plan why they don’t manage these wolves,” he said. “Young kids today go ten years without seeing a deer, and maybe they’ll quit hunting. Why did the DNR even have a season? They knew there was no deer out there.”
Another speaker picked up on the theme.
“Make no mistake, this is more than just a wolf problem,” he said. “This is an agenda to keep the wolves high so hunting parties of 14 maybe get one deer and the kids quit hunting and the dads quit hunting. They’re after our guns. Make no mistake. Governor Walz and Keith Ellison, our government, they want our guns and we’re all under assault. This is the issue why we’re here, it’s more than wolves. They want to take our guns and that’s what we’ve got to stand up for.”
A woman in the crowd immediately chimed in.
“It’s not just your guns, guys,” she said. “They don’t want us up here. They do not want people in northern Minnesota. They want this for their own elite, whatever you call it, playground. They want us out of here.”
Porter responded.
“If you would have told me that five years ago I’d have said you were wrong,” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed that. But I believe it now. I think that in their perfect utopia there is a balance between wolves and deer and it does not include hunters, it does not include gun owners, and it does not include landowners.”
Porter and other Hunters4Hunters board members have been paying to travel for meetings out of their own pockets, Porter said, noting that he was spending about $800 just last week. A collection taken to defray expenses pulled in $2,138.
The Hunters4Hunters website shows the organization has eight more scheduled public meetings through the end of January.