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people of Alliance Energy who bring safe, reliable and
environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods
and life in Wisconsin running smoothly,
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Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Lowe.
Tonight we'll take you to the Nikolay National Forest
and tell you why the old "Let's Sleeping Bear's
Lie" role is being broken.
We'll also tell you about a statewide campaign
designed to educate young men about a serious crime.
And they're off the U.S.
Senate candidates, that is, they're off on our
"Wherein Wisconsin Road Trips?"
as part of our We The People Civic Journalism
partnership. Wisconsin Public Television will spend
the next month traveling throughout the state with
the major candidates running for the U.S.
Senate currently held by Russ Fine
Gold. The candidates don't know in advance where they're going,
what they'll be asked about or who they'll be speaking with.
The idea is to connect the candidates with the people
of Wisconsin one-on-one, average citizens who get
to question the candidates about anything they want.
Reporter Frederica Freiberg brings us the first
"Wherein Wisconsin Report" with state senator and
candidate for U.S.
Senate Republican Bob Welch.
They began their day in Milton, located in southern Wisconsin.
You're a pretty good job here.
I'm Bob Welch.
I'm running for the U.S.
Senate. First stop, the Milton
Family Restaurant in Rock County, Pancakes and Coffee,
and a U.S.
Senate candidate.
So what's big news in Milton today?
The restaurant's seven employees handle the breakfast rush.
Business is solid, but their boss says she cannot afford
health insurance for them or for her own family.
And that's what she wants to talk with this
Senate candidate about.
In fact, restaurant owner, Boogie Yannuzi, says she also
flew her six-year-old daughter to her native Macedonia
to have a tonsillectomy.
Because here she found it would have cost her $7,000.
There, the surgery cost 175.
Candidate Bob Welch tells Yannuzi America has the best
health care in the world.
He says good old American competition among providers
is the way to lower health costs so people can afford it.
Well, I think we should have a market system.
You know, the market actually works and you
can shop around because people are paying attention
to how much you want to pay.
One of Welch's favorite examples of that is the cost
of elective plastic surgery, not covered by insurance.
He says those patients are paying less because consumers
who want plastic surgery are shopping for the lowest price.
Now that's something to ponder at the lunch counter,
even if just paying the bills is likely more
concerned than a tummy tuck.
Dean here was $980 a month just for the family plan.
So in Milton, Bob Welch gets an earful from locals
on their health costs.
South, down the Rock River, manufacturing job
loss is on people's minds.
Giant murals of iron workers on this closed machining
plant in Baloid stand in monument to manufacturing.
Welch, Gainley arrives in downtown Baloid
ready for whatever.
That turns out to be a rotary club luncheon.
I am a state senator now, I'm running from the U.S.
Center against Spinele.
Prepared salads in the buffet, unprepared responses
from the candidate to questions from the audience.
The lights are double stated.
They have lost a manufacturer as a number
of mid-wetelman states.
What are your thoughts on recovering that?
So the first thing is to put policies in place that
help us economy recover and help us maintain our
economic growth and vitality.
Tax cuts, capital gains, tax cuts, particular help
create more investment.
Our corporate tax rates, I mean you don't think about
this much, but compared to other countries in the world,
we're the second highest taxed country when it comes to
taxes on our manufactured goods as they're being exported.
That's just dumb.
Bob Welch likes to say as U.S.
Senator he would be like Tommy Thompson on jobs.
Welch says Tommy woke up every morning asking what
he could do to bring jobs and keep jobs in Wisconsin.
A United States Senator should have that exact same
thing on their platform and in their program in the
morning when they get up.
What are we doing today to bring jobs to Wisconsin?
At the Baloid rotary, that gets applause.
Thank you very much for your time.
We're money in education, less money in military.
That declaration from a student greets Bob Welch on the
campus of private liberal arts university, Baloid College.
After that, students surprised between classes by an impromptu
visit from a Republican U.S.
Senate candidate, mostly politely listen as
Welch explains he believes in less government, not more.
Telling students that on the issues, he's the polar opposite
of incumbent Russ Finegul.
21-year-old Brian Gallagher suggests Welch's
visit is a curiosity.
You know what we focus on here at Baloid seems to be
more of an international global perspective and
we don't really know how a senator can discuss it.
If it's into that, of course then you have Russell
Finegul through probably supported by most of the
people here on campus.
Welch says he considered Baloid College for his daughter.
She ended up at Lawrence instead.
In Green County, the new glarest hotel is the meet-up
for a group that gathers with what's on their minds.
The family situation is terrible.
For retired veteran Stan Kowalski, who lives in the
village, issues surrounding Iraq and Wisconsin's garden
reserve troops dominate the day.
The women don't know when their husbands are coming.
The kids don't know when their
daddies come back and money.
And I haven't seen anything this bad all my life.
Welch is sympathetic, but tough on sticking it out in Iraq.
We need more troops over there.
I'm not sure that it calls for a draft, but I think
we need force increased in Iraq and put the rebellion
down and put it to bed.
Welch says that will be easier said than done, and
it will take more tanks and troops, but pulling out
of Iraq is not an option.
Outside the new glarest hotel, a brown Swiss in
a chef's hat is mascot.
Outside of town, real Holstines and Jersey serve
as mascots for a visiting U.S.
Senate candidate.
You picked a good time to visit dairy farmers because
this is one of the first times in the last number of
years or the decent price.
I know, in here a year ago you might have a pitch for it.
Instead, Bob Welch fields a lot of questions from dairy farmer
Dan Trutman and his neighbors.
Trutman says five generations of his family
have farmed this land.
He wants his two young sons to take over the
dairy operation someday.
He wonders whether Bob Welch favors limiting urban sprawl,
preventing big new houses on big, country-sized plots
from encroaching on working farms that might want to
expand to stay competitive.
Because of the pressure from urban sprawl and people that
work in Madison and want to live out here in the country,
the opportunities for us to buy more land and continue
to grow our operation are becoming more and more limited.
I think we have to have some common sense in how we
have planning for growth, but I don't think we can go
around just telling farmers you can't sell your land
that we want to because then you're taking away their
value from their property.
So you think it's okay to develop rural farm
land into housing?
I don't think it's a bad thing.
I think it has to be done in a planned way though.
Trutman says while very dissatisfied with that
answer, he sure liked the chance to visit on home
turf with a candidate running for U.S.
Senate. We weren't rehearsed and
he had no idea what was going to come from us.
Bob Welch appeared to pass the rigors of a tough smart
farm crowd, including an unspoken test from a farmer.
Would the candidate be afraid of cows so up close and personal?
Dan Trutman says Bob Welch passed that test just fine.
Next week's report follows another candidate for U.S.
Senate. Find out which candidate and where in Wisconsin
they'll be by tuning into our program next Thursday.
In the meantime, you can find more information about
all of the candidates in Wisconsin's U.S.
Senate race by going to Wisconsin Vote.
The address is WisconsinVote.org.
The site is Wisconsin Public Television's
election year resource where you can find links to
campaign websites, voter registration info and more.
Again, that address is WisconsinVote.org.
Our next story deals with a very serious topic, sexual
assault. A statewide campaign developed by the Wisconsin
Coalition Against Sexual Assault is targeting teen boys
trying to educate them about the consequences of rape.
Most sexual assaults are committed by men and experts
believe the behaviors that lead to becoming a perpetrator
begin in the teen years.
Reporter Andy Sof talked with students from Middleton
High School about the effectiveness of the campaign.
It's lunchtime at Middleton High School.
A student group called Imagine that educates
peers about sexual assault is recruiting new members.
They put up posters from Wisconsin Coalition
against sexual assault.
Hey girls, we know it's hot.
When the guy respects the girl enough to ask.
The Coalition has put radio ads on stations
that appeal to teens.
It doesn't matter what we're wearing, what
we've done in the past.
And actually the guys try to grew up with.
They usually judge down what they wore.
The message strikes a cord with Nathan Sheaser.
If you see the belly, that means you could probably see it
with her in less than a month.
The more I'm smaller, the more you could get her
to take off her clothes.
I don't think all guys should be like this.
And respect is hot.
Respect. The campaign is funded through
the State Department of Health and Family Services.
It's aimed primarily at teen boys to get them to
question the attitudes and behavior that experts say
can lead to sexual assault.
Sexual assault awareness in the past has been directed
mostly at women talking about what they can do to
avoid becoming victims.
But with 97% of all sexual assaults committed by
men, today's thinking is the prevention message
has to engage men.
In the past, we've focused a lot on the victims, young women.
We still want to do that so that they understand how they
need to handle a situation.
But young men are primary participants and we have
not done a lot to focus on that in the past.
And we need to.
And experts say that focus needs to start in the teen years.
Sexual perpetrators tend to develop the beliefs and
attitudes that contribute to becoming sexually violent
in the teen years, usually by the time they're 16.
So it's a prevention campaign that targets that age group.
Nearly three quarters of all sexual assault victims in
Wisconsin are under age 18.
The average age is 15.
And if these rates continue, one out of four high school
girls will be sexually assaulted before they reach age 18.
Clearly it's a big problem.
But will young men respond to a prevention message?
At Middleton High, this Imagine member has doubts.
Are you saying that it's a good thing that these ads
are targeting guys?
No. I'm saying that if it puts
people on the defensive, then that's not a good thing.
Todd Cooperman agrees that making men
defensive doesn't work.
As a non-violence peer educator at the University of
Wisconsin, he's spoken to a lot of young men about rape.
I think with men, you need to take the approach that you're
speaking with an audience that isn't perpetrators.
You need to take the approach that you're speaking with a
group of guys that you want to get behind you on this issue.
And what I'm talking about there is not blaming your audience.
Blame from authority figures is not the point of the
ads. Instead they emphasize the judgment of peers.
This person is on the poster clearly isolated.
We wanted to make the point that peers don't necessarily
agree with sexual assault.
That when we interviewed teen boys, they said that
if they knew someone who sexually assaulted a woman,
that they would isolate them, that they wouldn't want
to be their friend anymore.
So you pushed her to have sex.
You played her.
You pressured her.
You even forced a little.
Does that make you feel like a man?
Because you don't look like one to us.
And the language that we picked was from teens themselves
by sitting down with them and talking to them about what
language will you respond to.
I think this is a really good poster because it addresses
a key audience member, young men, and that's who
we have to be talking to.
And it's good because it sets up an alternative.
It's okay not to have sex.
And it's okay to have your girlfriend
say no to you.
It doesn't make you any less of a man.
The poster and radio ads are only a part of the campaign.
It also includes discussion material for the classroom.
But talking about sex and consent in school can be tricky.
The challenge too is that it's illegal for any sexual
contact under the age of 18.
So we're teaching them to get consent for what?
Something that they shouldn't be doing legally anyway?
In Wisconsin, consensual sex involving a minor is
a misdemeanor or a felony depending on the age of
those involved, even when both partners are under age.
That legal situation complicates what educators
say about consent.
So they hear messages like just be responsible.
Just be careful.
What does that mean?
It's not really giving them any practical understanding
of what it is to say to somebody, "I'd really like to
do this.
Is that okay with you?"
Is that okay with you?
It's a simple question, but one
that's apparently hard to ask.
An expert say the way media portrays sexuality doesn't help.
You know, the media doesn't show that happening.
Like when there's a sex scene in
a movie or something like that, it flows very naturally.
There's very little discussion.
The clothes come off and it happens.
There's no discussion of protection.
There's no discussion of consent.
The clothes are all sexual.
The advertising is sexual.
The dances are sexual.
The music is sexual.
But when it comes to two people sitting down and talking about
their own feelings around sexual activity, it's not happening.
It's just too personal.
I think from what I hear from
students is that that's scary.
It may be scary for teens to talk about sex and consent, but
the consequences of not doing it can be even more frightening.
There's no sex.
No groping without hurt
permission. It's illegal.
And you can be arrested for sexual assault.
Stop. Real men respect.
Respect. We travel now to the
northeastern part of the state.
That's where in the Nicolay National Forest researchers
are taking on 180 pounds of slumbering black bear.
You can imagine that the average bear is less than thrilled to
be awakened from hibernation, even less so when that bear is
a mother protecting her young.
But in the end, the bear is maybe the better for losing
a bit of shut eye.
The point of disturbing their sleep
and privacy is to gather information that can help
wildlife experts understand and protect the black bear.
February, Forest County.
I think she's in there.
And a search is underway.
Deep in the woods, they find it.
That's not the mother-loat.
Veterinary, criscats of two rivers, relays the
news to the research crew.
The object of their search, their slumbering subject, a 180
pound female bear, den below a foot of snow, has babies.
And how do you approach a 180 pound bear with babies?
Quietly. Come.
Keep that light right there.
Okay, we got a good injection.
Good injection.
Mark the time.
In five minutes, the slumbering bear is a sedated bear and cats
in the crew, co-researcher Dr.
Bob Howe of the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, Dr.
Amy Wolfe, Andy Heinekult, Aaron
Wunderland, and veterinary student Nicole Wallachewski.
Dig in to grab as much information as they can
during the roughly hour-long window of anesthesia.
First up, check the change in the soundtrack.
Different than the nursing sound.
She's falling asleep to come to realize something's not
quite right.
Sometimes you'll go from nursing to screaming.
A shirt of his safety, Aaron descends into the den.
That's fine.
Show you on.
Don't sweat the ony.
And the extraction begins.
First out, the babies.
Big boy.
All you doing.
Unhappy babies.
Many babies.
I'm loving the four cub, Dan.
I have loving this.
Anymore, we're going to stop it for her herred scold.
The cubs are portable.
It takes a little more muscle to move mom.
Now you just do the airway and I can get her out.
Ready, one, two, three.
This is a mother-loat.
And nearly everyone, including
the TV crew, is pressed into service, cub sitting.
While the researchers begin to work on mom.
What follows is the knowledge grab.
The knowledge gain for this BlackBail Research Project.
A cooperative venture between the US Forest
Service, the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, and
Veterinarian Chris Katz.
Works. Okay, excellent.
To reel in this data, they cast a wide net.
They garnered basic information.
Weight is 180.
They go for the high tech.
You can do her temperature and her pulse, in a
mouth. In a research first.
You have pulse ox of 91.
Loving that.
They brought a portable EKG machine to test
the effectiveness and safety of different anesthetics on
these animals in the wild.
I'm going to start running EKG strips.
They draw blood.
It's a pressure off of me.
No, you keep it there.
And the samples will be sent to nine different labs
across the country and tested for 21 different diseases.
Because bears are the big omnivores of the forest, they
may be particularly vulnerable to environmental contaminants
like lead, arsenic, or mercury.
Those tests will be added to the vast tally
taken on this animal.
And if we're going to do this research, and if we're going
to lay this bear down and have to disrupt this whole thing,
we're going to get as much information as we can this time.
We're not going to have five studies that are going to go
on for 25 years and disrupt these bears all the time.
So we're going to get all of our blood data.
We're going to do our EKG data.
We're going to check the Schirmertier test.
We're going to put the GPS collars
on and get good equipment, get good data, and do it
once and do it right now.
Good equipment, like these GPS collars, another
high-tech advance.
It takes a reading every two hours
and leaves an electronic trail of the bears movements.
Cats believes and hopes the study will show that unknown
to us, black bears and people, cross paths quite often.
And as a bear researcher of many years standing, he
believes that intersection need not be a fearful one.
Bears know how to live in the forest as people that have
problems sometimes when they move into places like this,
and they're not used to bears, and they always have to do
a teach them about bears and how you can live with
bears. And I think they'll be able to coexist very easily.
His best advice to keep bears at bay?
Don't invite them to dinner.
Keep your yard clean.
Bird feeders, they love bird feeders.
They love garbage, they love dog food.
If you can keep those few things out of your yard and keep your
garage closed so that they can't get into your garage,
you're not going to have a bear.
And if they do arrive, disinvite them.
A bear comes into your yard because everybody runs into the
house and hides.
And then it's like, wow, this is pretty easy.
Foods here, people run away.
It's great.
So he comes back because the pie is sweet
and the slices are thick.
So, but if when he shows up in the yard, you get out there
with some tennis balls and take the tennis rands, smack them
tennis balls in them, clang some pads and pans together,
chase them out of there.
You know, he's not going to come back.
He's going to go, well, I'll find
something somewhere else.
The collar will track the rambling of this
mom and her family.
It's an infallible research tool and one that costs
thousands of dollars.
A tough price tag for this all volunteer project
with a shoestring budget.
It's all privately funded.
We don't get any money from the
department of natural resources.
The project is paid for by people like Ali Delacoletti.
Yeah, oh, donate money and in return get a chance to visit
one of the rare places on earth and occupied Bear Dan.
This is really a unique experience.
You can go to Rubar, you can go to
Mazatland or something.
You can go there any year.
But coming out here and doing a bear Dan, it's really pretty
interesting and pretty unique.
I can't get it tight enough.
It's leverage.
It's truly a place.
Very few people go.
The Bear Human Intersection made possible
through this project.
For Ali, it was money well spent.
I actually got the money through a well.
My mother passed away from cancer a couple years ago.
She's always been interested in wildlife and I took some
of the money that I got from her and decided to donate.
I've always been interested in nature and stuff
like that and my mom has always been interested.
So this is just kind of an homage to her.
Hi. I actually bought tears in my eyes.
I mean, how many times am I going to get to
hold a little tiny bear cub?
I just kept thinking of my mom and kept thinking, "Oh,
I wish she could be here."
I feel so fucking...
The Cubs are returned.
The Den is covered.
One final task remains.
The last thing we do is thank the bear for letting us come in
and disrupt his winter sleep.
This is a Native American tradition of gifting of tobacco.
We put a small bit of tobacco in the center
that represents our bear.
We make a circle of tobacco around that, representing
the knowledge that we currently have of bears.
We have some spots outside the circle and that's where we're
hoping this bear will take us to one of those points of
knowledge beyond the circle.
Dr. Chris Katz plans to continue his Black Bear
study throughout the summer.
His next phase of research includes using the radio
collars to monitor the movement of the bears.
Katz hopes to better track the intersection
of bears and humans.
That's our program for tonight.
Thanks for joining us.
We leave you with a springtime look at the Barrow Booh River
in the Stalk County area.
For in Wisconsin, I'm Patty Lowe.
Good night.
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environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods,
and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
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