Courier New;Cambria Math;  And his name is Brad Koele and I'll just bring him right on.  Thank you, Brad.  - Thank you, Otto.   Good morning.  Thanks for being here.  I mean, such a beautiful Saturday and you guys are spending it with us, and thanks for allowing me to come and talk the department's or the state's-- basically our wolf and bear management programs.  Dave McFarland was originally on the agenda to talk about state management of wolves and bears.  Dave couldn't make it so I'll be providing his-- his talk or his overview of management actions the state's taking, but then I'll also dive into our compensation and damage programs for those species as well.  I've been with the DNR since 2001. 

 I started out within our big game program, focusing primarily on deer and bear.  And then in 2007 I transitioned to our Wildlife Damage Program where I administer all aspects of the state's nuisance and urban and agricultural damage programs with wildlife, so...  been doing that, like I said, since 2007, so for the past ten years, wildlife damage has been my primary focus.  So today, I'll get into the bear and wolf management programs.  The bear population and management.  This is a statewide map showing the primary range in bear distribution.  No surprise there-- the northern third of the state, abundant and common, bear sightings there.  As you go kind of southwest, bear sightings are becoming more frequent down there.  Bears are expanding their range southward.  Southeast, not as many sightings there and particularly, down in the lower southeast corner of the state, very few, if any, bear sightings there, but, you know, the take home message there is the bear population's doing very well and they are expanding their range southward. 

  There's primarily three different things that we do to monitor the bear population.  One is the annual bear harvest.  We do collect teeth from every bear, or attempt to collect teeth from every bear.  And that gives us age data, tells us how old the bears are that are being harvested and obviously if there's a shift in that age, it's an indicator of whether or not that population, whether or not it's aging or people are harvesting younger bear.  So it gives us, you know, an index to look at as far as how the bear population's doing.  The other thing we do is the annual bear bait station survey, so there are 25 mile transects where we'll place a meat bait-- we hang meat approximately 7 feet in trees, every half mile.  And then we come back after a week, and check those baits to see if they've been hit by a bear.  Those baits sit out there for a week, and again, that gives us another index or a trend line on how that bear population is doing.  The other one is a tetracycline recapture or mark-recapture study.  Basically, for that study, the first year we did it was in 2006. 

 Lot of cooperation from that study with UW and then also the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association.  They help out immensely with that, 'cause it's such a labor-intensive monitoring method.  But basically, tetracycline baits are placed out on a landscape.  For those of you that are aware of tetracycline, what it does is it creates a marker in the bone structure, so basically it creates a ring in the bone structure of the bear, and then as bears are harvested, we require hunters we require hunters to submit a rib sample to us so we can look for that marker, and then it's used to-- you know, the proportion of marked versus unmarked bear used to do reconstruction model and, you know, give us an estimate.  So 2006, that was done.  2011, that was done.  This year, it was supposed to be done again, here in 2016, but there's some new FDA restrictions on broad-scale use of antibiotics.  Obviously there's some concerns with creating immunities to the antibiotics so tetracycline can no longer be used so we're exploring other options.  My understanding is Rhodamine B is potentially an alternative that we'll be looking for continuing this type of estimation method.  And it does basically the same thing-- from my understanding, is it creates a marker in the bone structure of the animal that we can use to see whether or not it ingested, you know, the bait. 

 So this is an example of the bear bait transect.  So 18 transects across the northern part of the state in zones A, B, and D.  We currently have seven transects in zone C that we run.  And again these are 25 mile transects where baits are placed every half mile.   This is a picture of kind of what it looks like.  This is from Michigan DNR.  They have a little bit different process, but this a bear that, you know, obviously, has, um-- you know, is ingesting that bait.  Some of the things we look for to make sure it was a bear is, you know, markings.  These baits are all placed in soft-- soft trees, soft-barked trees so you can-- you know, more likelihood of getting some type of markings from the animal.  Bear, this one's not too hard to tell. 

 You know, you can see a pretty good muddy paw print of a bear there on the tree.  Other indications would be scratch marks.  We do have a gauge that we use that looks at the spacing of those claw marks to verify if it was a bear or not.  Nonetheless, all these techniques, this bear bait transect is used every year to create that index and tell us how well that bear population's doing each year.   This is-- This is a snapshot of Vilas and Oneida County there of our tetracycline study.  So the idea there is that we place small wooden boxes with a bait inside with a tetracycline, you know, every three miles within the township there.  So again, you dot the landscape.  And it's a pretty incredible effort.  This is what it looks like across the northern part of the state there, so there-- each one of those boxes or squares there is where tetracycline bait was placed out there.  The red color there was the baits that were hit by bear or that we know were hit by bear. 

 So a pretty huge effort going out across the northern part of the state there.  You know, to show us exactly where bear are.  And so it's the same concept.  We have a little wood box with some bait and a bear-- a tetracycline tablet in that box and the bear obviously finds that bait, breaks it open and consumes-- consumes that tetracycline and then, you know, then the hunter-harvested bear, we collect rib tissues from those bear and then we use it to reconstruct a population.   So this is a trend line of the statewide bear population.  As you can see, we have a very healthy population across the state-- it is increasing.  Right now, our current estimate of bear-- the bear population is 28,650, so, you know, pretty good population.  Like I said, that population seems to be expanding their range southward and certainly occupying a lot more of particularly the southwest part of the state.   So of course, with-- You know, with-- With a growing population, you also need to manage that population.  We primarily manage a lot of our wildlife species through hunting or trapping. 

 Bear, it's hunting, in the state here.  We do allow the use of bait and the use of hunting with hound dogs in the northern part of the state.  So, you know, we've tried to-- Or we use hunting as a method to control the bear population.  You can see there, our harvest along with the population has also increased as the population's increased.  One thing to note there, you see the absence of any information for 1985.  1985, the state actually closed bear hunting.  At that point the population was right around 4,500 animals, and at that point the state felt, you know, "We need to close the hunting season, implement more of a structured harvest." Prior to that, bear could be harvested during the deer hunting season with I think a small game and even a gun deer hunting license, so license restrictions were pretty loose, so 1985 is when we had kind of the current season structure or permit system that was implemented there, and as you can see, with those protections, with limited quotas, you know, the bear population has really done well since that point.   Ah, the state is broken into four zones there, as you can see: A, B, C, and D.  A and D, at one point in time, were a contiguous unit.  And even D was actually a subzone of zone A at one point, but nonetheless it is now its own zone. 

 We're here in Washburn County of course, and that's Bear Management Zone D.  But these are the zones that we use for setting our bear quotas and season structures every year-- our harvest structures every year.   The permit levels, you know, have gone up, you know, as the bear population's increased.  We've recognized the need to harvest additional bear, so our permit levels and quotas have also increased.  2016, this will be another record year with permit levels out there.  You know, we're expected to issue approximately 11,520 bear permits this year, So, you know, certainly a lot of pressure on that bear population to, you know, keep numbers as, you know, best we can-- that's both socially and biologically acceptable to the public.   Applicants-- you know, Wisconsin is, um-- You know, we're kind of a destination state for bear hunting.  Our success rates here in Wisconsin for hunting are unmatched by any other state, even in zone C where our success rate is, you know, probably down in the upper 20%.  That's higher than a lot of states have.  You know, when you get into the northern part of the bear range, where you're looking at zones A, B, and D, you know, our success rates are 60% or higher, which are just incredible for bear hunting. 

 So Wisconsin's got a lot of interest, you know, from non-residents and even within the state for hunting.  Our application levels have increased pretty steadily.  You know, right now around 110,000 applicants is what we receive each year.  So a huge interest in, you know, hunting bear in Wisconsin.  I guess before I get to that, you know, that interest in bear hunting has led to long wait times for permits.  You know, our wait times for permits range anywhere from one year all the way up to nine years, so you know, in zone C right now, the southern part of the state, maybe every year, but for sure every other year you can likely expect a permit in zone C.  You get up to zone B in the northeast part of the state, those wait times are as long as nine or ten years for a permit.  So that interest is certainly nice, but it's definitely led to some long wait times.  And historically, in the state, hunters have preferred kind of a high-quality, high-success hunt over a lot of opportunity, so we haven't made any changes to our kind of season structure to change that, because, you know, hunters have preferably or historically preferred that higher-success type hunt.  Of course with that high population, you know, we do have a lot of conflicts with bear, so our bear program is broken down into basically two different components. 

 One is the agricultural damage, and the other side is nuisance management.  And it's basically exactly what it entails.  Agricultural damage is your apiaries, your typical row crops, your livestock, where nuisance management is more the home issues, bird feeders, stuff like that.  In Wisconsin, we're really fortunate as far as, you know, wildlife damage programs are concerned across the nation.  We have excellent partners.  We have USD Wildlife Services, UW-Extension that are great cooperators for us.  You know, we also have a state legislature and state leadership that are committed to assisting farmers that are having problems or anyone having problems with wildlife issues.  In this state, we have the Wildlife Damage Abatement and Claims Program, which originally started in 1931.  The current structure of our program was actually created in 1983, though.  So we've had that program in place for quite a while now and it's funded through hunting license sales. 

 It's a $2.00 surcharge on each hunting license and a $4.00 surcharge on each patron's license.  And then our program also receives revenue from the sale of antlerless deer carcass tags.  Those are the tags that are $12 for residents, $20 for non-residents.  That revenue, outside the chronic wasting disease areas, goes into our program.  Within the chronic wasting disease areas, we get $7.00 from each of those tags that goes to our program.   By state statute, it's a state program, but it has to administered through the participating-- or through counties.  Basically, each county-- All counties participate except for Kenosha and Menominee Counties.  All the other counties do.  The counties in blue color there, those are counties that choose to contract with USD Wildlife Services, so USD Wildlife Services implements the program in those counties.  And then the white counties, green, red, and purple, those are counties that either have an independent damage technician implement the program or they have a county employee administer the program there, so we can see Wildlife Services does-- Right now, they administer the program in 52 counties, and then independent counties we call them are 18 independent counties. 

  So under the program, the species that are eligible are deer, bear, turkey, elk, geese, and a couple of years ago, cougar were added to that program.  We have not had any verified cougar depredations in the state but the legislature a few years ago wanted to be proactive.  As you're all aware there's, you know, sightings of cougars and they periodically come through the state, and the legislatures, you know, wanted to have some type of compensation program available if depredations became an issue.  So cougars are included under the program, but we have not had any conflicts with them.  Incidentally, sandhill cranes are also in state statute as being covered under the program, but not until there's a hunting season for sandhill cranes.   The type of crops that are covered is also in state statute, and, you know, it's your standard row crops, your corn, soybeans, alfalfa, that stuff.  Truck crops-- you know, so the gardens that are out there that, you know, may sell produce at farmers' markets, or along the roadside, those are eligible.  Stored crops, silage bags.  You know, we do have a fair number of silage bag issues each year from bear.  Stored feed, so that's eligible. 

 Orchards, Christmas trees, nursery stock, apiaries-- Lot of issues with bear and apiaries around the state, and then of course livestock is also included under the program.   So to enroll in a program, basically the county has to participate.  Most of them do, like I said.  Damage must be from one of those eligible species.  And then, you know, typically with livestock, this doesn't apply, but for the typical row crops, it says that the damage specialist has to be notified within 14 days of damage occurring, and obviously that's so we can get abatement out there and try to prevent or reduce the amount of damage that's occurring.  So that 14-day requirement is in place.  And then, also, because this program is funded through hunting license sales, the enrollee must control hunting access on that property.  One of the requirements of enrolling in this property is that public hunting access is required on the property.  You know, like I said, it's funded through hunting license sales, so the state legislature, when they created the program thought hunters should have access to assist, you know-- assist with the species that's causing damage on those properties, so if you're enrolled for bear damage, you have to allow public hunting access for bear.  You don't have to allow it for deer or any other species. 

 If you're enrolled in the program for deer damage, you would have to allow public hunting access for deer.  There are a couple exceptions where that doesn't apply to deer, but most cases, hunting is required on those properties.  And there's no fee for enrolling in the program.  It's a voluntary enrollment.  There's no fee for enrolling in the program.  But there is that public hunting access requirement.   So bear enrollment, as you can see, it's, in general, on the increase.  You know, last year, 290 individual farmers enrolled for bear damage.  You know, and that can be standard row crops.  A lot of our bear damage issues are, you know, corn in the milk stage when the bears are hitting them, but we do have a fairly significant number of apiary owners that also enroll in our program to receive some assistance. 

 So basically, damage occurs.  You contact the county damage specialist.  You enroll in a program.  The next step would be determining what abatement is best.  For bear, whether it's agricultural damage or nuisance situations, our primary abatement method is trapping and relocating the bear.  Bear are relocated a minimum of 25 miles and on to contiguous large tracts of land under public ownership.  So whether it's county, state or national forest, that's where the bears are relocated.  They're not relocated to any private properties.  Last year, in 2015, for agricultural conflicts, you can see 365 bear were relocated.  So a number of bear are being moved around the state and the reason, you know, it's not probably the most cost-effective option, but hunters in our state, you know, have preferred that these bear be relocated rather than shooting permits or some other type of lethal control because they want the hunting opportunity for the bear. 

 You know, if you're waiting anywhere from, you know, one to nine years for a hunting permit, a bear hunting permit, you know, you want the opportunity to harvest those animals rather than, you know, someone harvesting them with no preference or very little interest in bear hunting.  So, you know, trapping and relocation has been primarily the most accepted abatement that we've implemented.   We do, as a last resort, get the bear shooting permits.  You can see, last year we had 30 bear shooting permits, 65 bear harvested on shooting permits.  One note I will make is that in the situations with livestock depredations-- Our response with livestock depredations is a lethal response.  Either we trap-- attempt to trap and euthanize that bear, or we issue-- and/or issue-- permit the landowner to shoot and remove that bear.  History, you know-- Livestock depredation is kind of a learned behavior, and what we've found is typically once a bear depredates, it's likely to depredate again.  so our response, you know, for depredating bears is, in most cases is a lethal-- A lethal control for that.   Like I mentioned, we do have a lot of apiary issues, and some silage bag issues.  So temporary fencing is probably our-- probably the second most abatement that we use, and it's just, you know, putting up electric fencing around those structures to protect them. 

 It works extremely well.  I wish I had an accurate count of how many apiaries-- I bet you we probably have you know, 200, 250 apiaries around the state fenced, you know, with temporary fencing like this to protect from bears, so it's another abatement method that we use pretty commonly.   So claims-- obviously, a part of this program is to provide that abatement assistance but then also compensation for those damages.  For the standard row crops, livestock, those prices are set by the county.  Typically the county damage specialist will talk with seed dealers, feed stores, UW-Extension, and they'll come up with a price each year for those crops.  The enrollees must comply with any abatement measures.  You know, if we issue a deer shooting permit, those individuals have to shoot a certain number of deer on those permits to be eligible for compensation.  You have to be in compliance with normal agricultural practices, so that means, you know, for crops left over winter, that's typically not-- you know, not a standard agricultural practice, so compensation would not be provided in those situations.  So those factors are taken into consideration, and then also, you know, if they do meet all those requirements, the county submits a claim to the DNR by March 31st, and then the department has until June 1 to pay those claims, so...  I just-- couple weeks ago I just finished paying, I think, 270 claims from the 2015 season, so we just kind of completed that process. 

 The payment amounts are in state statute.  Like I said, the county set the price, the price for per bushel or the price for that commodity.  But then there are also further restrictions placed in state statute.  So for each claim, there's a $500 deductible.  And then beyond that we reimburse 100% up to $5,000-- or $5,500 with that deductible in there, And then beyond that, 80% we would compensate for up to a maximum of $10,000.  - What's your definition of crop? - Um, "crop" would be-- it's anything-- any standard agricultural row crop, livestock, Christmas trees, nursery stock.  One of those slides I had before had that whole definition of what is covered under the program.  So all that stuff is, you know, eligible for the program.  And the county damage technician, when they go out to enroll people, you know, they verify that it's an eligible crop type before they enroll.  So things like food plots, you know, obviously that wouldn't be eligible. 

 Someone's personal garden, you know, if they have a garden out there and the crops are used for personal consumption or family consumption, that would not be eligible under this program.  - But livestock would be.  - Livestock is, yep, correct.  And again, that's just for bear or cougar damage under the aspects of this program.  This was changed, 2009.  The state legislature changed these in 2009.  We were projecting a shortfall within the program, so in 2009 the state legislature made some changes.  Prior to that, it was a $250 deductible and a $15,000 maximum claim, so, you know, those were decreased a little bit to make up for that projected shortfall.   Just want to mention nuisance bear management.  You know, we contract with USD Wildlife Services or the DNR contracts with USD Wildlife Services to handle all their nuisance bear conflicts. 

 And you know, there's a number of them out there.  You know, Wildlife Services responds, you know, anywhere from 800, I think, to as many as 1,500 complaints each year about bear.  You know, obviously, you know, the nuisance stuff is separate from the agricultural damage, but I just want to make people aware that, you know, even if, you know, you're not having problems with livestock, you know, if you are having problems with, you know, aggressive bear, or, you know, other issues that are non-agricultural, there is assistance available through USD Wildlife Services.  Interestingly enough, you know, probably 70% of those nuisance calls we get every year can be solved with technical assistance.  which is in many cases, removing the attractant, whether it's a bird feeder, a garbage can, or, you know, a grill, something like that.  You know, so a lot of times there's some attractant that's involved, but nonetheless, you know, there is assistance available for just a general homeowner or someone else that's dealing with nuisance bear issues.   Now, kind of jumping to wolf management here.  So, you know, wolves were in the state, you know, as early as 1950 and earlier.  There was a bounty in place on wolves that went through 1957, which, you know, through extensive removal and pressure on them led to the population decline and eventually the elimination of the wolves.  By 1960, there was no known wolves in Wisconsin. 

 There was a remaining population in northern Minnesota and Ontario, and it was through that population there and through the protections put in place by the Endangered Species Act during the 1970s that allowed that population to naturally expand and to move southward into the state again.  You know, wolves, there's a lot of misconceptions that, you know, state DNR brought wolves back in.  That's not the case.  Wolves, you know, expanded and recolonized Wisconsin through those remaining packs that were in northern Minnesota and Ontario.   So obviously they've expanded in the state and have done quite well.  This is our winter pack count and map from the winter of 1979, 1980.  '90 to '91, you can see the range and the packs are continuing to grow.  2001 to 2002 winter.  Here we are, 2009, 2010.  And here's last year's wolf map, so you can see the population through those protections, you know, has done pretty well in Wisconsin. 

 They've colonized the majority of the prime wolf habitat in the northern part of the state and also in the center-- central forest, which is that yellow area that you see in the middle part of the state.   So how do we track the wolf population? We have carnivore tracking blocks.  So these are approximately 200 square mile areas that we do a variety of survey methods in those areas.  Primarily it's winter track counts is what we use.  We have volunteer trackers that are trained throughout the state to, in the wintertime, drive certain transects and look for wolf tracks and then you follow them, and you try to figure out how many wolves are present there.  You know, last year, 2011, 2015 winter, um, you know, over 16,730 miles were tracked either through DNR trackers or volunteer trackers, so that's primarily the method that we use.  You know, utilize pack counts, and then numbers-- wolf numbers as well.  We also use aerial survey.  There's approximately 45 wolves that are collared around the state right now.  That number will increase here in the next month or two as we trap and collar additional wolves. 

 So we have DNR pilots that will occasionally fly these packs, locate them.  If they can find them, you know, they'll count the number of wolves in them, but then we also have the trackers, and volunteers going and kind of ground truth and look for tracks with those same packs.  So those are primarily the two type of methods that we use for estimating the population.  We also do solicit or encourage people to report wolf sightings and, you know, presence of wolves to us on our DNR's website.  There's a spot there where individuals can report sightings to us and oftentimes, if you have pictures, provide pictures to us so we can verify and, you know, we'll have a local DNR biologist try to verify that stuff.  So it's a really heavily citizen monitoring-type, based program.  You know, both through the voluntary track studies or surveys and then also through volunteer reporting to us where they're seeing wolves.   As far as management, you know, the state's broken into six zones there.  Zones one and two and five are primarily dominated by, you know, lower-density agricultural, lower land use, more forest cover.  Zones three and four have higher-density agricultural with mixed forest, and then zone six is, you know, as you can imagine, more heavily dominated by your cultural and human use. 

 And, of course, our population objectives and, you know, when we do have the ability to have hunting seasons, quota levels and stuff like that, you know, play into these zones and the limited land use or land cover there.  So the overwinter minimum count-- this is from last winter, so it's from 2014, 2015 winter-- was that there were 746 to 770 wolves in the state with a minimum of 208 packs.  Now, one thing I do want to stress here is that this is a minimum.  This is the overwinter count, so as pups or when pups are born in spring, this number, you know, is a lot higher.  And then that number will decrease throughout the year as mortality events occur, whether it's disease or collisions with cars, stuff like that.  But this the low number.  We do not have last year's figures available yet.  My understanding is that they will be available in June.  And, you know, so those will be coming out in June and available to the public next month.   So this is kind of the changes in the wolf population. 

 You know, as I showed you in those pack maps, the numbers have substantially increased, you know.  Like I said, we're up to 746-plus animals right now.  You know, you can see the little decline there when we did the ability to harvest wolves in 2012, '13, '14.  You know, we were putting pressure on those animals and intentionally trying to reduce those numbers.  The state-- the current state wolf management plan has a goal in there of 350 wolves.  You know, I think it's pretty-- it's been acceptable to the public or at least, through administration that, you know, we need to knock wolf numbers down a little bit, and we're gonna gradually do that, but obviously there are some legal issues that came into play for that, but nonetheless, you know, the growing wolf population and, you know, we're anywhere from that 750 up to 800 range, and that is a minimum count, again.   So the state management actions during 2012 and '14.  This graph's a little confusing because this is by wolf year, which is April through April.  But you can see there was-- as I said, there was deliberate pressure put on wolves to reduce the population and that occurred through the harvest, the harvest seasons.  You can see there 528 animals were harvested through the state's hunting and trapping season. 

 Agency control, which would be control through USD Wildlife Services or DNR control at depredation sites, and then landowner control.  When wolves are delisted, the state has the authority to issue shooting permits to landowners that have had conflicts.  And you can see 38 wolves were removed through landowner controls.  So, you know, nonetheless, when we did have the authority to manage wolves, we were putting pressure on that population to try to control numbers and reduce numbers.   Most of you are aware of kind of the seesaw or back and forth that has occurred with the listing of wolves.  This is the state kind of history.  1957, when it was first designated as a protected animal.  Listed as "endangered" in '75, 1999 as "threatened." And then as recently as 2012 is when it was actually designated as a state game species, and that was when the federal delisting occurred, and then, you know, the DNR also had received management authority to implement a hunting and trapping season, and also depredation controls, so...  Currently it is still a state game species.  You know, on the flip side of things, though, we also have to comply with the federal regulations, and as of December 19, 2014, you know, wolves are placed back on the endangered species list federally. 

 One thing I do want to note is, you know, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, it's considered one Great Lakes population of wolves.  Unfortunately, in my opinion for Wisconsin and Michigan, they're endangered species in Wisconsin and Michigan and they're a threatened species in Minnesota.  And what the-- for damage management, what the difference is there is that Minnesota can still implement lethal control at depredation sites, because it's a threatened species there, whereas Wisconsin says it's an endangered species.  We have no lethal control authority right now.  The only lethal control authority we have within the state right now is if there's a human health and safety situation.  In those cases, we will consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and, you know, we may implement lethal control.  We did that last year at one farm in Price County, and removed one wolf there.  But otherwise, you know, the unfortunate part is we don't have integrated damage management program right now.  It solely relies on non-lethal control.   So the federal listing status. 

 This is just kind of a graph showing you those different time periods of when wolves were listed and not listed.  Obviously the purple-ish there is when wolves were a listed species.  The white line there is where wolves first met the criteria for being delisted from the Endangered Species Act.  And basically that says that-- Delisted criteria was basically that 100 or more wolves would be present for at least five consecutive years outside of Minnesota, so basically Wisconsin and Michigan had to have a population of 100 or more wolves, you know, for five consecutive years.  You know, looking at those numbers there, we've certainly met that for quite a while.  But nonetheless, they are still federally listed, which does, you know, impact our ability to implement control options or even a hunting and trapping season for them.  So, you know, there's been a lot of talk, last year and this year already about potential ways to get wolves delisted and back into state management.  There's basically three options available for that.  One is whether or not the Fish and Wildlife Service would initiate a new delisting rule.  There has been no talk of that occurring, so I don't know how feasible that would be. 

 The one that has got the most coverage and discussed the most is legislation, you know, within Congress, Congress passing some type of legislation to delist wolves.  That was attempted last year and a couple of different bills were introduced, but none of them were passed last year.  There's talk of another delisting bill being included in the Fish and Wildlife Services' appropriation bill this year.  There's talk about-- I don't know if that's going to happen, but that's another potential avenue for delisting to occur, and then the third option is to appeal the court's decision from 2014.  That has occurred, or the Fish and Wildlife Service is appealing that.  Wisconsin has signed on as a party to that-- to that appeal, so that's kind of playing out in the courts.  And I don't know the timeline on exactly when briefs need to be filed and when action could take place on that.  But those are the three options available for hopefully getting wolves delisted and back into state management.   So we do have a wolf depredation and compensation program.  That program started in 1984. 

 It passed through the budget bill in 1984.  And at that point in time it wasn't specific to wolves.  It was specific to all endangered resources.  So any animal that was listed under endangered resources program or state listed as an endangered species, we would provide compensation for that.  Wolves are of course one of those.  Another species that we had paid compensation for was osprey, at aquaculture facilities.  So at that point in time it wasn't specific to wolves.  It had just said "endangered" or "threatened species." And the 1999, 2001 state budget bill, though, legislation was added there that said even if wolves are delisted, the state will still provide compensation for wolf depredations.  So it wasn't till 2001 where wolves were actually listed separately as having their own compensation program.  So that program, you know, was available till up until 2004 with-- pretty wide open. 

 There wasn't any standard rules in place on who, what, when, where, how compensation was provided.  2005, you know, depredations were starting to increase.  We're having a lot more conflicts.  2005, actually, administrative rules were actually created that put sideboards on the program as far as what we compensate for, how much we compensate, when, all that good stuff.  And we're currently, you know, operating under those administrative rules right now.  2011, Act 169, that was the bill where wolves were listed as a state game species and then that allowed us to have that hunting and trapping season which, as I just discussed, we currently don't have the option for right now because of federal protections.  Program funding: so when wolves are not-- not-- an endangered or listed species, funding for the wolf depredation program comes from the sale of wolf hunting applications and license sales.  Now that wolves are relisted, funding goes back to our endangered resources program that funds those depredation payments.  We've also been really fortunate the last three years, to apply to the Fish and Wildlife Service and get livestock demonstration grant funding.  Last three years, we've received about $250,000 in compensation or grant funding that we've used directly towards compensation. 

 And then we also received a $17,000 grant to help with some non-lethal abatement techniques or projects.   So this is all in administrative rule, like I said.  Now, so compensation, under the damage program, or under the wolf program, we provide compensation for death or injury to livestock, pets and hunting dogs-- obviously hunting dogs that are not actively engaged in the pursuit of wolves, you know, when we do have a season.  Rules require that individuals must contact DNR or, in most cases it's USD Wildlife Services-- we partner with them to handle conflict investigation, but they must contact Wildlife Services within 24 hours of that depredation occurring.  Wildlife Services will go out there, and they need to find sufficient evidence to classify that as a confirmed or probable wolf depredation to be eligible for compensation.  Then once that depredation is verified, the claimant has 14 days to file a claim with the department for compensation.  The only other real requirement there is that...  claimants have to be compliant with state statute carcass disposal requirements.  We had kind of talked about those requirements a little bit before and basically my understanding is that from December to March, basically that carcass has to be removed or buried within 48 hours.  Any point outside that time frame that carcass has to be buried or disposed of within 24 hours. 

 So to be eligible for compensation, producers have to be eligible-- or in compliance with that requirement as well.   As I said, we contract with USD Wildlife Services to handle our depredation investigations, so, you know, if you suspect a depredation occurs, call USD Wildlife Services as soon as possible so we can get them out there and take a look at the evidence and verify or confirm that depredation.  USD Wildlife Services last year responded to 163 reported complaints, with 91 of those being verified as being caused by wolves.   One of the things I do want to touch on is the compensation limits.  Administrative rule has language in there for compensation limits, so for livestock compensation limits, particularly for dairy and beef cattle are set by a panel of three experts each year, one person from UW-Extension, one person from the Farm Bureau, and one person from Department of Ag.  They meet every year, and they set the compensation limits for livestock.  There is no-- unlike the damage program, there is no deductible, there is no maximum compensation limits, any of that.  There's a compensation limit per animal, and then also that requirement that it's verified.  So a producer could get compensated for, you know, 30 animals as long as each of those depredations were verified.  Hunting dogs and pets, there's a $2,500 limit on the compensation that we'll provide for each individual hunting dog or pet. 

 And again, that's an administrative rule as well.   We also, unlike a lot of other states that compensate for wolf depredations, we also have a missing calf compensation rule, where we will compensate for missing calves, exactly what it says.  So if a farmer has a verified depredation, they're basically eligible to claim you know, any missing livestock, and there's a fair amount of literature out there that shows that, you know, you can detect some depredations, but especially for calves or smaller livestock, you're not gonna detect all of them and that wolf, you know, may drag that carcass away so that's why, you know, we have this rule in place.  And it's-- I don't know the total number of missing calves that we've provided compensation for I could look that up, but, you know, I know it's over $600,000 in missing livestock compensation that we've provided since 1984.  So we do have that policy in place.  We do, you know-- we do apply a 2.3% natural mortality factor to those missing calf claims.  You know, literature shows that roughly 2.3% of that herd's gonna be lost from natural causes, and may not be attributed to depredation, so we do apply that.  The other thing I do want to mention is that we did-- in 2013 was the first year it was implemented-- but we did implement a five-for-one rule, which says that-- which limited the amount of claims our calves an individual could claim.  And what that said is that we would compensate for up to five missing calves for each verified depredation.  So that just put a limit on the number of calves that an individual could claim, and the primary-- we worked with the Cattlemen's Association to implement that, and the primary reason for that was to make sure producers were actively contacting the Department of Wildlife Services so we could one, document the mortality out there, but two, you know, get abatement assistance to that individual to reduce those losses. 

  So this is kind of the recent history of depredation compensation.  This is by calendar year.  You can see last year, a little over $200,000 is what the department paid in wolf depredation compensation.   You compare that to some of the other species that we provide compensation for, and you can see that it kind of fits right in there with bear and geese and those species.  You know, by far, we have a lot more-- we're compensating a lot more for deer damage out there than we are those other species.   So the take-home message, I guess, when you come out of here-- the take-home message here is if you're having a conflict with bear, if you're having a conflict with wolves, contact USD Wildlife Services.  They're gonna be the initial step as far as receiving abatement assistance and also being eligible for compensation.  So, you know, if you are having any problems, you know, make sure you have their number, or look on our DNR's website so you can get their number.  The other one thing I just want to mention is coyotes-- there's a number of coyote depredations that occur every year around the state from livestock.  There's no compensation program for coyote depredations. 

 The one fortunate side of the rules and regulations for state management of coyotes is that landowners, you know, can remove coyotes year-round without any license requirements.  So there's a lot more control authority if individual producers are having problems with coyotes.  But there's no compensation available for coyotes.   With that, I'll take any questions you might have.  [applause]