Official clarifies 'boycott' hunt comment

Boycott the deer hunt?

That was a suggestion from Carlton County commissioner Gary Peterson last week, during a widely attended meeting in Carlton about wolves and their supposed impact on the declining deer population.

Peterson was quoted by a Duluth media source as telling the crowd of roughly 300 attendees, "Boycott the deer season," as a way of hitting the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in its pocketbook.

When reached for further comment this week about his suggestion, Peterson presented a more nuanced understanding.

"I don't want to come off as an extremist," Peterson said. "But sometimes you've got to get people's attention."

Minnesota DNR officials and wildlife management experts have identified a series of severe winters as having had the biggest impact on the declining deer population.

But Peterson, a hunter himself, joins a wave of hunters concerned with a growing number of wolves in northeastern Minnesota. The predators, they contend, are culling the deer herd and even causing harm to farm animals and pets.

Peterson was a member of the wolf committee for the state of Minnesota for more than two years, until it finalized in 2022 a management plan which recommends reinstating a wolf hunt if and when the animal is removed from federal protection as an endangered species.

"I don't see the wolf being endangered in Minnesota," Peterson said. "We probably have more wolves than we've ever had."

Peterson said he's not in favor of defunding the DNR; rather, his suggestion of a boycott was only something to consider, he said.

"There's a reaction when it hits the economics on things," he said, adding that the topic needs to get the attention of the legislature and Gov. Tim Walz. "They're the ones that actually can make a change. ... The DNR is under the direction of the governor and legislature. They don't do anything without legislative approval."

Deer hunting licenses cost as much as $34 and the fees are used to offset state funding for the department.

Lots of hunters spent "tons of time" hunting this season without seeing deer, Peterson said.

The sentiment was rampant during the Hunters For Hunters gathering at Four Seasons Sports Complex. The advocacy nonprofit group is meeting in towns throughout the region, raising money to lobby for a wolf hunt. The group has frequently been met with crowds of 200 people or more.

Peterson noted other states in the lower 48 have managed to hunt wolves in spite of the federal protection. Montana, Idaho and Wyoming continue to hunt wolves during seasons that were baked into the plan to reintroduce wolves in the 1980s, according to the Wyoming-based Cowboy State Daily. Those hunting privileges are under challenge in the courts.

There was no consensus for an immediate hunting measure during Minnesota's construction of a wolf management plan because, Peterson said, there was a wide array of groups involved in crafting the plan, including wolf advocacy groups.

"Certain groups don't want wolf management ever, even if there are a lot of wolves," Peterson said.

In the meantime, Peterson said he walked his property following a recent snow and all he saw were wolf tracks and no deer tracks.

He said he empathizes with hunters making similar observations, but wasn't wholly supportive of the Hunters For Hunters approach, which features misinformation - the founder comparing his hounds' behavior to what wolves would do - vitriol and politics, lambasting Democratic-Farmer-Labor politicians while elevating Republicans.

One of the group's founders, Steve Porter, notably called failed Republican attorney general candidate Jim Schultz "a good man," while reserving harsh words for current attorney general Keith Ellison, a DFL politician.

"I don't want politics involved," Peterson said. "I don't want it to be blaming here and there. The last time we had a management season Mark Dayton was governor and he was a Democrat. I don't want this to be a Republican or Democrat issue. It has to be a balance. ... We have to work with federal and state officials, all of us working together."

Peterson helped pass the county's ordinance that prohibits any further cervid, or deer, farms. Enclosed farms have been linked to the spread of chronic wasting disease, which has not been identified in the county but has been found in farms in neighboring Aitkin and Pine counties and in the wild in Crow Wing County, two counties to the west of Carlton County.

Peterson is the District 5 commissioner on the Carlton County board, representing the western half of the county, including Cromwell, Wright, Moose Lake and Kettle River.

"Let's do this in a responsible way," Peterson said of wolf management. "At the same time, we could bring in revenue with good management, and use that to reimburse farmers [who lose animals to wolves] and different things like that."