Screenshot/WisEye Patrick Quaintance testifies about wolves at a December Senate hearing in Wisconsin.

A former Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources warden who served on the agency’s committee to create a new wolf management plan for the state is under investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for killing a wolf in his yard in December. He has claimed self-defense, but he posted on Facebook in November that he was baiting the animals with doughnuts and Rice Crispy cereal.

The warden, Patrick Quaintance, also sits on the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, where he holds positions on the body’s fur harvest and bear committees. The conservation congress serves as an important pathway between residents in Wisconsin and environmental policy makers. In the past, conservation groups have complained that the body is controlled by pro-hunting interests.

Quaintance has been vocal about his anti-wolf beliefs. An advocate for the controversial practice of using hounds in hunting, he has regularly spoken at meetings about his belief that there should be fewer wolves in Wisconsin.

The Examiner previously reported that he has been cited by the DNR for violating state trapping regulations.

At a public hearing of the Senate Committee on Financial Institutions and Sporting Heritage on Dec. 19, Quaintance appeared to testify against the DNR’s newly adopted wolf management plan. In those comments, he discussed the wolf pack near his Bayfield County home and complained that he can’t trap or hunt wolves on his own property.

“They’re taking the rights away from me to be able to trap on my own land or hunting a wolf on my own land,” he said.

Six days later, at 1 a.m. on Christmas Day, he killed a wolf in his backyard and reported the killing to the Bayfield County Sheriff’s Department.

The investigation into Quaintance was first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Ashland Daily Press. The Examiner has confirmed the investigation with the DNR and U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

A month before killing the wolf, in November, Quaintance posted a photo of a wolf from a trail camera on his property to his Facebook page. In the comments, he is asked what he’s baiting them with.

He first responds with an emoji of a doughnut before adding that he used “rice crispy.” Another commenter responds with “snap crackle POP.”

Because wolves are currently listed by the federal government as endangered in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest, a wolf can only be killed in self-defense. The hunting and trapping of wolves, including the use of bait, are currently illegal in Wisconsin.

Quaintance did not respond to a request for comment.

The wolf Quaintance killed was part of the Echo Valley pack and had been collared and studied by the Red Cliff Ojibwe tribe and the DNR for the past nine years. During that time she gave birth to 35 pups, according to Genevieve Adamski, a wildlife specialist for the tribe.

“She’s an extraordinary animal to have lived this long and collared and researched for so long,” Adamski, who was unable to comment on the wolf’s killing because of the ongoing investigation, says. “So yeah, her loss kind of was — you know, you’re trying to keep research separate from your personal opinions and all of that — but she was a long-standing colleague for a lot of people up here.”

Adamski says that having a collar on a breeding female wolf can be especially important for researchers because it gives insight into data such as pup survival rate, population estimates and home ranges.

Despite the frequent argument from Republicans and anti-wolf groups that state wolf policy ignores northern residents of the state who have to live with the realities of an apex predator near their homes, Adamski says there are people in Wisconsin who value wolves and want them to remain on the land.

She adds that although she isn’t a member of the tribe, she is aware that the wolf plays an important role in the Ojibwe creation story and that includes seeing the animal’s intrinsic value.

“Wolves deserve and have a right to their place in the landscape and their right to fulfill the ecological role just as much as we do,” she says.

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