On Thursday, the Minnesota Senate Environment and Energy Committee could decide the fate of a bill (SF666) that would reinstate the five-year moratorium on wolf hunting that was disregarded last year. In the spirit of cooperation with Minnesota tribes, I urge our state senators to pass this bill.

The heated debate surrounding the wolf hunt in the western Great Lakes region boils down to this: Are wolves relatives or resources? How one answers this question shapes one’s ultimate stance on the recent state-sanctioned hunts in Minnesota and Wisconsin. One need not be American Indian to respect wolves as other-than-human persons.

For Ojibwe people, the wolf is a relative, and the Ojibwe are fighting to honor their responsibilities to wolves by opposing the hunt.

The Ojibwe view is not a mystical or teary-eyed appeal to a worn-out ­stereotype. Ojibwe philosophy and natural law clearly state that people have a shared destiny with wolves and are bound to them through a relationship of brotherhood. In other words, wolves and the Ojibwe people go “way back.”