ST. PAUL — A group that’s fighting to stop Minnesota’s wolf hunt is howling mad after running afoul of the spam filter on the state House email system.

Howling for Wolves founder Maureen Hackett said tens of thousands of emails sent via the group’s website to Minnesota House members were blocked since August, blunting the momentum they were trying to build for suspending the state’s wolf hunting and trapping season. Hackett says she’s firmly convinced it was a deliberate act.

House IT director Mike Speiker denies that it was intentional. But he said the House junk mail filter does block messages from domains that generate excessive email traffic. He says the block has been lifted for the service that hosts Howling for Wolves’ website. And he acknowledged other groups sometimes have similar problems.