Wolf shot near where I bowhunt!
 

I saw an article the other day about a wolf that was shot in Bureau County, Illinois. I have 22 acres in that county that I hunt. There are a lot of coyotes. But this thing was 140 pounds(according to the article).

A wolf is tough on the game populations. Good thing the wolf is not protected as an endangered species in Illinois. SSS

It's protected under federal law.

That is the third confirmed wolf in IL. this year.

I have been hearing about wolf stories around this year but I didn't believe it until I saw the article. I figured it was just people stretching a big coyote story. That is the third reported....I wonder how many ended up under the SSS category. Lions and Bears and Wolves oh boy...

Not as tough as you think. Do yourself a favor and read this article, especially the part that says "The model suggests the presence of wolves is related to a SLIGHTLY increased rate of doe mortality."

http://dnr.wi.gov/news/DNRNews_artic...up.asp?id=1362

Coming from Wisconsin though I don't trust much the dnr says sometimes when it comes to deer population...they're starting a much better survey and study to see how much the presence of predators effects the population of the deer herd...It'll be a multi year study but should shed some light on how much it effects mortality of healthy animals or if they primarily take out the sick and injured.

Hey, I'm no huge fan of the DNR here, either. But the research they refer to in that link I posted wasn't done by the DNR, it was an outside organization (at least I'm pretty sure it was). I talked to the big game ecologist in Madison this week about the new study. He said it'll take 5 years to complete and will look at all kinds of predators, not just wolves.

The only reason I spoke up in the first place is that I think people hear the wolf and assume their hunting is going to suffer. I've seen a lot of research that would contradict that idea. There have been a lot of reports of wolves on my hunting property and I've seen tracks that would be hard to classify as anything other than a wolf. But I'm still seeing deer and bagged my biggest buck this year. The wolves in my area haven't destroyed the herd.