(*&^%$ Wolves
 

after years of hard work, I turned some low crappy forested land into food plots--even stumping and burning--years of liming and fertilizing, building stands, now I have deer staying nearby--Friday had 1 doe 2 fawns and 1 doe 1 fawn on food plot, heard wolves about 500 to 600 yards away and coming fast, seemed to be no less than 6 more likely 8 in a line left to right--as they howled all my deer ran with tails down in opposite direction along with a few others that must have been coming-- same thing Saturday only less deer-- same thing sunday but no howling deer just smelled and ran--looked over area Monday am many wolfe tracks circling area--a lot of turds-- all buck sign missing scrapes abandoned etc--had twin 10 ponters coming at night-- tall 8 point and numerous twinkie bucks all are now gone thinking of sending a bill for crop damage etc to federal fish and wildlife service H H

The wolves are an apex predator. In areas where they have taken over that I have hunted the deer are definitely impacted. In northern Ontario the deer walk with the wind to keep the wolves from coming at them from the rear and use their eyes ahead. Bad news animals if you are an elk or deer hunter...at least from my opinion.

Don't know if you have dogs or not but I found this.

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/wildlifehabi...f/dogdeps.html

Do you have a wolf season? :wink:

That is the problem in a lot of places where they get introduced. No season. In northern Ontario they used to be like coyotes and everyone killed them off only having to pay a small game fee. Now the government put a 300 dollar license on them and nobody is shooting them (legally). Their numbers have grown exponentially while the deer numbers are down. I saw 1 when I was hunting up there a couple of years ago. They are indeed a beautiful animal.

It sounds like government stupidity again. Some things just aren't meant to be. At least in some states, etc.

Actually, it's "environmentalist" stupidity. We had a successful wolf hunting season. Some tree huggers got hold of a sympathetic judge and shut it down, much to the disgust of the State DNR and sportsman alike.

Its really a shame that judges succumb to the whims of ignorant tree huggers and PETA groups instead of the actual fact from wildlife specialists. This society has gone crazy.
The only exception I've seen to this is hunter who relay information to biologists year after year regarding wildlife populations and they just ignore it.

Wonder why our ancestors who depended on livestock and game for food didn't like wolves.
Sort of like Red Tail hawks.
We used to have Quail here and Grouse.
Now we have hawks.

Yep the Wolves are to thick in that part of WI, on one logging job north of Hatfield, i saw fresh wolf tracks over my tracks from the night before every morning walking in. during the whole job i saw very few deer tracks on the muddy trail, that spot used to be full of deer. A pack can drive a bunch of deer off quick, they have killed quite a few of the newly transplanted Elk also, it's a shame we can't hunt them.

Michigan had one season on wolves. The DNR turned in to a money pit for them selves sold 100 permits but after 50 wolves were shot all hunting was done, screw the other 50 permit holders.


Don't care if they every have another season on them, I subscribe to the SSS method and don't even tell your wife or best bud. Wife may squeal if she divorces and best bud may when he starts dating your x wife. Remember it is SSS.


:D Al

You want to see wolf tracks go to the Kenora/ Dryden area of northern Ontario. They must roam all night..always fresh tracks. Kill a deer and the eagles and wolves are on the gut pile within a few hours.

Theyre back
 

Wolves were back in a big way Saturday evening came within 100 yards of my Buddy and less than that with my brother I was about 600 yards away sounded really cool to me but made buddy and brother quite nervous deer were not happy at all either

HH
I hunt in northern Mn, in a heavy wolf area, for deer. We have found that the wolves make it through our area about every 10 to 12 days and when they do the deer get scarce for a couple of day before the deer activity picks up. Good luck and I am hoping another wolf season soon.

Mathmatically and in reality, Coyotes and bears kill far more deer per year in WI (and many other states) than wolves, yet no matter where it is, wolves get the blame.

Anyone ever ask yourself why that is?

I have found where there are wolves there are not any coyotes ! we have had both in the area, when wolves are around the coyotes are gone --Yes bears do a number on fawns I agree with that-- I know but can you tell me what a kill sight looks like from wolves and then from coyotes ?

The back to nature types have this vision of mankind and animals living in harmony, some sort of perfect balance that only exists in their minds.

They show these videos of humans snuggling up to Wolves, dogs playing with kittens and all sorts of anomalies that they portray as normal.

You stop hunting Wolves and eventually they are going to loose their fear of mankind and bad things are going to happen.

Ask the Russians, in the interior the men go to work and the women work the fields. They take the kids with them. Kids get snatched up on occasion by a Wolf looking for an easy meal.

This is what can happen if things get to far out of balance.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2...siberia-regio/

If the wolves kill the coyotes, and mathematically coyotes kill more deer than wolves, isn't that a net gain in deer??

Read up on famous elk killer Aldo Leopold and his opinion of wolves vs. what he actually found to be true about their effect on the elk. Pretty interesting stuff. Some of his works, especially The Good Oak chapter of Sand County Almanac should be required reading for all hunters safety classes.

100% agreed!!!!!!!! Few are believers in the SSS method. Mobsters oath!!!!

The thing with wolves is they don't just kill fawns, they kill adult deer.


One wolf needs 20 deer a year. How many wolves do we now have? Certainly more than DNR's estimate of some 600. Lets say, for the sake of argument 1000. That's 20,000 deer gone just here on the U.P. of Michigan.


:D Al

The population estimate of bears in the U.P. is 19,000. Since you are increasing the DNR estimate on wolves by 40%, I won't go that far, but lets say the real number is 25,000. It is estimated that black bears in the U.P. eat 2 or more fawn per year.

Let's add a very small number of 'yotes, say 5,000 that will eat 5 deer or more per 'yote per year.

How's the math on that?

Yet no matter what the actual numbers show, the wolves are always the one blamed for low deer populations. It's a perfect definition of ignorance and it goes on and on and on and on in hunting circles.

Time for people to change their opinion to one of fact rather than hearsay.

I'm not saying that there can't be some type of wolf control at certain population levels/densities, but the facts remain that if bear and coyotes would be controlled at a much higher level, then those complaining hunters would see an increase in deer population.

Yes bears and coyotes kill deer to but you can already kill bears and deer so people are trying you get rid of them and if you knock out the population of bears and coyotes then wolfs are going to come stampeding in. And then any legal hunter cant do anything about that, thats why wolfs are blamed for it. Think of it this way, if one of your main sources of meat is venison and a pack of wolfs come in and wipe them out would you be happy, would you blame wolfs i know i would

Fact remains that the deer population in Michigan's UPPER has had several boom years and bust years for 60 or 70 years. Now there are areas of the UP where wolves were released and people have not seen a deer nor deer tracks in about 5 years.
I know people who live there that now travel to the lower to deer hunt these days.


:D Al

Kind of a broad observation, seen it here. Friends of Wolves think they are doing a good thing promoting the Wolf. It gets political quick, those with a vision want to promote/impose their vision.

Then when things get seriously out of balance the powers that be try to reestablish the balance. It often gets ugly.

The green party here had a vision of some ideal, where mankind and animals live in harmony. One of their main tactics was to regulate hunting almost into obscurity.

The Fox population got so thick, Hare, Pheasant and Ducks all but disappeared. Extensive Fox hunting and twenty years later, some species are making a comeback. Out of some twenty species of Duck, we can now hunt one species. They eventually had to promote and extensively hunt the Fox, many were infected with a parasite that was human transmittable and has no known cure.

They outlawed hunting in one county here, a traditionally very liberal county and now have Wild Boar knocking old ladies off of their bicycles and mugging them for their groceries. Last I heard the politicians were talking about mobilizing the military to thin out the Hogs.

The conflict IMO is with those arrogant enough to think they can legislate a balance, agenda driven game management.

Those who think centuries of policy was devised by idiots. While imperfect it has gotten us this far. The people that think the popular agenda of the day, due to their sophisticated neo intelligence, is going to succeed in producing their visionary results, are delusional. Eco systems are way to complex to predict.

Back in the day there was a three mile wide no hunting strip on the West-East German border. Deer got so thick they were eating the bark off of the trees and killing whole swaths of forest. The ones that survived were diseased, many with Mange. It was a really sorry state of affairs. Political driven game management in action. I was part of the group (90 hunters) who was tasked with thinning them out. It was ugly.

Right, you would blame the wolf, as do most hunters without looking at any of the math. However, you saw the math and still blame the wolf. That's the problem.

As for hunting bears, the population in the U.P. is pretty stable, not enough tags are offered to actually lower the population. And certainly the coyote population is stable as well. So in an average year thousands and thousands more deer are killed by bear and coyotes, but the hunter that wants to eat venison but can't fill his tag should blame wolves?? That's as dumb as 10 dumb things combined.

That's like blaming my boss because your boss fired you. :confused0024::confused0024: