Phil from Maine

I do not know where you are from but coyotes kill alot more than a few deer up here. Yes, we have open season on them all year long..We do not have wolves although the Feds wanted them here as well. What we do have for wolves wander here from Canada and can not survive here. That makes them free from the Fed re-introducing them here. Why they can not survive is because of the eastern coyotes breeding with them. No guarranteed way of protecting the wolve in it's natural environment means no introduction of them..That's great news for us after all we have enough deer getting killed by the coyotes so we do not need any wolves to help them. Besides coyotes are not natural to the north Maine woods either but we sure as heck have them.. I think the best place to keep wolves is in a place like Central Park in New york so they can enjoy all the wildlife there..

Ihuntandfish

Right on Phil. A good place to put a wolf pack would be in an animal rights activists backyard or the judges who decide that wolves should be on the endangered list. When they see one of their dogs being mauled by a territorial wolf, they probobly wouldn't be satisfied with a little monetary reinbursement, which is what hunters get who have their hunting dogs killed. That might change their minds in a hurry.

bemidjihunter

"Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat-may be a good read for some of you.
I'm also studying wildlife management at a university in northern MN. Wolf-deer interactions have been a personal favorite of mine and nearly all my research papers have been on the issue. I understand how people in wisconsin can see a population estimate of 500-600 very low, but in actuality that is probably very accurate. A family group of wolves can have a home range of up to a couple hundred sq miles, and they will cover that in only a few days while hunting. People may see wolves everywhere, but it's just because a few wolves cover a huge amount of ground quickly.

Someone earlier mentioned hearing of wolves killing just because they were bored-and I apologize but I simply can't let this slide. I have no doubt you did hear of this from someone, but it simply isn't true. Wolves don't do that, they only kill when they need to eat. In ecology it's called conservation of energy, it takes a huge amount of energy for wolves to make a large kill, and there are more efficient ways for them to fix their boredom. When a kill is made, it's because they need to eat. period.

As a society we've demonized wolves. Yes they kill deer, generally the sick or fawns, but not nearly in the numbers people think. While interning with the MN DNR this summer, my job was to detirmine the cause of death once a radio collar went motionless or non-functional on a deer. The order of most common causes went....1-coyotes 2-domestic dogs 3-unditermined 4-black bear 5-wolves. Probably not what most people would think.

Redclub

I have a place in Northern Wi. (Price co.) where I hunt deer,grouse This is prime wolf country. This past season the deer kill was down 40% mostly due to a hard winter and this winter is harder yet. The deer kill in 2009 will be down drastically. When the herd gets this low, the law of supply cannot overcome this an the deer cannot recuperate. Wolves will take there share,coyotes are way up (don't give me this stuff that coyotes an wolves don't occupy the same territory) Bobcats are everywhere, Bears are very common, Fishers are now in the picture and they are everywhere up there. Now tell me a 15 pound weasel will not kill every fawn they see. So you have bobcats,bears, coyotes,and fishers eating fawns and wolves killing adults. All of these are protected to a large degree. Now throw in a hard winter and a DNR that wants the deer herd to 15 deer per sq. mile. It will be a long time until we have the hunting in Northern wi. that we had just a few years ago. Grouse hunting is great up there right now but what about the snowshoe rabbits very seldom see one, The usually run on the same cycle as Grouse. What happened?
Our group of 14 hunters never saw a fawn this season?
Redclub

lonewolfhunter

I am a deer hunter in Northern Wisconsin and a Wildlife management student. As much as everybody wants to blame wolves for a low deer population, they really can't. I found this fact from the WI DNRwebsite--->Wolves in the Great Lakes region normally consume 15-18 deer per wolf per year (Fuller 1995).
Since there are roughly 550 wolves in the state, there is an estimated 10,000 deer killed annually by wolves. This seems like a lot but I also found that last year in the state of Wisconsin, around 30,000 deer were killed by collisions with vehicles. (Also on the DNR site)
Just the other day, they wolf was delisted from the ESA (endangered species act) in the western great lakes region; including Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. So not until the late, populationmanagement actionscould not have been fullyimplemented on the due to the fact they were still listed on the ESA.

NextGenHunter

I might need to sing the SHARING song. We do just as much damage as wolves do, if not more. I mean, what really boggles me is that when we see a species acting like ourselves (Supposedly wolves are one of the only predators besides humans who kill for ****'s and giggles), we try and kill it, calling that other species a vicious killer. Then we go shoot a squirrel with an elk gun, because "It's funny to see em POP". The ultimate magic trick. Now he's here, now he's there... and there...

Were finally seeing a species that does as much killing as we do, and we don't like it.


As for animals attacking humans unprovoked... Does that make the species evil? I mean, what provokes us to go shoot coyotes other than the promise of a good time? We can hit the wolves over the head with axes, but when the wolf bares his fangs in response, we run away yelling "RAPE RAPE!!!"It reminds me of fights with my big brother. Just like in Africa, where elephants are responding to centuries of ruthless hunting, and people call them SAVAGE, and EVIL, because they killed a few people.

Sure, wolves can be dangerous to us, and they could be making our deer hunting more difficult, but I see it as something that just has to be dealt with. What is life without hardships and danger? Boring.

Truth is, we are the invaders. The wolf was here first, and that is where he should stay. I'm no treehugger. I just want to grow up in a world where the outdoors hasn't been completely raped by my fathering generation. I want my kids to see the world as it is now. I don't want to tell them how it used to be.

Ihuntandfish

True, but they still have to be managed. Before our country had a large population, hunters harvested very few deer. Therefore, the deer numbers were kept in check by the predators, such as wolves and bears. Once hunters beganharvesting significant numbers of deer, the number of deer killed by predators had to go down in order to maintain a healthy deer herd. Now, so many deer are taken by hunters, that if the number of predators were restored to levels that were around before hunters, the deer herd would be decimated. I will never be a supporter of wolves, but I can compromise. A few wolves in the state will not cause much harm. However, they have to be regulated. The population "goal" in Wisconsin of 250-300 wolves is reasonable. However, even the DNR says that there are around 550 wolves in the state, double the goal, and most hunters agree that there are probobly more than 550 in the state. That is why the wolves have to be taken off the endangered list and managed by the state. Therefore, the numbers can be kept around the population goal of 250-300.

country1

Most city folk like coyotes, wolves and mountain lions. They always comment on how beautiful they look. I did not hear the people of Roscoe Village in Chicago mention how beautiful the mountain lion was as it was running through their yards and in the streets two or three years ago. They don't find them beautiful when they start taking their pets and are a possible threat to their kids. I don't know of any farmers or ranchers who like to have coyotes, wolves or mountain lions around (theyusually like the fox as a predator) as they are major threats to all livestock - including horses and cattle.

IMO, the wildlife officals would be much better off if they would betotally honest with people. I know afarmer who asked one of the officials stationed in his area if they were trying to bring back the wolf. This farmer mentioned he had spotted a wolf recently. The response of the wildlife official was very condenscending, and hesaid it was just a big coyote. The wildlife official did not like it when the farmerreplied if it's just a big coyote it can be shot. Not long after that, they admitted wolves were in the area. Truth is most wildlife findtheir habitat and food on private land and not onstate or federal governments lands.

timbercruiser

Just curious, why were the wolves reintroduced to Wisconsin? As they had been absent from the area for a long time, if it was for deer population control, wouldn't it have made more sense to just increase the deer season or number of legally harvested deer? Hunting seasons are a lot easier to control than wolf populations. Most of the pro wolf people seem to think that to manage a deer herd the ability to turn on and off the killing of deer by wolves is a good way to do it. The problem I see is if you have a bad winter kill of deer or disease kill then the wolves will either move to domestic animals or move to another area. As long as they have something to eat they will continue to multiply, and they have nothing in nature that wil control the wolf population. I'm glad ya'll have the problem.

bobcats40

I was raised in Western Montana and my Parents still live there and wolves have definetly had a impact on not only the populations of deer but also elk. When the Montana Fish and Game department did a survey in 2007 there was already 1533 wolves in Montana, the north west corner of Wyoming and the south east corner of Idaho. Not only are the wolves protected but we now have grizzlies in areas that hav'nt had activity in over 30 years, not to mention cougars, black bears and coyotes. All of these predators can definetly kill allot of game animals. The areas that have allot of wolves have seen a dramatic decrease in their deer and elk populations and no it is not due to hunters harvest. Unlike allot of states, Montana sees less hunting pressure than most due to our small state population and the hefty price of our out of state tags. I am not saying that all of the wolves should be killed but they need to be kept in check.