More deer killed by wolves than hunters in some Wisconsin counties

[Ben Lamb]

Probably true but one of the "facts of life' we have to deal with. I think the only and best solution incorporates everyone. We know that stakeholders start to get more extreme views and greater apathy of the resource when they don't have a say in the management of that resource. So if giving hunters a say in harvest of wolves and people in NYC a say in simply having wolves means that more people are willing to accept wolves, its a win win. I am sure that doesn't mean they will stop complaining.

Exactly. And this goes back to the concept that in the United States of America, wildlife is a public trust, managed for all Americans regardless of their use of the resource. Wildlife is owned by no one, and only held in trust for the citizens. That means it's everybody's right to have a say in how that management occurs, even if it's counter to my personal views. That's a fact that the fringes like to ignore in order to force their own view upon people who believe differently, rather than work out those differences & find common ground.

And I'd say it's far more localized than the mythic NYC wolf lover. Within each state there are various views on how things should occur. WI, MI are no different than WY & MT in that regard, with the basic exception of the balance of political power favoring one extreme over the other.

Which is why it's incumbent upon the radical middle to show up and make things work.

 

[Fsmith]

You're conflating minimum population needed for keeping an animal off of the endangered species list with a population objective. This is wrong. If a state were to manage to that lowest level acceptable, then you'd not see much in terms of actual management of the species, including no hunting or trapping, and only gov't actions designed to minimize conflict, since we'd need every critter in the state populaton to maintain management authority in the state.

Wrong. If you haven’t noticed there isn’t a hunting or trapping season in the Midwest. Regardless of how you want to skew the numbers in Wisconsin the wolf is 4x over objective. Some people on here sound like the advocates of Wolf patrol. Which is a major problem with proper wolf management in Wisconsin. Furthermore some are demonizing predator hunters and hounds men on here? Shame on you all. Numerous cases involving hound/wolf conflict in the state. Yet here we are bashing them.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Wrong. If you haven’t noticed there isn’t a hunting or trapping season in the Midwest. Regardless of how you want to skew the numbers in Wisconsin the wolf is 4x over objective. Some people on here sound like the advocates of Wolf patrol. Which is a major problem with proper wolf management in Wisconsin. Furthermore some are demonizing predator hunters and hounds men on here? Shame on you all. Numerous cases involving hound/wolf conflict in the state. Yet here we are bashing them.

The issue in the Great Lakes states is wrong, and I've already said that I'm fully supportive of the congressional delisting effort that's underway. I'm also pretty clear in this thread & elsewhere that I'm a proponent of hunting and trapping for wolves. Let's not deal in hyperbole.

Nobody is demonizing predator hunters either. This is a discussion about predator management as a panacea for actual conservation efforts.

And again, your "objective" is the minimum number of wolves to keep them as a viable species which is able to have genetic diversity & maintain a population - THE BARE MINIMUM.

How would you feel if the auto insurance industry came in and demanded that the bare minimum number of deer to maintain genetic diversity & to keep the population barely from going extinct in your state should be the law of the land?

 

[westbranch]

Gotcha. Not an issue with the media, just the lying DNR.

The MN DNR population models were off by huge amounts from the mid to late 2000s. Models were "updated" in 2012-2013 leading up the first public planning meetings they had in years. And here was never a deer management plan in the state until after these meetings took place. I was a public voting member of one of the 2014 deer population planning teams.
Here is a summary of the model changes they made, of 36 permit areas in the "Forested Zones" they had overestimated populations by >50% in 21 of them. This was never acknowledgement in any articles/news releases and at the meetings we were told we can't talk about it. It would have been nice if they just said, yea we F'd up.

I had a lot of contact with local wildlife managers and they were great. But the Big Game managers at the state level are only concerned with public perception of deer populations. When there are too many deer close to town or in farmer fields they give out extra antlerless tags across a 800 sq mile permit area. To me it sounds a bit familiar to the cow elk tags and elk populations on public vs. private land in MT.

 

[SAJ-99]

Numerous cases involving hound/wolf conflict in the state. Yet here we are bashing them.

I don't think anyone is bashing them?
It reminds me that I ran into a couple of cat hunters running two hounds this weekend in MT. The area is a wintering area for elk so has wolves as well. The dogs were well over a 1.5 miles ahead of the hunters. I just assume that the hunters accept the risk that if the hounds run into the wolves, the hounds are dead.

 

[BWALKER77]

I get the feeling some folks don't really care about wildlife management & conservation unless they get something out of it. But I'm glad we're finally being honest with each other that the predator control people are really just about themselves, and not about the betterment of habitat & wildlife for future generations.

Ben, I am sure you feel that way, but that doesnt make it true.
The fact is predator management was part of the north American model of wildlife management for many years and still is. The difference is now we have radical animal rights groups that have weaponized the legal system to the point that you have disasters like Wisconsin and MI. Of course these groups are inadvertently helped by mismanagement by state game agencies as Buzz and myself have alluded to.

 

[Northwoods Labs]

Ben, I am sure you feel that way, but that doesnt make it true.
The fact is predator management was part of the north American model of wildlife management for many years and still is. The difference is now we have radical animal rights groups that have weaponized the legal system to the point that you have disasters like Wisconsin and MI. Of course these groups are inadvertently helped by mismanagement by state game agencies as Buzz and myself have alluded to.

Yea, Wisconsin is a disaster. Do not come hunting here, it sucks.

 

[BrentD]

Yea, Wisconsin is a disaster. Do not come hunting here, it sucks.

Yeah, the real headline should be More hunters killed by wolves than deer.

 

[walking buffalo]

While true, this omits some key variables. Lewis and Clark did hit areas that were largely devoid of game and it was due to predators. The predators were human - native americans. Lewis referenced such and historical review and knowledge of the movements of plains indians across the landscape confirms. This has been studied extensively, so we can't take the point completely out of context in the discussion. Another key factor is, at that time, the native americans (and later pioneers) hunted for subsistence, 365 days per year and they were not picky in what they killed. What they didn't kill they certainly drove out of the area. When they started to run low on food, they moved on to other areas with more game.

It certainly is a fact that humans can impact animal populations. The lack of game in the early 20th century led to the conservation movement we have today. We almost totally eliminated the wolf in the lower 48 the first time by shooting, trapping, poisoning, and raiding dens and killing pups year-round. It is certainly up for debate as to whether modern hunters can impact a population under current regulations of hunting seasons and tag/harvest constraints. The conservation season on snow geese is a perfect example. The geese learned to utilize our changes to the habitat and the population exploded. Now, even after 20years of extended seasons with e-callers, plug less shotguns, and no limits, the season carries on because it hasn't had much of an impact. The few years Wisconsin had a wolf season the limits were set at a level intended to reduce population, and 650 wolves or so were killed, so maybe that was enough to reduce the population if it had continued. Hard to say.

The bottom line is that we as humans are arrogant. We think it is our right to manage and exploit all natural resources and we think we can do so with perfect foresight. Unfortunately, we usually just screw things up. More recent studies have show that when hunters/trappers kill the lead members of the pack, the pack usually disbands and depredation of livestock increases. So hunters might feel like they are making a difference, but they might just be irritating another stakeholder who has a loud voice in the conversation.

A purposeful and arrogant falsehood stated to promote a biased narrative.

Historical researchers of Lewis and Clark records don't know why areas were largely void of game. Conflicting theories is all we have on this topic.
Spatial density maps from these records show large prey species maintained a presence closer to human populations than large predators.
Just as we see today.

One can look for current examples of relatively unmanaged large predator/prey dynamics, such as in the National Parks of Alberta, Canada.
No hunting or habitat manipulation by humans, recent return of large prey species, and a massive crash in prey species >90%.
Areas adjacent to these National Parks have had hunting opportunities reduced by 90%.
This situation has been ongoing for 20 years, with no end in sight.

This whole discussion has missed historical predator management by Indigenous peoples.
They needed prey species to flourish, and manipulated both habitat and predator populations to accomplish this goal.
The last 10,000+ years of North American Natural ecosystem dynamics involved Human influence in both habitat change and predator suppression.

Wolves (in conjunction with other large predators) reducing prey populations to the point where hunting is reduced or eliminated is already a reality.
Don't screw up due to ignorance.

 

[BuzzH]

I'll be on the edge of my seat waiting for all the proof you have on the above biased narrative...laffin'.

 

[walking buffalo]

I'll be on the edge of my seat waiting for all the proof you have on the above biased narrative...laffin'.

As I already stated, No researcher has "proof" either way, just assumptions.
JAS has yet again claimed a supposition to be a fact to fit his narrative.

 

[BuzzH]

As I already stated, No researcher has "proof" either way, just assumptions.
JAS has yet again claimed a supposition to be a fact to fit his narrative.

...and you didn't?

 

[SAJ-99]

A purposeful and arrogant falsehood stated to promote a biased narrative.

What was my purpose? And which part was false? And what is my bias?
Native americas certainly manipulated habitat but they certainly didn't think of killing a predator as "management". Most manipulation of habitat involved setting fires to drive game (usually bison) to areas they could be killed. They also had a much better understanding of game migration than we did until the advent of radio collars. The thought that Lewis and Clark went hunting and found game scarce (which happened a lot) is because wolves or bears or whatever had completed cleaned the area of all living creatures is absolutely ridiculous and it is equally ridiculous to make that argument today. Nature doesn't work that way. If is did, wolves would sow the seeds of their own destruction. Hunting was as hard then as it is now. Sometimes you go out and don't see anything. Little has changed. Look at the charts I posted in a previous post and spend some time thinking through what you are looking at.
And you obvious had quite a bit of selection bias in what you choose to read, because I have stated in almost every post that I am all for wolf hunting seasons set by states. I just require it be based on actual data and not hyperbole of hunters, ranchers, or conservationists.

 

[Fsmith]

What was my purpose? And which part was false? And what is my bias?
Native americas certainly manipulated habitat but they certainly didn't think of killing a predator as "management". Most manipulation of habitat involved setting fires to drive game (usually bison) to areas they could be killed. They also had a much better understanding of game migration than we did until the advent of radio collars. The thought that Lewis and Clark went hunting and found game scarce (which happened a lot) is because wolves or bears or whatever had completed cleaned the area of all living creatures is absolutely ridiculous and it is equally ridiculous to make that argument today. Nature doesn't work that way. If is did, wolves would sow the seeds of their own destruction. Hunting was as hard then as it is now. Sometimes you go out and don't see anything. Little has changed. Look at the charts I posted in a previous post and spend some time thinking through what you are looking at.
And you obvious had quite a bit of selection bias in what you choose to read, because I have stated in almost every post that I am all for wolf hunting seasons set by states. I just require it be based on actual data and not hyperbole of hunters, ranchers, or conservationists.

What state sets hunting season harvest quotas based on biologists recommendations and not on ranchers and special interest groups hyperbole? I’m interested....

 

[SAJ-99]

What state sets hunting season harvest quotas based on biologists recommendations and not on ranchers and special interest groups hyperbole? I’m interested....

point made.

 

[BuzzH]

What state sets hunting season harvest quotas based on biologists recommendations and not on ranchers and special interest groups hyperbole? I’m interested....

Wyoming

 

[Fsmith]

Wyoming

At least there’s one then. It’s not the mythical unicorn after all!

 

[walking buffalo]

What was my purpose? And which part was false? And what is my bias?
Native americas certainly manipulated habitat but they certainly didn't think of killing a predator as "management". Most manipulation of habitat involved setting fires to drive game (usually bison) to areas they could be killed. They also had a much better understanding of game migration than we did until the advent of radio collars. The thought that Lewis and Clark went hunting and found game scarce (which happened a lot) is because wolves or bears or whatever had completed cleaned the area of all living creatures is absolutely ridiculous and it is equally ridiculous to make that argument today. Nature doesn't work that way. If is did, wolves would sow the seeds of their own destruction. Hunting was as hard then as it is now. Sometimes you go out and don't see anything. Little has changed. Look at the charts I posted in a previous post and spend some time thinking through what you are looking at.
And you obvious had quite a bit of selection bias in what you choose to read, because I have stated in almost every post that I am all for wolf hunting seasons set by states. I just require it be based on actual data and not hyperbole of hunters, ranchers, or conservationists.

For everyone's sake, stop making stuff up.

And Baleen Wolf Killers for All!

 

[SAJ-99]

For everyone's sake, stop making stuff up.

And Baleen Wolf Killers for All!

IT's the internet, what do you expect.
It was an overgeneralization for the sake of keeping the conversation on track, but I thank you for supplying hard facts to set me straight. What we should be able to agree on is that most native american tribes had far more respect and admiration for wolves than we do today. Even if they were competition for their very survival.

 

[Sytes]

And to honor this moment... From the white man who learned of such grace from the tribal elders...